As police in the Bay Area and across the nation seek to curb mass shootings, they face a central challenge: Gunmen often act too quickly for law enforcement officers to respond.
An FBI study of “active shooter incidents” released Wednesday found not only that the U.S. has seen a spike in such attacks over the past seven years, but that most of the incidents ended within minutes and before police could arrive.
The FBI report documented 160 shootings in the U.S. between 2000 and 2013, which killed 486 people and wounded 557 more. Seventy percent of the cases in which the duration of the shooting could be determined were over within five minutes.
More than half ended at the shooter’s discretion — mostly when he fled or took his own life — while unarmed civilians stepped in and took down gunmen 13 percent of the time, according to the report.
“Even when law enforcement was present or able to respond within minutes, civilians often had to make life and death decisions, and, therefore, should be engaged in training and discussions on decisions they may face,” the report’s authors concluded.
The report defined mass shootings as situations featuring “individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in populated areas,” such as the April 2012 rampage at Oikos University in Oakland, where a former student killed seven people.
The gunman, One Goh, as was typical in the incidents, shot his victims and left the scene within five minutes, before police arrived. He soon turned himself in.
Violence related to drug and gang disputes was excluded from the FBI study.
The frequency of mass shootings has increased in recent years, but the federal report does not give possible reasons for the jump. About 16 shootings took place annually over the past seven years, compared with about six annually over the previous seven years, the report found.
Just three of the shootings took place in the Bay Area. In addition to the Oakland massacre, a woman shot off a handgun at a transit maintenance yard in San Jose in April 2001, killing one, and a worker opened fire at a cement plant in Cupertino in October 2011, killing three.
The deadliest year of the past 14 was 2012, which included the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 students and six adults were killed, and the Aurora, Colo., movie-theater shooting, where 12 were fatally shot. In all, mass shootings that year claimed 90 lives.
The FBI study found that 46 percent of the incidents took place in commercial settings, such as an office or shopping mall, while about 24 percent were in schools or at other educational facilities.
All but six of the 160 shootings involved men, and all but two featured solo attackers. In 45 incidents where peace officers had to take on the shooter, nine officers were killed and 28 were wounded.
FBI officials said the report was done in an effort to better prepare for the shootings and reduce the number of casualties.
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kalexander@sfchronicle.com
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/Y9vR4q
0 comments:
Post a Comment