Spate of shootings raises fears of a violent summer

Image via AP.

A spate of shootings over the past several days has law enforcement on edge, with some warning that a turbulent brew of a pandemic, protests against racism, historic surges in gun sales and a rancorous election year could make it an especially deadly summer.

Although mass shootings — often defined as four or more killed, excluding the shooter — are down sharply this year, other non-suicidal gun deaths are on pace to exceed last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

That increase came before the start of summer, when there is traditionally a spike during as people venture outside more, and before Independence Day, which historically has been one of the deadliest days each year.

The spike may have many causes, gun experts say, including an American public increasingly stressed by the coronavirus pandemic, which has roiled the economy and kept them at home, deep divisions over racial justice and policing, and the political divides of a presidential election year.

“There’s something going on at the moment, these underlying tensions,” said James Densley, professor of law enforcement and criminal justice at Metropolitan State University. “Everyone’s been cooped up for so long with the pandemic, and then we had this sort of explosion of anger and grief after George Floyd’s killing.”

In just the past few days, more than 100 people were wounded in shootings in Chicago, including a 3-year-old boy who was killed while riding in the back seat of a car with his father. Police said the boy’s father was the intended victim. That’s the most people shot in one weekend in Chicago since at least 2012 but not the deadliest this year; over Memorial Day weekend, 20 people were fatally shot in the city.

In North Carolina, three people were killed and six were wounded early Monday when unknown gunmen opened fire during an impromptu block party in Charlotte. An annual birthday party in Syracuse, New York, over the weekend was marred by gun violence that wounded nine people.

In Minneapolis, people fled a popular nightlife and retail area as a shooter killed one man and injured 11 others early Sunday.

And for the second time in less than 48 hours, there was a shooting in Seattle’s protest zone. A 17-year-old victim was shot late Sunday night in the area known as CHOP, for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” a day after a 19-year-old man was fatally shot and a 33-year-old man critically injured in there.

Densley said that pace of gun violence may be a harbinger of a rough summer ahead.

“You’ve got people who are frustrated, angry, struggling in life and have been at home during this time processing all this and often processing this alone, maybe with the help with the internet,” he said. “Once the door starts to open, there could well be an uptick in violence.”

While nationwide protests have focused on police violence against Black people, the recent shootings also highlight another scourge that falls disproportionately on Black and minority communities: gun violence that law enforcement has not been able to curb in many cities. That violence has plagued some big cities for some time, even before the pandemic or protests.

In Detroit, the city has seen overall crime drop amid stay-at-home orders. However, violent crime — particularly shootings — has risen; this past weekend, there were 18 different shootings that led to four people dead and 25 injured.

Police Chief James Craig said most of them were over minor arguments — but in these particularly tense times, small fights are turning violent.

“What we’re seeing manifesting is these argument-based, senseless shootings among people who are acquainted, who are attending block parties, and so it’s got to stop,” Craig said. “We recognize there’s been tremendous tension in this city, as well as with others, starting with COVID.”

In some cities around the country, law enforcement has struggled to with how to handle protests of police — some of which have been violent and many of which have required significant resources merely because of their size — while also patrolling the rest of the city.

“We’ve seen it in other cities where there are blocks have no presence of police. We saw cities where there’s been a retreat of police,” Craig said. “We’re not retreating in the city of Detroit.”

While some violence seen recently may have deep, long-term causes, gun-rights activists are pointing to historic numbers of background checks for firearms purchases this year as evidence that the public at large is increasingly worried about personal safety. Those worries are only being amplified by the recently renewed calls to defund the police, they say.

Gun proponents seized on these fears when many Atlanta police officers declined to show up for their shifts after two white officers were criminally charged in the fatal shooting of a Black suspect.

Antonia Okafor Cover, director of outreach for Gun Owners of America, tweeted: “If you live in Atlanta THIS might be the time to buy that gun you were thinking of getting.”

Gun-control advocates say more firearms will only lead to more violence.

“There are a lot of people experiencing stress they’ve never experienced in their lives before. These are very hard times,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady gun-control group.

There is perhaps one silver lining: This year is on pace to have half as many mass shootings as the record-breaking 2019. A big reason is the “contagion” effect, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who, along with The Associated Press and USA Today, has been tracking mass killings back to 2006.

With people focused more on a deadly virus and other woes, mass shootings no longer get the attention that can end up inadvertently spurring such crimes. A similar effect happened in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, he said.

“We’ve been distracted,” Fox said. “We are no longer obsessing about mass shootings like we were in the past couple of years.”

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.