The Oxford Dictionary defines "mass shootings" as an attack in which multiple people are shot over a short period of time - and the most common standard is that four or more people were shot or killed for it to be a mass shooting.
Back in 2022, a shooting in Hopkins that claimed the lives of 2 and and left eight injured, but the Commissioner of Police at the time disputed whether it could be defined as a mass shooting.
Well today we took a deeper look into the definition as the 7 person shooting took place in Independence village. This is what ASP Stacy Smith had to say.
Jules Vasquez
"Would you all. I know that mass shootings have a very specific classification. And we see them often in the US. But, you know, I think that the, the standard term used is when more than five persons are injured, and someone is killed, which has happened in this case, but there are varying standards. Would you A.S.P. Smith, consider this a mass shooting?"
ASP Stacy Smith, Police Staff Officer
"As you stated, Mr. Vasquez, there are several ways that mass shootings have been categorized. Categorize. Some of them are categorized by the motive being that an indiscriminate shooting at multiple persons in a location. They are also very, more basic definitions that just involves more than one person has been injured. As I said, what we do know is that one person was the intended target in this situation, and it was when he was fleeing that other persons were injured."
