By Katherine Schweit
When new reports are released from the FBI or other sources, I am often asked to provide context. Though police and others working in our space dive in, civilians are less likely to synthesize how the report results will affect them. That was the case recently when the FBI released its report on 24 active shooter incidents in 2024. (See report in full below.)
The 24 incidents — not mass shootings, which are different — are half the number of active shooter incidents in 2023. The 50% reduction was matched with a 57% decrease in casualties.
How FBI tracking began
The FBI started collecting active shooter data after the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where more than two dozen were killed by a shooter who had already killed his mother. That’s when I joined a handful of other agency executives assigned to Vice President Joe Biden’s office to search for ways to end the two-word assaults we had all come to know: Sandy Hook, Columbine High, Virginia Tech and Aurora Theater.
I co-authored the first FBI research, spanning from 2000 to 2013, and the FBI has periodically released reports since then. This latest report captures just a calendar year, not unlike different fiscal years used in business and government. This seemingly monumental and nearly unbelievable result for 2024 is good news, but we can dig deeper.
| LISTEN: Katherine Schweit and Dr. Peter Langman join Police1’s Policing Matters podcast to analyze the FBI’s 2024 active shooter report, offering insight into prevention strategies, training, tech and trends.
Rare but high-risk events
With 25 years of data available, I’d like to share some long-view observations I hope will be of value to those charged to serve and protect.
Active shooter situations are among the rarest of circumstances for law enforcement, yet the pressures to prepare and respond properly are the most intense. In these situations, shooters are on the ground and pulling a trigger as the calls come in. Sometimes this data is conflated improperly with mass shootings, particularly by the media, which I’ll discuss below. The threat to law enforcement is most prominent in these situations, as evidenced by the number of officer casualties over the past 25 years — so keep reading to get to that data.
First, let’s look at the incidents themselves. The 25-year cumulative annual data allows us to see trends that cross over calendar years. This gives us an apples-to-apples view and improves the quality of the data that can be analyzed.
Before they were released, I had heard that the numbers for 2024 would be about half the year prior. But that 25-year look gives us a clear view that after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December of 2012, a steady increase in active shooter incidents plagued the country. It’s something we may now just be seeing a recovery from.
Consider these trends in incidents:
- 2000 to 2012 (pre-Sandy Hook): An average of 12.5 incidents per year
- 2013 to 2019: An average of 24.2 incidents per year
- 2019 to 2024: An average of 44.6 incidents per year
Notice the doubling, and then nearly doubling again, of incidents post-Sandy Hook. So, while 24 incidents this past year is great news, we may need a few more years to see whether this trend will continue.
Let’s look at casualties and see if the results are the same. The FBI counted 244 casualties in 2023 and a lesser 106 in 2024. This is a drop from 5.3 casualties per incident one year down to 4.41 casualties per incident the next. Perhaps these were just two safer years, you could wonder. Is the drop a fluke? It does not appear to be.
Viewing through a 25-year lens, we can see that all incidents counted have resulted in an average of 7 casualties per incident (556 incidents and 3,921 casualties). But if we look at just the most recent five-year casualty rate, casualties average 4.75 per incident — a significant trend down from the 20 years prior. Even better, this past year’s figure was 4.1, as I noted above.
Active Shooter Incidents 2024 by Lexipol_Media_Group on Scribd
Law enforcement and civilians step up
What do all these numbers mean? Though we may be reeling from an increase in incidents these past years, law enforcement and civilians are doing a better job of saving lives overall. These results have been hard fought. We know law enforcement is getting to the locations faster and is more prepared to respond effectively. And when an incident ends before law enforcement arrives, it’s encouraging to know civilians are doing their part too. They are better aware and better prepared to execute the concepts of run-hide-fight.
I’ve been preaching this latter point to my audience for years on my podcast, Stop the Killing. My co-host, Sarah Ferris, and I hear from listeners who trained their schools or businesses in the finer points, based on what they’ve learned. Last year, a vice principal of a middle school joined us to explain how her staff successfully averted a shooting when they heeded the signs and knew what to do when a sixth grader leaked his intent to kill classmates.
The rise of prevention
Despite the mixed reviews on the latest data, I think the stories of prevention are the most encouraging. They are increasing in number and now are being tracked and researched. Civilians and law enforcement alike are doing a better job of knowing what to look for — the behaviors of concern — that might lead a person down a destructive path. These people aren’t all destined to become active shooters, so it’s likely that other crimes and destructive behaviors are being caught too, as lives are turned around.
Prevention efforts are the most encouraging, and now we are seeing organizations gather enough incidents to provide a view of potentially averted attacks. How we count them and what to include is still in preliminary stages, so some level-setting may be needed.
If a man brings a gun to the office and displays it, is it an averted attack when it is wrestled out of his hands? When a school counselor sees student drawings of a person appearing to shoot another, is it an averted attack? When police intercede after hearing from a woman that her boyfriend said he’s going to shoot up his church, is it an averted attack?
A caution: Counting something that didn’t happen is tricky, so give some leeway to those trying to gather that data for us. They are prime examples of trying to catch smoke. Their information will inform but won’t be perfect.
| RELATED: What law enforcement can learn from averted acts of school violence
Data methodologies matter
Everybody gathering data is seeking to help inform, and each has their own way of counting and categorizing the information they can find. The way someone collects their data is reflected in the declared methodology.
Mass shooter data sets, for example, produce higher numbers than active shooters because those tracking mass shootings count killings that occur in private homes and those where the deaths are discovered long after the shooting ends. Data sets involving schools may count an incident when a gun is present, or only when it is fired, or even when a gun is discharged within a block or two of a school.
The FBI methodology for active shooters is:
Incidents require the shooter(s) to use (discharge or attempt to discharge) a firearm(s) while killing or attempting to kill people. However, an incident with no casualties may be included — the situation could involve a shooter who misses an intended target; a shooter who experiences a firearm-related malfunction(s); and/or law enforcement, security, or civilian intervention. The report does not encompass all firearm-related incidents where analysts determine the incident was primarily involving:
- Self-defense
- Gang violence
- Drug-related violence
- Residential or domestic disputes
- Barricade/hostage situations
- Shootings in relation to another criminal act
- Crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing criminal act
This was essentially the methodology articulated when I co-wrote the FBI’s first research, A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013. It’s not an exact science since each incident has so many variables, but authors of subsequent FBI reports have tried to consistently apply this methodology to all cases spanning 2000 to 2024, giving us 25 years and hundreds of data points to look through.
Each year the FBI analysts monitor all types of sources and rely on law enforcement to offer information on potential active shooter incidents. If an incident seems to fit the methodology, the facts are reviewed again among partners, including those outside the FBI. The research team even assesses whether updated information or new cases should include or exclude an incident, past or present, from reports.
Why the data holds up
Occasionally I hear criticism of the FBI numbers, questioning why they didn’t include this or that incident. Given that these few incidents produce the most intense media and research coverage out there, it’s virtually impossible to fudge the data because everyone is looking at the same incidents. The FBI’s intent is to create a living data set that can be used by other researchers, so when they get further information, they add that to their work. Like all research efforts, consistency and transparency in data is key to that apples-to-apples view.
Those counting mass shootings, for example, each have their own methodology, often picking incidents where three or four people are killed at the scene. Some include the shooter, some do not. Each research team is looking for a large enough sample to find the data statistically significant. Including or excluding one incident, therefore, is not as impactful when a research goal, for example, is to determine the age or gender of hundreds of people impacted by hundreds of events.
A call to continue prevention
The FBI’s decision to study active shooter incidents alone fell on my shoulders after the Sandy Hook shooting. I was keenly concerned about the threat to law enforcement. How active shooter incidents unfolded and the impact to law enforcement was paramount to the way I designed the FBI’s research. That’s why the FBI includes incidents even where the outcome does not include casualties. Law enforcement’s successful intervention — or a shooter’s decision to kill himself after failing in his goals — still puts law enforcement at high risk.
The 2024 FBI numbers show that three in four incidents ended before law enforcement arrived, and it might look to an outsider that law enforcement is not at risk. But a look over 25 years tells us how often law enforcement has stepped willingly into the breach and the price they have paid. By my count, 132 law enforcement officers have been wounded in the last 25 years, and 36 have paid the ultimate price.
We’ve made progress, but we still need to find ways to prevent the trigger pull from ever occurring.
About the author
Katherine Schweit is an author, attorney, former Chicago prosecutor and career FBI special agent who authored “Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis.” The guidebook is a revealing look into how she counsels clients in her current security consulting business, Schweit Consulting LLC.
After the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, Schweit was promoted to the FBI executive ranks and joined a violence prevention team as part of a White House National Security Council effort within then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office. There, she worked with leaders from other federal agencies gathering best practices from federal and private industry experts, nationally and internationally. She was part of the crisis team responding to incidents, including the shootings at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Pentagon, and the Navy Yard in the Washington D.C. area. She wrote the FBI’s seminal research, “A Study of 160 Active Shooter Incidents in the United States, 2000 – 2013.” This benchmark study is the only research ever done relying on law enforcement reports.
A native of Detroit, Ms. Schweit earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University and wrote for daily newspapers in Michigan and Chicago. She earned a law degree at DePaul University and joined the Cook County prosecutor’s office as an assistant state’s attorney. As a journalist, she earned state and national writing recognition, including a Peter Lisagor Award for her 1990 analysis of discipline meted to judges and attorneys by the Illinois Supreme Court after one of the largest FBI public corruption investigations ever conducted. Today, she lives in Northern Virginia, outside of Washington D.C.
Connect with Katherine Schweit
| WATCH: Is there a valid psychosocial explanation for school shootings? The video below and accompanying article explores the complex psychological and social factors behind school shootings, challenging simplistic narratives and examining how identity, isolation and cultural influences may contribute to the motivations of school shooters. Read more here.
