The murders in 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado generally brought the heinous nature of mass killings into the American mainstream. There had been previous mass murders prior to that—perpetrated largely by young, so-called “disaffected” White teens and young adults—but now these horrific incidents are matched almost monthly by the strings of killings taking place in America’s inner cities.
The media has begun to adopt specific racial language about mass murder. Whether it be a lone gunman who in less than 20 minutes may slaughter multiple persons at a college, high school or grade school, or multiple gunmen who take 48 hours to kill a dozen or so persons in the inner-city between Friday and Sunday evening, reporters and commentators are more frequently attaching a biased view of the twisted minds hell-bent on bloodshed.
Texas biker shootout and ‘White thug life’
An example of the [speculative] racial bias in reporting about mass murders could be the coverage this summer of the “biker shoot-out” at a bar in Waco, Texas. Conversations confined to social media revealed frustration and anger at the way the incident was covered by professional news outlets and, specifically, how that coverage contrasted with the way such incidents are reported on when the people involved are Black. The biker shoot-out saw no extended conversation about gun control, mental illness, “White thug life” nor family breakdown. The latter typically comes up specifically when news media covers Black-on-Black homicides.
Some observers of the media suggest that the absence of any similar refrain in cases in which the suspected criminals are White is a sad reminder of how the idea of intraracial crime is almost exclusively—and unfairly—brought up when Black people are involved.
Another line of commentary that has become somewhat predictable in media coverage of Black gang killings versus White mass murders has to do with a reported “Black pathology”—especially fatherlessness—to explain the kind of violence that, when it happens in a White community or is perpetrated by White person(s), is more or less an isolated crime versus an indictment of an entire racial group’s way of life. News outlets are opting with more frequency to run headlines that exhibit an air of disbelief at an alleged “small-town” White killer’s supposed actions, while relying on a [longstanding] bias and misinformation about the background of the Black “gangbangers” and/or “thugs” who seemingly each week wreak havoc in some of the nation’s largest cities.
Bias in covering White suspects, Black victims
Some pertinent examples of a growing media racial bias in covering White suspects and Black victims may include a typical headline such as: “Ala. suspect brilliant, but social misfit” according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in covering the story last year of Amy Bishop, a former college professor who eventually pleaded guilty to killing three colleagues and wounding three others at a faculty meeting in 2010. Last year, AL.com ran the headline “Montgomery’s latest homicide victim had history of narcotics abuse, tangles with the law” in covering the shooting death of a 25-year-old Black man in Alabama.
In 2014, Eric Bellucci, a mentally ill New York man, killed his parents and the Staten Island Advance noted in its headline: “Son in Staten Island murders was brilliant, athletic …” while NBC News in 2012 ran the headline “Treyvon Martin was suspended three times from school.”
In contrast in 2008, the Chronicle Telegram in Elyria, Ohio, described 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger—accused of plotting a bomb attack at his high school—as a “Straight-A student,” while the Omaha World-Herald told readers all they needed to know about 19-year-old Black murder victim Julius B. Vaughn: “Shooting victim had many run-ins with the law.”
Not far from home, the Whittier Daily News last year offered about Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger: “Suspect was ‘soft spoken,’ ‘polite,’ ‘a gentleman…,’” while the Los Angeles Times noted “Deputy killed Marine out of fear for children’s safety …” in covering the case last year at San Clemente High School of the police killing of an unarmed Black father of two, Sgt. Manuel Loggins, as he entered a vehicle that contained his kids.
‘Watchdog’ group keeps track of media
The spate of inner-city murders, police killings of [some] unarmed Black persons and mass killings perpetrated by young White men have been chronicled over the past three months by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters. They found that the four major broadcast television stations in New York City gave disproportionate coverage to crime stories involving African American suspects. The stations’ 11 p.m. broadcasts on weeknights covered murder, theft and assault cases in which Black persons were suspects at a notably higher rate than the rate at which these persons have been arrested for those crimes. In stories where race could be identified, the percentage of Black suspects in murders, thefts and assaults covered by WCBS, WNBC, WABC and WNYW was reportedly well above the percentage of Black suspects who have been arrested for those crimes in New York City.
Robert Entman, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, looks at electronic and print media coverage practically every day. He highlighted for his students a few of the subtle media trends recorded in various studies, including:
—Blacks and Latinos are more likely than Whites to appear as lawbreakers in the news—particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime;
—Whites are overrepresented as victims of violence and as law-enforcers, while Blacks are underrepresented in these sympathetic roles;
—Blacks in criminal roles tend to outnumber Blacks in socially positive roles in newscasts and daily newspapers;
—Depictions of Black suspects tend to be shown as more symbolically threatening than those of White suspects accused of similar crimes. In the common “perp walk” in front of the media, Blacks were twice as likely as Whites to be shown under some form of physical restraint by police;
—Black victims are less likely to be discussed than White victims in newspaper coverage of crime.
Lanza, Holmes, Klebold: ‘nice nerds’
One of the worst cases of mass murder took place in 2012, when Adam Lanza killed 26 people (20 children) at a school in Newtown, Conn. Media reports depicted Lanza as a “nerd” who “still wears a pocket protector”; the Associated Press said he was “… an honors student …” while describing him as “reclusive,” “shy,” “quiet and reserved.” The same coverage was true in the case of James Holmes (“smart,” “nice,” “easy-going”) who was convicted this year for the 2012 killing of 24 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Co. Both Lanza and Holmes were described by the media as ordinary kids who each had some good at their core, and not the pathological killer devoid of social graces so often attributed to young Black men (and women) who allegedly prowl the inner cities looking for revenge within gang turf.
David J. Leonard, an associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University-Pullman, argues that the national spectacle and hyper-focus on mass murders perpetrated by young White men—in comparison to the scant coverage afforded to murders of people of color in places like Chicago, South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles etc—may point to the intrinsic value of “Whiteness” in that suburban kids, families and communities are considered largely as victims of Hollywood violence, victims of gun laws that don’t allow them to protect themselves; victims of the removal of prayer from public schools and victims of a rotting culture. The killers themselves are being reconstituted as “victims” who may argue that “maleness” and “Whiteness” are commodities in decline.
“When we want to ‘blame’ something or someone other than Mr. Holmes, Mr. Lanza, Mr. Klebold (Columbine High School), and countless others with a narrative about ‘good kids’ in hand and an insatiable need to ask ‘Why?’ and ‘How could he have done such a thing?’, we continually image violence, barbarism and terror [outside of the White community],” Leonard said. “White Americans like to think of this kind of violence as an anathema to who we are as a country. We have to accept that there is a ‘typical’ face of mass murder in the United States; it is not the Black kid killing people in gang shootings, or the Mexican cartel member, or the ‘Muslim terrorist.’ It can be, and often is, the ‘innocent’ White suburban boy next door.”
A numbers game Why inner city deaths don’t count as mass killings
By William Covington
OW Contributor
This article, while it was in its infancy, was supposed to discuss the media’s attention to mass shootings in small towns in our country and compare it to the lack of attention inner city homicides receive.
However, after contacting numerous criminologists and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), our focus changed to the different perspectives on recording homicides in South Los Angeles and other urban areas versus rural or small-town mass shootings.
On Oct. 2, the Guardian, a New York-based British newspaper, compiled a report/chart of mass shootings that have taken place in the United States since President Barack Obama’s second term began. This report, known as The Mass Shooter Tracker, was in response to the recent Oregon college shooting, recorded as the 994th mass gun attack in America, according to the Guardian.
That is because the different classifications of the shootings resulted in more resources being applied to mass shootings than to gang killings. These FBI resources includes mental health services, as well as threat assessment and management services employed to prevent further acts of violence.
The numbers included in the Guardian were originally compiled by the FBI, and upon inspecting both the data from the newspaper and FBI, none of the information included gang-involved mass drive-by shootings. The lack of FBI involvement seems to send the message that people of color are not as worth counting.
Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, for example, defines mass shootings as any in which at least four people are murdered regardless of pre-existing circumstances like gangs, drugs, etc. Professor Fox was presented with the following:
(Incident 1)
On Oct. 12, 1984 during the South Los Angeles “crack epidemic,” a shooting took place where five African American teenagers were shot to death in the so-called “54th Street Massacre,” according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. During a birthday party, guests had gathered in front of a home on West 54th Street at about 9:30 p.m. when a car drove up. “They double parked, jumped out and started shooting,” said one teenager who saw the attack. “There was no kind of argument. It was random, like they said . . . ‘I’ve got to hit someone, and I don’t care who I hit.’”
A neighbor said the assailants were “just cracking up and laughing” as they drove off. When the gunfire stopped, news media reported that Percy “Budda” Brewer, 17, a reputed member of a Crips street gang; Shannon Cannon, 14, Darryl Coleman, 17, Phillip Westbrook, 18, and Diane Rasberry, 17, were dead. Five other teenagers were wounded.
(Incident 2)
On Oct. 1, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Umpqua Community College, near Roseburg, Ore. Christopher Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old student, fatally shot nine people and wounded nine others on the campus. He killed himself following a gun battle with responding police officers.
When the gunfire stopped, according to various news sources, Lucero Alcaraz, 19, Rebecka Carnes, 18, Jason Johnson, 33, Quinn Cooper, 18, Treven Anspach, 20, Lucas Eibel, 18, Lawrence Levine, 67, Kim Dietz, 59, and Sarena Moore, 44, were dead.
Professor Fox believes both situations should be categorized as mass shootings but they will not be. He believes that if the FBI expands their analysis of mass shootings to include all mass shootings regardless of location, the rate of mass shootings would actually remain steady from the mid-70s through today.
FBI Special Agent Laura Miller explained that while multiple gang shootings can have more fatalities than a single mass shooting, homicides are categorized differently for statistical purposes. Inner city shootings often involve rival gang members, violent drug deals and are handled by local law enforcement and those homicides usually do not receive FBI assistance regardless of the number of casualties unless the crime is part of a special joint operation. This is because gang activity is typically the responsibility of local law enforcement agencies.
Gang shootings often kill bystanders who are uninvolved, but are just at the wrong place at the wrong time. They are killed by stray bullets but are not the intended victims.
Mass shooters, in contrast, often use high-end weapons and have no knowledge of their victims so there is usually no direct connection to any of the victims. The shooter can actually become an executioner, interacting with their victims only prior to shooting them.
The Mass Shooter Tracker in the Guardian has always caused controversy with Black criminologists because African American fatalities are not accounted for in the data since the FBI considers them gang and/or drug related homicides.
The factors that usually cause racial polarization in the FBI’s database on mass shootings vs gang related shootings are geographic location. Gang shootings often take place in tough inner—city neighborhoods. Researchers don’t expect them in small towns such as Roseburg, Ore., Sandy Hook, Conn. or Aurora, Colo.
Race is the next factor—Blacks and Hispanics are expected to be involved in inner-city gang shootings as shooters and victims. In the small-town shootings, people expect the perpetrators to be White and usually the majority of victims to be White as well. When the FBI focuses on small towns or shootings where Whites are the victims, Blacks get upset because closer attention is paid to these shootings, and drive-bys are ignored.
In the case of the Charleston shootings, many observers complained about the limited coverage of the incident and the fact that more focus was placed on the lowering of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
Criminologist Tony Johnson of Walker Security Consultants believes the issue is in the victim’s location and that both shootings have similarities. Both have a “contagion” period. This is the time after an incident, when a shooting is most likely to be repeated by another perpetrator.
In drive-bys, the contagion period could be 24 hours before a gang member could react to a shooting. In mass shootings, the contagion period lasts from two to six weeks before a copycat incident might occur.
Johnson said that today both violent incidents—gang-related killings and mass shootings—can be triggered by social media.
“Social media has some very dark corners that encourage mass bloodshed. Gang members often react to gang posts [“cyber banging”] and commit drive-bys. Mass shooters hit a public area in hopes of being remembered on the Internet. The criminologist said “the act gives them a twisted level of celebrity they crave.”
Johnson ultimately believes that the bigger issue is the lack of research being done in the area of gun violence and mass shootings of both kinds. He said, “the decades-old Congressional ban on federal funding for gun-violence research has led to a dearth of information and data in this field.”
