US mass killings, mostly shootings, hit new high
>>WASHINGTON: The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an axe to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart in El Paso in August.
A database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University shows that there were more mass killings in 2019 than any year dating back to at least the 1970s, punctuated by a chilling succession of deadly rampages during the summer.
In all, there were 41 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings. More than 210 people were killed.
Most of the mass killings barely became national news, failing to resonate among the general public because they didn’t spill into public places like massacres in El Paso and Odessa, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Jersey City, New Jersey.
The majority of the killings involved people who knew each other — family disputes, drug or gang violence or people with beefs that directed their anger at co-workers or relatives.
In many cases, what set off the perpetrator remains a mystery.
That’s the case with the very first mass killing of 2019, when a 42-year-old man took an axe and stabbed to death his mother, stepfather, girlfriend and nine-month-old daughter in Clackamas County, Oregon. Two others, a roommate and an eight-year-old girl managed to escape; the rampage ended when responding police fatally shot the killer.
The incident in Oregon was one of 18 mass killings where family members were slain, and one of six that didn’t involve a gun. The 41 mass killings were the most in a single year since the AP/ USA Today and Northeastern database began tracking such events back to 2006, but research going back to the 1970s shows no other year with as many mass slayings.