What is an Active Shooter?

The FBI defines an Active Shooter as a suspect (s) in most cases, armed with a firearm, using physical force to cause serious bodily harm or death on other persons and continues to do so while having unrestricted access to additional victims.

Active Shooter incidents can occur anywhere.  We know this by looking at all of the news out there. There is no world geographic region it is excluded from. It was once thought to be restricted to school shootings initiated by students or workers intent on killing their classmates, employers, co-workers and any public member unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it can happen anywhere-even in densely populated metropolitan areas.

A study released by the FBI noted the number one weapon of choice is a handgun 59%. The target of choice is business or workplace at 40% and then schools at 29%.

But I want to be clear here. People kill people. Guns do not directly kill people. Guns are wielded by people such as the active shooters and they decide to kill others.

An attacker can obtain a knife, baseball bat or other item to use as a weapon and injure or kill people. Someone can be hit over the head with a weight-lifting plate or a rock. A firearm is another item that can be manipulated as a tool to injure or kill. Regardless of whether you agree with my opinion or not, the fact remains that active shooters (who use firearms) are a threat to people.

A few of my LEO buddies teach Active Shooter awareness courses on a monthly basis to employees who work in large facilities. Some buddies are also detailed as a quick response team members to tactically defuse the situation and another team provides dignitary protection.

Active Shooter incidents generally happen in smaller communities than larger ones, but the Navy Yard shooting demonstrated it can happen in large metropolitan areas. Sadly, the Navy Yard Shooter should never have been employed to work with anyone. Rather, he should have had mental counseling. Because of the failure of investigators to do their jobs properly, many people lost their lives at the Navy Yard.

In the modern age people are not more civil than before. Danger happens everywhere and the public still has to contend with terrorist style attacks. These attacks catch everyone off-guard, such as the Mumbai attacks where in 2008, 11 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks occurred across Mumbai, India and 188 people died and 372 injured. Each terrorist came armed with small arms and explosives.

The terrorists also carried backpacks with credit cards, cash, and satellite and cell phones. They had extra ammunition magazines and were out to do a lot of damage. So were the shooters at Columbine. It’s been stated that 9 out of 10 active shooters are suicidal and about half of them kill themselves after the act of rampage. More recently in 2016 we have seen the San Bernardino and the Pulse attacks by Jihadists kill many people and it needs to stop, but it won’t. Learn to not be a victim.

What can you expect?

Many active shooters are usually acting out of frustration and rage. It could be motivated by sexual frustration , religious dogmatic perceptions or a plethora of things. They are intent on moving throughout a building or area until they are stopped by law enforcement, suicide or intervention. These situations evolve quickly and are unpredictable. These events are usually over within 10 minutes but know that mass murder will occur and this most often is their goal. The Mumbai attacks lasted over 24 hours.

Expect carnage such as multiple, traumatic injuries. There will be a lot of noise from alarms, gunfire and people screaming. Expect confusion, such as fire sprinklers spraying, smoke from fire and people running confusedly around you to hide or get away. Expect that it can happen anywhere: The Mumbai attackers killed people in a crowded train station, a restaurant, two hotels, a Jewish community center, a gas station and many other public places. Active shooters want access to a heavy concentration of people.

You may be shopping in  a location that you are very familiar with, but what if you’re traveling abroad in a place that you don’t know so well?

You may be walking around a museum in Italy or how about an airport in France?

What happens if you don’t speak the language and don’t understand the commands given you?

We cannot with certainty know where it will happen but we can at some level prepare, such as knowing the location of two exits anytime we are in public. We don’t necessarily need to know the language. We just need to be aware of our surroundings and safe exits to go to.

What can you do?

There is advice given by many security professionals and the advice makes sense. Run, Hide, or Fight. Run if you can because it makes no sense to engage an opponent if you can not be on the same terms. They have weapons and you don’t. One of the big issues for many top-secret federal facilities is the inability for employees to bring in cell phones.

The local police are not going to receive any 911 calls directly if you work in a secure government security. The government quick reaction team in the building will be the first to respond. An employee with a phone can call 911 quickly and that call can filter out to many supporting agencies for added assistance. Any delay caused by rules and regulations in a work place can affect you.

Run if you can. There’s no rationale for staying and fighting if the odds are uneven. You don’t have a weapon to fight back. Let the authorities handle business and unless you are properly trained and authorized to assist, stay out of their way.

1. Run

Find an exit and go.

Leave everything behind.

You don’t need that backpack of school books, or your groceries. If you’re at a shopping mall and just spent hundreds of dollars on goods, leave them behind, if you must!! These things will slow you down. If the event is stopped you may get a chance to collect your things. Right now, your life is far more important than a shopping bag.

Stay as calm as you can be.

This will help you to think more clearly and think of potential solutions to a very serious problem. Do not follow others blindly. If you watch videos of the Columbine shooting you will see students in a panic haphazardly following other panicked students around obstacles rather than straight through a room to the other side. This was a horrible and sad event but something others can learn from.

Everyone’s  immediate reaction is to run, but where do you run to? It’s obvious that you should run away from the danger but where to? Consider your options, either escape or shelter in place.

An active shooters main goal isn’t to escape but to kill as many people as possible. If you find yourself in an open area, immediately seek cover.

2. Shelter in Place and Hide.

Hide behind something that will stop a bullet. A tree, brick wall, pole or building until you can make an escape further away. It’s best to find something that not only provides protection but also concealment. A bush can conceal you but a car will conceal you and provide better covering from an attack. If you are in an open area, try to find a place to hide.

Try not to become trapped. If you’re pinned down secure your immediate area by locking the doors. Doors in most public spaces are solid core and the walls may afford you some better protection than a standard home which has less dense walls. If possible, block the windows and doors with whatever you can find. A desk, a cabinet…ANY furniture if it is available. A determined shooter, in all probability, will injure or kill someone. Try to minimize that opportunity.  A shooter may decide it is better to search out other targets than to spend time and breach a room you are barricaded in. Don’t open the door until police arrive.

Turn off the interior lights, and close the window and blinds. This will shut out the noise and reduce the attraction of light. Turn your cell phone and pager off or turn down the volume/vibrator. Keep all of the occupants with you quiet.

Stay out of view of windows and lay down on the floor. Keep out of sight and position yourself behind an item that will give you protection. If you are in a classroom or large room setting, remain against the same wall as the door of entry. This way, if a shooter has a line of sight and is looking through a locked window or door he won’t be able to see you. 

3. Fight Back.

Know this.

Shooters won’t stop until their sick objective is met or until engaged by law enforcement. They want to kill people. Don’t try to rescue anyone unless you are properly trained and armed. Shooters may bang on doors and yell for help in order to entice you to open the door. Take action only if it’s a last resort and when your life is in imminent danger. Act with others and use a lot of aggression to fight the shooter. Rush with a lot of people and throw anything you can at them. Hit them with a table leg. If there is a chance you are going to get killed, my opinion is to go down fighting. Give it all you got and have no regrets about the damage you are about to do on the active shooter. You want to live not die.

If you happen to reach 911.

Call 911 only if it is safe to do so. Give your exact location such as the building number or room number and the number of people with you. Give the number of injured and types of injuries. Follow the dispatchers directions. If you have suspect info, then give their last known location, the number of suspects, race,  gender, clothing and style. List any physical feature and type of weapons if you recall. Do they have a back pack, are they old, young, tall? Give details of shooter(s) to the officers.

If officers arrive.

The average response time is 3 minutes. Average active shooting incident is over in 12 minutes. Emergency Medical Services personnel won’t enter a scene until its secured. Securing a place could take hours. This leaves you on your own for some time. Sadly, victims may bleed to death.

The lone officer who responds will likely engage the active shooter, and the officer might be shot (15% of the time). This is dangerous for the brave officer. If you see an officer, let the  officer do the job they were trained to do. Do not impede their mission: to save your life and remove the active shooter.

Listen to their commands. Don’t run to them and try to hug them. Don’t make quick movements or scream or yell. Don’t point at them. Rather, don’t have anything in your hands and instead raise your arms, spread your fingers and show your hands as you drop to the floor. Spread your arms and legs when you prone out on the floor.

The police responders may search you. Help them out by listening  and doing everything you are commanded to do. An officers primary job is to locate the shooter (s) and to neutralize this threat. Therefore, medical assistance and help will be given once the threat is taken out. Be prepared to have weapons pointed at you, subject to searches, being yelled at and being handcuffed. You’ll be escorted out of a building by armed officers until it’s safe. From there you’ll answer further questions as necessary and hopefully everything will be done to reunite you with family if you are separated.

Hopefully you will never have to do any of this.

Below I have listed what were labelled terror attacks by the author of the article. This list was taken from Wikipedia so be forewarned it may have inaccuracies in it. It is here to give the reader a sampling of number of attacks on American soil in the last two decades. Having a gun on your person would change the facts quickly. Having a survival attitude would change things greatly too. We’ll save those thoughts for a future article.

2000–09

• October 10, 2000: 2000 New York terror attack. Three young men of Arab descent hurled crude Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in The Bronx, New York to “strike a blow in the Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine”.^[39]
• October 13, 2000: Firebombing of Temple Beth El (Syracuse)
• May 21, 2001: The Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington burned by the Earth Liberation Front. Replacement building cost $7 million ($9,355,000 today). Earth Liberation Front members pled guilty.^[52][53]
• September 11, 2001: The September 11 attacks were carried out against the United States by the Al Queda Network, killing 2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and 19perpetrators. Four domestic commercial airliners were hijacked simultaneously while flying within the Northeastern United States; two flew directly into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the third into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and the fourth (thanks to the revolt by the passengers and crew members) into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, during a failed attempt to destroy its intended target inWashington, D.C., either the White House or the United States Capitol. The Twin Towers were ultimately destroyed, and the Pentagon received extensive damage in the western side of the building. Building 7 of the World Trade Center was also destroyed in the attack, though there were no casualties.
• September 18 – November, 2001: 2001 anthrax attacks. Letters tainted with anthrax killed five across the U.S., with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets. On July 31, 2008, Bruce E. Ivins a top biodefenseresearcher committed suicide.^[54] On August 6, 2008, the FBI concluded that Ivins was solely responsible for the attacks, and suggested that Ivins wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that he targeted two lawmakers because they were Catholics who held pro-choice views.^[55] However, subsequent evaluations have found that the FBI’s investigation failed to provide any direct evidence linking Ivins to the mailings.^[56]
• July 4, 2002: 2002 Los Angeles Airport shooting Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national, killed two Israelis and wounds four others at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport.^[57] The FBI concluded this was terrorism, though they did not find evidence linking Hadayet to a terrorist group.^[58]
• October 2002 Beltway sniper attacks: During three weeks in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and critically injured 3 others in Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Virginia. The pair were also suspected of earlier shootings in Maryland, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington state.^[59] No motivation was given at the trial, but evidence presented showed an affinity to the cause of the Islamic jihad.
• 2003 Ohio highway sniper attacks A series of over 24 sniper attacks concentrated along the Cap-City Beltway I-270 in the Columbus Metropolitan Area caused widespread fear across Ohio and leaving one dead.
• March 5, 2006: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar injured 6 when he drove an SUV into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill to “avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world”.^[60]
• March 25, 2006: Capitol Hill massacre: Kyle Aaron Huff entered a rave afterparty in the southeast part of Seattle‘s Capitol Hill neighborhood and opened fire, killing six and wounding two. He then killed himself as he was being confronted by police on the front porch of 2112 E. Republican Street.^[61]
• July 28, 2006: Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Naveed Afzal Haq, an American citizen of Pakistani descent, killed one woman and shoots five others at the Jewish Federation building in Seattle. During the shooting, Haq told a 911 dispatcher that he was angry with American foreign policy in the Middle East.^[62]
• October 26, 2007: A pair of improvised explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder, and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police were investigating the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.^[63]
• March 3, 2008: Four luxury woodland houses near Woodinville, Washington were torched, leaving behind a message crediting the Earth Liberation Front.^[64]
• March 6, 2008: Times Square bombing. A homemade bomb damaged an Armed Forces Recruiting Office in Times Square.^[65] In June 2013, The FBI and New York City police offered a $65,000 reward for information in the case and revealed that ammunition used for the bomb is the same as is used in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.^[66] On April 15, 2015, the F.B.I increased the award to $115,000 and said they have persons of interest^[67]
• May 4, 2008: Multiple pipe bombs exploded at 1:40 am at the Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse in San Diego causing “considerable damage” to the entrance and lobby and sending shrapnel two blocks away, but causing no injuries. The FBI is investigating links between this attack and an April 25 explosion at the FedEx building also in San Diego.^[68]
• April 8, 2009: According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, intruders left malware in power grids, water, and sewage systems that could be activated at a later date. While the attacks which have occurred over a period of time seem to have originated in China and Russia, it is unknown if they are state-sponsored^[69] or errors in the computer code.^[70][71]
• May 31, 2009: Assassination of George Tiller: Scott Roeder shoots and kills Dr. George Tiller in a Wichita, Kansas church. Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist who believes in justifiable homicide of abortion providers, was arrested soon afterward. Roeder was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2010. Tiller, who performed late-term abortions, had long been a target of anti-abortion extremists; his clinic was firebombed in 1986 and Tiller was shot and wounded five times in 1993 in a shooting attack by Shelley Shannon.^[72][73]
• May 25, 2009: 17-year-old Kyle Shaw sets off a crude explosive device at a Starbucks at East 92nd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, shattering windows and destroyed a bench at the coffee shop. There were no injuries. The attack was a “bizarre tribute” of the movie Fight Club, in an attempt to emulate “Project Mayhem”, a series of assaults on corporate America portrayed in the film. Shaw took a plea agreement and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in November 2010.^[74][75]
• June 1, 2009: Arkansas recruiting office shooting: Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad shot and killed one military recruiter and seriously wounded another at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army/Navy Career Center in an act of Islamic extremism. Muhammad, a convert to Islam, had visited Yemen for sixteen months where he spent time in prison and became radicalized. Muhammad, said he was part of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was upset over the U.S. Army’s murder of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, like theKandahar massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.^[76]
• November 5, 2009: 2009 Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army Major serving as a Psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 29. On August 23, 2013 Hasan was convicted by a Military tribunal. Hasan acted as his own attorney and took responsibility for the attack saying his motive was jihad to fight “illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims”.^[77] On August 28 Hasan was sentenced to death.^[78]

2010–present

• February 18, 2010: Austin suicide attack: Andrew Joseph Stack III flying his single engine plane flew into the Austin Texas IRS building killing himself and one IRS employee and injuring 13 others. Stack left a suicide note online, comparing the IRS to Big Brother from the novel 1984.
• March 4, 2010: 2010 Pentagon shooting: John Patrick Bedell shot and wounded two Pentagon police officers at a security checkpoint in the Pentagon station of the Washington Metro rapid transit system in Arlington County, Virginia.
• September 1, 2010: Discovery Communications headquarters hostage crisis: James J. Lee, armed with two starter pistols and an explosive device, takes three people hostage in the lobby of the Discovery Communicationsheadquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland before being killed by police. After nearly four hours, Lee was shot dead by police and all the hostages were freed without injury. Lee had earlier posted a manifesto railing against population growth and immigration.^[79][80]
• July 20, 2012: Aurora shooting. James Eagan Holmes opened fire inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. The gunman, dressed in tactical clothing, set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms. Twelve people were killed and seventy others were injured, which was the largest number of casualties in a shooting in the United States^[81] until the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting.
• August 5, 2012: Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting: Six people were killed and three others were injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, killed himself after being shot by police.^[82] The shooting is being treated by authorities as an act of domestic terrorism.^[83][84] While a motive has not been clearly defined, Page had been active in white supremacist groups.^[82]
• April 15, 2013: Boston Marathon bombing: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 180 people.^[85][86] Late in the evening of April 18 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an MITcampus police officer was shot and killed while sitting in his squad car. Two suspects then carjacked an SUV and fled to nearby Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. A massive police chase ensued, resulting in a shootout during which several IED‘s were thrown by the suspects. A Boston transit police officer was critically wounded and suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Russian immigrant of Chechen ethnicity, was killed. The second suspect, Tsarnaev’s younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, escaped. A “Shelter in place” order was given for Boston, Watertown, and the surrounding areas while house-to-house searches were conducted, but the suspect remained at large. Shortly after the search was called off Tsarnaev was discovered by a local resident hiding inside a boat parked in the resident’s driveway less than three blocks from the scene of the shootout. He was taken into custody after another exchange of gunfire and taken to nearby Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he was treated for injuries received during his pursuit and capture. Tsarnaev was arraigned on federal terrorism charges from his hospital bed on April 22, 2013.^{[87][88][89][90]} Preliminary questioning indicated the Tsarnaev brothers had no ties to terrorist organizations.^[91] A note written by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the boat where he was captured said the bombings were retaliation for US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslims.^[92] On April 8, 2015, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and shootout with police.^[93] On May 15, 2015, Tsarnaev was sentenced to death.^[94]
• April 16, 2013: April 2013 ricin letters: Two letters, sent to Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and president Barack Obama, were tested positive for ricin. Each letter contained the message “I am KC and I approve this message”. On April 27, 2013, a man named Everett Dutschke was arrested.
• November 1, 2013: 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Paul Anthony Ciancia entered the checkpoint at the Los Angeles International Airport and fired his rifle, killing one Transportation Security Administration officer and injuring six others. The motivation behind the attack was Paul’s inspiration of the anti-government agenda, such as believing in the New World Order conspiracy theory, and stating that he “wanted to kill TSA” and described them as “pigs”.
• December 13, 2013: 2013 Wichita bomb attempt: 58-year-old avionics technician, identified as Terry Lee Loewen, was arrested on December 13, 2013, for attempting a suicide bombing at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, where he was employed. Loewen became radicalized after reading extremist Islamic material on the Internet. He was arrested while driving a vehicle into the airport with what he believed to be an active explosive device. Later sentenced to 20 years in Federal prison.^[95]
• April 13, 2014: Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: A pair of shootings committed by a lone gunman occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people died in the shootings. One suspect, identified as Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., a neo-Nazi neo-Pagan, was arrested and charged with capital murder, first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and aggravated assault.
• June 8, 2014: 2014 Las Vegas shootings: Two police officers and one civilian died in a shooting spree in the Las Vegas Valley committed by a couple, identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, who espoused anti-government views and were reportedly inspired by the outcome of the Bundy standoff. The Millers both died during a gunfight with responding police; Jerad Miller was fatally shot by officers, while Amanda Miller committed suicide after being wounded.
• October 23, 2014: 2014 New York City hatchet attack: Zale Thompson injured two New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers, once critically at a Queens, New York City shopping district by striking them with a hatchet. Four officers were posing for a photograph when Thompson charged them. The police opened fire killing Thompson and injuring a civilian. Thompson who converted to Islam 2 years before the attack posted “anti-government, anti-Western, anti-white” messages online.^[96]
• November 28, 2014: Austin, Texas: Right-wing and anti-government extremist Larry Steven McQuilliams set a fire at the Mexican Consulate and shot towards several government buildings. Police arrived on scene and shot him dead. McQuilliams had a prior criminal history including drug possession and robbery.
• December 2014: “The Guardians of Peace” linked by the United States to North Korea launched a cyber attack against SONY pictures. Embarrassing private emails were published and the organization threatened attacks against theaters that showed The Interview, a satire which depicted the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following the refusal of theater chains to show the movie, SONY Pictures withdrew release of the movie, a decision that was criticized by President Obama and others. Obama said the USA will respond. North Korea denied responsibility for the attack and proposed a joint investigation with the U.S.^[97][98][99]
• December 20, 2014: Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed two New York City police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Brinsley was reported to have walked up and fired directly into the officers squad car. Other officers chased the suspect into a nearby subway station, where he committed suicide. Prior to the shooting, Brinsley had written Instagram messages calling for revenge attacks in response to the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. He also allegedly shot his girlfriend in Maryland earlier that day.^[100][101]
• May 3, 2015: Curtis Culwell Center attack: Two gunmen opened fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center during an art exhibit hosted by an anti-Muslim group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative in Garland, Texas. The center was hosting a contest for cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Both gunmen were killed by police. A Garland Independent School District (ISD) police officer was injured by a shot to the ankle but survived. The attackers, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were motivated by the Charlie Hebdo shooting in France and the 2015 Copenhagen shooting in Denmark earlier in the year. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack through a Twitter post.^[102]
• June 17, 2015: Charleston church shooting: a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The church is one of the United States’ oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organization around civil rights. Nine people were killed, including the senior pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator. A tenth victim was also shot, but survived. 21-year old Dylann Roof was arrested and later confessed that he committed the shooting in order to initiate a race war.
• July 16, 2015: 2015 Chattanooga shootings: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He first committed a drive-by shooting at a recruiting center, then traveled to a naval reserve center and continued firing. He was killed by police in a gunfight. Four Marines were killed immediately, and another Marine, a Navy sailor, and a police officer were wounded; the sailor died from his injuries two days later. The motive of the shootings is currently under investigation.^[103]
• November 27, 2015: Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting: Robert L. Dear, armed with an assault-style rifle opened fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic. Two civilians and one police officer were killed, and four civilians and five police officers were wounded before the suspect surrendered. Dear told police “No more baby parts” after being taken into custody.^[104]
• December 2, 2015: 2015 San Bernardino attack: A mass shooting occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, with 14 dead and 22 injured. Two suspects, Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, fled in an SUV, but were later killed.^{[105][106][107][108]}
• June 12, 2016: 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting: 49 people were killed and 53 were injured in a terrorist attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The nightclub shooting is currently the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history. The sole suspect behind the slaughter was identified as Omar Mateen, an American-born citizen with Afghan immigrant parents who was later killed.^{[109][110][111]} The FBI asserted his possible link to radical Islam.^[112]
• July 7, 2016: 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers: On July 7, 2016, Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed and shot twelve police officers and two civilians in Dallas, Texas, United States, killing five of the officers. Johnson was an African-American former Army Reserve veteran who specifically targeted white police officers, reportedly angry over recent police shootings of black men.^[113]