Killings in the United States reached a record in 2019..
On January 1, 2019, mass shootings occurred in Tallahassee, Florida and Columbia, South Carolina..
As the year ends, we close 19 with a machete attack and a church shooting..
Grafton E. Thomas had blood all over his clothing, smelled of bleach but said “almost nothing” when officers stopped him, officials said.. he is accused of storming into a rabbi’s home and stabbing five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City..
As the nation was attempting to grapple with that news, a Sunday morning church shooting also doused news headlines with blood..
Police in White Settlement, about eight miles west of Fort Worth, were called before 11 a.m. to the West Freeway Church of Christ at 1900 South Las Vegas Trail after two members who were part of the church’s security team opened fire on the gunman. MedStar spokeswoman Macara Trusty soon reported that the gunman and one of his victims had died at a hospital. The second victim was resuscitated after going into cardiac arrest on the way to a hospital, but authorities announced at an evening news conference that the person died later…
As the weekend began, another shooting made news. Nine people were shot and two people died Friday night in what police are calling an “ambush” during the filming of a music video in north Harris County, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. A group of Hispanic men in their 20s was apparently filming a music video around 9:30 p.m. in a warehouse complex in the 500 block of Smart Street when another group began firing from a car, authorities said…
A poignant photo
The year is ending as it so began, with a strange and frightening amount of bloodshed dominating the fabric of our nation.
In total, there were 41 mass killings, which are defined as instances when four or more people are killed, excluding the perpetrator.
More than 210 people were left dead in the mass killings, 33 of which were mass shootings, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University..
The toll of 406 mass shootings includes several high-profile attacks, two of which happened within 24 hours of each other, just to name a few:
- A shootout at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, on December 10. Three people in the store were killed and three others wounded, including two police officers. The two attackers also died in the shootout. The attackers also shot and killed a police detective at a nearby cemetery before the store attack.
- A shooting near New Orleans’ French Quarter on December 1 that left 11 people injured.
- A shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on November 14, left two teenage students killed and three wounded. The suspect, a 16-year-old student, shot himself in the head and died the next day.
- A drive-by shooting spree in Odessa and Midland, Texas, on August 31, left seven people killed and 24 wounded
- A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, on August 4, left nine people killed and 27 injured.
- A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, with 22 people killed and at least 24 wounded. It was the deadliest shooting of the year.
- A shooting in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, on May 31, where a former city employee killed 12 people and wounded four.
And that is who we were.. who we are.. and potentially who we will continue to be after the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2020..
