RT Article
T1 Averting Tragedy: An Exploration of Thwarted Mass Public Shootings Relative to Completed Attacks
JF Criminal justice review
VO 48
IS 3
SP 277
OP 299
A1 Rocque, Michael
A2 Gerdes, Madison
A2 Fox, James Alan 1951-
A2 Duwe, Grant 1971-
A2 Clark, Madeline
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1859193374
AB Scholarship on mass public shootings has increased in recent years as comprehensive datasets have become more available. As a result, much is known about the contextual and offender related characteristics of such attacks. However, less research has been conducted on attacks that were planned but ultimately did not occur. Understanding how mass public shootings may be thwarted or averted is important for both policy and theoretical reasons. In this paper, we describe a new dataset of averted mass public shooting threats (N = 194) from 2000–2019 and compare them to mass public shootings that were completed during this time (N = 97). Several noteworthy findings emerged, including that nearly half of the averted cases were reported by a friend or acquaintance, most targeted a specific location or group, and averted cases were more likely to involve school targets and co-offenders. Implications are discussed.
K1 mass violence
K1 School violence
K1 Homicide
K1 averted mass public shootings
DO 10.1177/07340168221117107