A rifle and a handgun. That’s what the gunman was carrying when he entered the soon-to-be crime scene. In the end he killed himself.
A familiar story. Now let’s fill in the details.
The gunman entered Natalie Medical Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma, part of a hospital complex, on Wednesday. Officers rushed to the scene and arrived at about 5 pm. They confronted the shooter at an orthopedic clinic on the second floor where officers discovered the shooter and several victims.
Tulsa Police Department Deputy Chief Eric Dalgleish said, “It appears both weapons at one point or another were fired on the scene. The officers who arrived were hearing shots in the building, and that’s what led them to the second floor.”
Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg said several people were wounded.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents arrived at the building and a reunification center was set up at the nearby high school to attend to the needs of families looking for information about their loved ones.
The public is bombarded with news about shootings every day. We’re still recovering from the shock of the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas last week. Every day there is a single victim shooting in the US that we rarely hear about.
This Memorial Day weekend there were several mass shootings across the US:
- Eight people aged 9-56 were shot and one died at a festival in Taft, Oklahoma on Sunday morning.
- In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a fight resulted in six children aged 13-15 being wounded on Saturday night.
- Three officers and ten other people were wounded or injured in Charleston, South Carolina on Memorial Day in the evening at a street gathering.
- In Benton Harbor, Michigan, six people were wounded and a 19-year-old man was killed at a club and liquor store.
- A 16-year-old girl was wounded in a shooting incident in Chicago.
- In Arkansas, a 7-year-old girl was killed near the Little Rock Zoo on Saturday.
- A young man was killed at a birthday party in Chicago over the weekend.
- Chicago reported 32 shooting incidents this weekend. Forty-seven people were shot and nine died.
- Two women died and two other were injured in Philadelphia.
According to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University mass killing database, since January, there has been 12 mass shootings (shootings where four or more people were killed). These shootings left 76 people dead, including the 31 adults and children killed in the recent Buffalo and Texas shootings. Add to that number, the shooters who killed themselves or were killed by police.
Another source, The Gun Violence Archive, recorded at least 14 mass shootings, across the country over Memorial Weekend alone.
The archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which “four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.”
Statistics may vary, but unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware that American communities are under threat and our children are being targeted in schools, churches, malls and hospital centers.
In a post on Twitter, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly responded to his frustration about the shooting that occurred in Chattanooga, where six children were shot on Saturday night.
“I am heartbroken for the families and the victims whose lives were upended last night by gunfire. No parent should ever have to get that call,” he said.
“But I am also angry. Six teenagers were shot last night in what we believe was an altercation between other teenagers. And once again, I’m standing here in front of you talking about our community’s youth getting shot. That’s outrageous and it has to stop.”
“It’s ridiculous that I even need to publicly state that guns have no place in the hands of our kids,” Kelly said.