The US in 2022 saw highest number of ‘active shooter’ casualties — deaths or injuries — of the past 5 years, FBI report finds

By Nouran Salahieh, Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand, CNN

The United States suffered more casualties from “active shooter” incidents in 2022 than it did in the four years prior, according to an FBI report released Wednesday.

The report tallied 50 active shooter incidents in 2022 that left 313 casualties, including 100 people killed, not including the shooters. Casualty counts include both deaths and injuries.

Only nine of the incidents saw no casualties, the report said.

The FBI’s report pulls grim data from a year marked by horrific acts of gun violence — including the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre — and lists the American communities that in 2022 joined a growing number reeling from deadly mass shootings.

The report also comes as the nation grapples with a slew of high-profile mass shootings this year — including at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, a Christian school in Nashville and a Sweet 16 party in Dadeville, Alabama.

The number of active shooter incidents in 2022 was overall down 18% from 2021, when the FBI recorded 61 such incidents. However, last year’s total also represents a 66.7% increase to the number of active shooter incidents recorded in 2018, which was 30.

The FBI defines an active shooter “as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” The report released Wednesday doesn’t include all types of gun violence, and it excludes incidents of self-defense, gang violence and contained domestic disputes, among other situations.

The active shooter incidents last year spanned 25 states and Washington, DC, involved a total of 61 firearms, and unfolded at homes, schools, places of worship, open spaces and other locations, according to the report.

The deadliest incident of 2022 was the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where a gunman killed 21 people and wounded 17. The mass shooting, which also marked the deadliest US school shooting in nearly a decade, sparked furious backlash over the action — and inaction — of law enforcement that responded to the unfolding massacre.

The shooting with the highest number of casualties in 2022 — both injuries and deaths — was in Highland Park, Illinois, where a gunman killed seven people and injured 48 more on a July Fourth parade route. Police at the time said the shooter fired more than 70 rounds from the rooftop of a building using a “high-powered rifle.”

Overall, the number of deaths from active shooter incidents last year, 100, was just shy of those recorded in 2021 and 2019, when 103 and 102 people died, respectively, according to the report.

And while the number of active shooter incidents in 2022 was lower than the year before, “data shows an upward trend” in such incidents, the FBI said in the report.

Of the 50 shootings the FBI designated as active shooter incidents last year, 13 met the legal definition of a mass killing, defined by the federal government as one involving “three or more killings in a single incident,” according to the report.

The vast majority of the shooters — 94% — were male and ranged in age from 15 to 70 years old. Four of the shooters wore body armor during the incidents, according to the FBI’s report.

In more than half the cases, the shooters had no known connection to the location or victims.

Fifty shooters carried out the 50 attacks recorded by the FBI. The incidents ended with 29 shooters apprehended by law enforcement, seven shooters killed by law enforcement, two killed by armed citizens at the scene, nine shooters killing themselves and three remaining at large, according to the report.

Texas saw the highest number of active shooter incidents in 2022, with six reported, according to the FBI.

“The FBI remains dedicated to assisting federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and campus law enforcement in its active shooter prevention, response, and recovery efforts, as well as training its international law enforcement partners,” the bureau wrote in its report. “The FBI also remains steadfast in its efforts to train private citizens in active shooter survival, as it is imperative that citizens understand the risks faced and the resources available in an active shooter incident.”

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