Recently a white male shot three people in a bar in Kansas, killing one. Two of the victims were south Asians from India, one of whom died. The third victim was a white male who tried to stop the shooter. The shooting generated massive international press. It occurred on February 23rd, and is still a major national news story nine days later. It was the number one story on both MSNBC and CNN for two days straight. Many media outlets blamed the shooting on Donald Trump. There are scores of articles claiming south Asians in America are now living in fear of white people.
However, dozens of deadlier shootings went unnoticed by the national media. If all your news came from media outlets with bias similar to CNN or MSNBC, you would have an extremely distorted view of spree shootings in the USA.
Did you know that two days later Nasser Hamad, an Arab, shot five white people in Ohio? Two of the victims died. The victims were sitting in a car and he shot through an open window. Next he opened a car door and shot the victims some more. Then, as an EMT arrived, the perp had just returned with more bullets and was shooting some more. The EMT had to flee for cover. Then the perp was defiant and remorseless in court. He claimed his “Christian and Muslim brothers were standing by him” and demanded to know if the prosecutor was Jewish.
Oh, how inconvenient that no national media reported that spree shooting at all!
The most common form of spree shooting in America is black on black. However, these shootings tend to have a low number of fatalities, even if a high number of people are shot. Looking at shootings occurring in 2017 so far, there have been several black on black shootings with between six and ten victims, but no fatalities. If we went by the most people shot, our list would be almost all black on black. We decided to go by most fatalities, since fatalities represent a much more serious crime.
This list is literally ordered by most fatalities. In the case of a tie, the one with the most additional gunshot victims is considered to be worse. We used the Gun Violence Archive to do this research.
#1. January 6th, Fort Lauderdale, FL. A Latino (Puerto Rican), who claimed online to have converted to Islam, shot 11 people at the Fort Lauderdale airport. Five died. All of the victims shown in the news were white. Many of them elderly.
#2. February 21st, Toomsuba, MA. A black male shot and killed four members of a black family. One of the victims was only five.
#3. February 9th, Jackson, MS. A black male shot and killed four other black males.
#4 February 6th, Yazoo City, MS. A black male shot and killed four other black males.
#5. January 21st, Kansas City, MO. Three black males invaded an apartment and shot five people. Three of them died. One of the victims is a white female. Her mixed race two-year old son was shot five times and survived. The other victims have not been pictured in the media.
#6. January 15th, Capulin, CO. A Latino shot four Latinos at a birthday party, killing three.
#7. January 22nd, Atlanta, GA. One or more black males shot four blacks males, killing three. They were sitting in their car at a Checker’s drive-thru.
#8. January 4th, Fontana, CA. A Pakistani shot four members of his own family, killing three. It was allegedly over a financial dispute.
#9. February 5th, Jupiter, FL. A white male murdered three white victims. The perp was selling drugs and guns.
#10. February 25th, Warren, OH. An Arab man shot five people, killing two. The victims are white. The perp was defiant and remorseless in court.
#11. March 6, Stillwater, OK. Stillwater Police Search For 2 Black Triple Shooting Suspects. Rodriguez Johnson, 20, and Shakeem Carter, 23, are wanted in connection with the shooting that killed Chris Peck. Peck’s family is upset police did not release the suspects’ names sooner.
#12. March 15, Dayton, OH. Police say 20-year-old Taylor Brandenburg was babysitting when she heard something outside. She went to see what it was and was shot to death when one person opened fire.
If we just went by highest number of people shot, the list would be 70%-80% black. However, some of the research is hard to do. Many occur in Chicago and that media market doesn’t even report the race of the perp or victims most of the time. Many other media markets are getting just as bad. Blacks commit spree shootings in extreme disproportion to their share of the population. The only time that blacks drop off the list is when you look at spree shootings, with very high death tolls, over a long period of time.