Looks like I was misinformed here. The conversation about NIBRS I was referencing happened probably five or six years ago, so before NIBRS widely replaced UCR as the national standard reporting system. It’s quite possible the folks I spoke to also didn’t have a clear understanding of the new system at the time.Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's
My posts only represent my personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of any employer, past or present. Obvious spelling errors are likely the result of an iPhone keyboard.
Seems that way if one watches the news.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
A lot of jibber-jabber not meeting P-F's usual standards could be avoided if people would just download and casually scan the documents. This is in "Mindset & Tactics," not GD or Politics. It doesn't take long to dig out highlights. Gang violence was excluded from the present study - see comments further down in this post.
I noted the change in definition from four to three in my post yesterday. My understanding was that the criteria of four came from the FBI, but it took some work to find the basis for that. CDO is a bitch, but the results are sometimes worth it.
Most sources simply state without attribution or foundation that the standard is four or more killed. Finally, I found two sources both referencing this FBI document:
https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/p...-july-2008-pdf
But clearly, that's not authoritative and doesn't lead anywhere.Generally, mass murder was described as a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. These events typically involved a single location, where the killer murdered a number of victims in an ongoing incident (e.g. the 1984 San Ysidro McDonalds incident in San Diego, California; the 1991 Luby’s Restaurant massacre in Killeen, Texas; and the 2007 Virginia Tech murders in Blacksburg, Virginia).
I found this Rand study,
https://www.rand.org/research/gun-po...shootings.html
which I have not read all of. Note that if you go to the end, there is a link to their bibliography, which came to 48 pages when I PDFed it. Probably worth having if you're someone who studies this stuff professionally. Back to the quest, the Rand piece points as a reference for the "four" standard to this document:
Krouse, William J., and Daniel J. Richardson, Mass Murder with Firearms: Incidents and Victims, 1999–2013, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R44126, 2015.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44126.pdf
That one points to
You can get a free PDF of that, but you'll need to set up a free account to download it here:John E. Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, Allen G. Burgess, and Robert K. Ressler, Crime Classification Manual: A
Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crime, 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass 2006, p. 13.
https://www.academia.edu/13271399/Cr...iolent_crimes_
A very brief scan shows it includes many fairly in-depth summaries of specific examples of each classification and discussion of how the characteristics of the crime relate to the criteria.
I did find a text-only version:
https://archive.org/stream/Httpmurde...anual_djvu.txt
The LE representation in the author group, John Douglas, is a career Feeb, so I was willing to take the work as direct contact with the authoritative source:CLASSIFICATION BY TYPE, STYLE, AND NUMBER OF VICTIMS
Crimes may be classified by type, style, and number of victims. Using the
homicide classification as an example, a single homicide is one victim and
one homicidal event. A double homicide is two victims, one event, and in
one location. A triple homicide has three victims in one location during one
event. Anything beyond three victims is classified as a mass murder— that is,
a homicide involving four or more victims in one location and within one
event.
Two additional types of multiple murders are spree murder and serial
murder. A spree murder involves killing at two or more locations with no
emotional cooling-off period between murders. The killings are all the result
of a single event, which can be of short or long duration. Serial murders are
involved in three or more separate events with an emotional cooling-off
period between homicides. At a 2005 FBI conference on serial murder, dis-
cussion focused on whether to classify a serial crime with two or more sep-
arate events.
I kept digging, though, and found this document from 1998John E. Douglas, Ed.D., entered duty with the FBI in 1970 after serving
four years in the U.S. Air Force. He received investigative experience in violent
crime in Detroit and Milwaukee field offices and also served as a hostage
negotiator. In 1977 Douglas was appointed to the FBI Academy as an
instructor in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), where he taught
hostage negotiation and applied criminal psychology.
In 1990 he was promoted as unit chief within the FBI’s National Center for
the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). Serving in that capacity, he had
overall supervision of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP),
Criminal Investigative Analysis Program (better known as criminal profiling),
and the Arson and Bombing Investigative Services Program.
https://vault.fbi.gov/Criminal%20Pro...t%201%20of%207
It includes or has attached to it an excerpt from a 1986 article by some of the same authors as the above study, including Mr. Douglas, "Criminal Profiling from Crime Scene Analysis," which has identical language in its definition:
So as far as I can tell, that's the bottom line on the authoritative definition criteria of four being from the FBI since the mid-1980s.Homicide Type and Style
As noted in Table I, homicides are classifed by type and style. A single
homicide is one victim, one homicidal event; double homicide is two victims,
one event, and in one location; and a triple homicide has three victims in one
location during one event. Anything beyond three victims is classifed a mass
murder; that is, four or more victims in one location, and within one event.
This is the Federal law passed by Congress during the Obama administration in the wake of Sandy Hook that is cited as the criteria in both the 2000-2013 and the 2021 studies:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...OMPS-10198.pdf
The context for that was in making Federal resources available to assist local law enforcement, so for that purpose, lowering the threshold seems reasonable and worthwhile. However, in many, many sources since then, it is cited as the official government definition. I will leave it to the reader to form an opinion about the extent to which propagandistic intent may have contributed to the decision to overwrite and memory hole the 27-year-old existing definition.‘‘(M)(i) At the request of an appropriate law enforcement official of a State or political subdivision, the Attorney General may assist in the investigation of violent acts
and shootings occurring in a place of public use and in the
investigation of mass killings and attempted mass killings.
Any assistance provided under this subparagraph shall be
presumed to be within the scope of Federal office or employment.
‘‘(i) For purposes of this subparagraph—
‘‘(I) the term ‘mass killings’ means 3 or more
killings in a single incident;
Returning to the topic of the OP, the current study is presented as an ongoing data maintenance activity to update this 2000-2013 study:
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...000-2013-1.pdf
Here is the 2021 study:
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/...021-052422.pdf
There have apparently been one or more interim studies, but I have not dug them up.
As I have said repeatedly, a reader would do well to actually check out the study itself before sounding off with opinions/assumptions/wild-assed speculative projections about it.
This report does not encompass all gun-related
shootings. A gun-related incident was excluded if
research established it was the result of:
• Self-defense
• Gang violence
• Drug violence
• Contained residential or domestic disputes
• Controlled barricade/hostage situations
• Crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing
criminal act
• An action that appeared not to have put other
people in peril
This methodology was first articulated in A Study
of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States
Between 2000 and 2013 and was applied to the
2021 shooting incidents for consistency.5
This report is part of a series of FBI active
shooter-
related products published since
September 2014. These reports are not intended
to explore all facets of active shooter incidents but
rather intended to provide law enforcement officers,
other first responders, corporations, educators,
and the public with a baseline understanding
of active shooter incidents.
Last edited by OlongJohnson; 06-18-2022 at 11:39 AM.
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Not another dime.
Appreciate you posting how it's supposed to be done, but I'm aware of agencies using that system to cook their crime stats way down and to intentionally misclassify offenses, such as aggravated assault down to simple assaults, so that the serious offense numbers look better. I strongly suspect many agencies are doing that.
Regional Government Sales Manager for Aimpoint, Inc. USA
Co-owner Hardwired Tactical Shooting (HiTS)
@OlongJohnson - Thank you for your research and post above.
This is the P-F standard that I remember.
+1 Like
Last edited by GyroF-16; 06-18-2022 at 03:40 PM.
5-6 years ago, it was more likely to be correct. I *believe* UCR only counted the highest crime and that was it, and the only time multiple victims were counted was murders. I would not swear to it under oath, but that's what I recall.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
That’s my recollection.
You can get away with it until you get audited. At our size, we get audited pretty frequently. We have an office that does nothing but look at reports and make sure they are properly classified. I would see how smaller departments could roll the dice and also how things could get misclassified without ill intent because the classifications often do not line up with state codes. I know, just as an Investigations supervisor, arrests aren't always properly cleared out in the new system because it's a PITA. Old system: Clear each offender. New system: Clear each charge. So if Johnny gets locked up for 6 offenses and the prosecutor files 2 of those and then a 3rd that wasn't in the original 6 it creates a shit ton of work and people just don't do it properly. I would take nothing in NIBRS as gospel, and the further you get from Type 1 crimes the less likely it is to be accurate. That said, murder is pretty tough to classify as anything else and is a stat that's more likely to be correct than not.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Hoping this is on point and to standard.
I feel that one of the distinctions that needs to be made is between the active shooter and mass murder events, because IMHO, there is a difference.
I don't know if it has changed, however, NTOA initially described the active shooter as:
:
• One or more subjects who participate in a random or systematic shooting spree, demonstrating their intent to continuously harm others;
• The overriding objective appears to be that of mass murder, rather than criminal conduct such as robbery, kidnapping, etc;
Law Enforcement Response to Active Shooter Situations Defined: The swift and immediate deployment of law enforcement resources to ongoing, life threatening situations where delayed deployment could otherwise result in death or great bodily injury to innocent persons.
This response is appropriate whenever:
• Suspect(s) are actively exhibiting aggressive deadly behavior resulting in death or great bodily harm;
• The location is believed to contain multiple victims;
• In situations where responding officers believe immediate action is necessary for citizen or officer rescue and delayed action could result in continued injury; or where delayed recovery of victims could result in their demise; In such cases, deadly assaults may or may not be on going.
(not sure if that's my paraphrase or an actual quote of the NTOA definition, however the NTOA was my reference source)
I think the key point is: The overriding objective appears to be that of mass murder, rather than criminal conduct such as robbery, kidnapping, etc.
Using the mass murder definition for active shooters would lead us to include instances where:
1) It was Thanksgiving, Ed had finally tired of his MIL's lumpy gravy and his families overall lack of appreciation of his efforts to provide them with an environment they should be thankful for. With the snap of the wishbone, something snapped inside of Ed, when he came back to reality he had killed all seven members of his immediate family. Overwhelmed, Ed turned the pistol on himself.
2) One of the employees became angry and pulled the mask from Ed's face. This heist was worth two million and he couldn't be identified. Ed coldly shot the employee who had seen his face and for good measure the other two employees and an unlucky truck driver who was merely delivering an invoice to the office.
Both of those fit the definition of mass murder, IMO neither fits the definition of an active shooter.
It could be that I'm getting lost in the weeds, but, if we are going to put strategies into play to prevent active shooters, I think it's important we make a distinction.
JMO YMMV
Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....
Dan, you're someone who always brings a useful perspective to this forum, and you're appreciated by many.
Your thoughts are actually aligned with the filtering criteria described in the report:
The use of "crossfire" is not the best choice of words, as it can be construed as ambiguous as to whether the bank robber meant to kill the victim or the victim just happened to be a backstop to the person the bank robber was shooting at, but as it's actually applied, the bank robbery isn't counted in the events.This report does not encompass all gun-related
shootings. A gun-related incident was excluded if
research established it was the result of:
• Contained residential or domestic disputes
• Crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing
criminal act
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Another interesting aspect of the data is that, while the number of incidents has risen dramatically in 2020 and 2021, the number of casualties, killed and wounded, shows no upward trend. (The non-pattern is clearest if you take out the Las Vegas shooting, because the numbers there are so big they throw everything out of whack, and nobody really knows what to make of that whole mess anyway.) So the number of casualties per event is down.
The report describes each event, the number injured and killed, and how it ended.
The only obvious opportunity I can see for systematic error in the counting from 2000-present is that the 2000-2013 report was compiled in 2014. It's conceivable that due to the passage of time between events earlier in the window, reporting may not have been as good and some may have been missed. It's a thread I'd pull on if I had an agenda to do so, but note I'm only pointing to the possibility of incidents being missed, not alleging that there were any actually missed.
Once the first report was compiled, tracking these events was known to be an ongoing activity, so it was done in real time with the modern, internet driven reporting of everything, so an event has less chance of being uncounted. (I'd say any qualifying event is basically assured of being tabulated in the last eight years.)
The more I think about it, the more it bugs me that there's no acknowledgement of the change in standard from four dead to three dead. (As if that wasn't already clear.) From the discussion in the report, as limited as it is, one might reasonably gather that there was no definition until Congress passed that law in 2013. Accordingly, the authors fail to caution the reader about comparing the numbers in these reports to earlier literature that used a more restrictive criteria. The obvious result is that studies using a criteria of three dead will count many more events than studies using a criteria of four dead, which was the working standard for criminological studies from at least as far back as 1986 until 2013, and continues to be used by many analysts. (If someone was so inclined, it might be interesting to find the interim reports and rewash the entire data set from 2000-2021 using the criteria of four dead. Would be perhaps worth an article or blog post, hopefully one to be written by serious people and published in a serious place.)
It kinda reminds me of when the Obama administration put gunsmithing under ITAR, claiming that there was no established legal criteria for determining what was the red line between gunsmithing and manufacturing. In reality, there is case law going back at least as far as the 1960s, if I remember correctly, using the question of whether the smith doing reconditioning work owned the firearms or was doing work on firearms owned by others. Somewhere, I have a court brief where BATFE cites the case law establishing that as its working criteria. So although there was nothing in code, there was absolutely a consistent, bright-line legal standard in active use, which the ITAR decision ignored, overwrote and memory-holed.
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Not another dime.
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