No place exempt from tragedies
Arizona has seen 5 mass shootings in the first 8 months of 2019
Shelby Verderosa’s daughter was her everything. The dark saucer-eyed baby was the mirror image of her 17-year-old mother.
“Her whole world revolved around her baby girl,” Verderosa’s sister, Marissa, said.
The 6-month-old infant was there when her mother was shot in the chest at a Phoenix home in the early morning hours of March 19. Phoenix police found the baby lying on the floor between the legs of her dead mother, according to court records.
Police said Jeffery Rhone roamed through the house, fatally shooting Verderosa and Jorge Rodriguez before wounding four oth
ers with a stolen semiautomatic handgun. He was angry someone stole his wallet.
It was one of the five mass shootings in Arizona during the first eight months of 2019. Seven people were killed in mass shootings throughout the state as of Aug. 8, while another 21 were wounded.
Arizona’s mass shootings represent just a small fraction of the 253 mass shootings in America so far this year, according to a database maintained by the Gun Violence Archive.
Mass shootings can be tricky to define, though. It’s most commonly considered an incident where at least four people other than the shooter are injured or killed.
But the term “mass shooting” often conjures images of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting or the recent shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart that left 22 dead. In these cases, the number of victims often climbs into the double digits and both the media and public search for an explanation as to why they could have happened.
However, those shootings are the exceptions.
Mass shootings make up only a small fraction of all murders
Arizona has witnessed its own share of mass shootings. A gunman shot six people and wounded 13, including former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in a grocery store parking lot near Tucson in 2011.
In August 1991, nine people were shot and killed at the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist temple in Waddell.
Mass shootings very rarely follow statewide homicide and violent crime rates.
The number of murders rose about 23% nationally from 2014 to 2016 before steadying in 2017. Maricopa County cities showed a similar trend during that period. However, the number of people wounded or killed in a mass shooting statewide remained relatively consistent during that same time period, excluding a significant dip when nine people were shot in 2018.
While overall murders have decreased in the county, the number of those people killed with a gun has risen, according to a database maintained by The Arizona Republic. Gunshot wounds far outpace any other cause of death from 2016 through 2018.
Gary Kleck, a criminal justice professor emeritus at Florida State University, said mass shootings make up less than 1% of all homicides. The extremely low numbers can make even a slight increase appear to be a significant and often shocking jump.
“Nobody pays attention to decreases in mass shootings,” Kleck said. “It’s news when horrible acts happen, but no one pays attention to what’s not happening.”
Most shooters know their victims, motive often personal
Most mass shootings — including the five that occurred in Arizona this year — barely register outside the community in which it happened.
They’re often the tragic conclusion of years of domestic violence or the ending of an argument turned violent, according to Kleck.
“There’s a perception of mass shootings, but they actually tend to be very mundane,” Kleck said. “It’s not crazy guys going after people who are total strangers to them or issue manifestos about their deranged thoughts.”
Unlike large-scale mass shootings, the shooters usually know their victims and the motive is often personal.
That was the case with 30-year-old Austin Smith. He is accused of killing his wife, two daughters and another man in April because “God told him it was okay,” according to Maricopa County court records.
Police said Smith confronted his wife, Dasia Patterson, after she arrived home from a local bar. Police said he accused her of having an affair and shot her. He then shot his 5-year-old daughter, Nasha Smith, because she “exhibited bad behavior” against God’s law and beat 7-year-old Mayan Smith to death because she was crying, according to court records.
His 3-year-old daughter hid under the bed as her father killed her mother and sisters, according to court records. Smith later told investigators he spared her because she reminded him of himself.
Smith then traveled to another apartment complex to kill the man he thought his wife was having an affair with, 46-year-old Ron Freeman, according to court records. He also shot a 47-year-old woman and 33-year-old man at the apartment, according to court records. The two survived.
Smith was arrested shortly after. He has pleaded not guilty.
Most mass shootings have low fatality rates
The victims involved in a mass shooting often survive and the number of those who are killed in such incidents lingers in the lower single digits both nationally and in Arizona, according to the Gun Violence Archive database. The fatality rates have consistently dropped over the last four years.
Kleck said this can be attributed to major improvements in emergency gunshot wound care.
“Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen increased access to helicopters and ambulances for hospitals,” Kleck explained. “More and more hospitals have specialized trauma units with surgeons trained for gunshot wounds. A smaller percentage are dying even if the same amount of people are shot.”
Take the March 24 shooting where seven people were seriously wounded after a fight broke out at a Phoenix warehouse party, including a 15-yearold boy. Each of the victims survived as none of the injuries was life threatening. Police said the four men thought to be responsible for the shooting fled the scene.