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Table 2 Incident characteristics* by homicide type, National Violent Death Reporting System, 2003–2017**

From: Examining differences between mass, multiple, and single-victim homicides to inform prevention: findings from the National Violent Death Reporting System

 

         Incidents

 
 

Mass homicide

n(%)

Multiple homicide

n(%)

Single homicide

n(%)

Chi-square p-value

Total

141

3,439

74,623

 

Location of Incident

 Private home/apartment

95 (67.4) b

2,019 (58.7) c

35,113 (47.1)

< 0.001

 Public location

29 (20.6) a,b

1,033 (30.0) c

35,171 (47.1)

< 0.001

 More than one location

16 (11.4) b

328 (9.5) c

 

< 0.001

 Unknown

1 (0.7) b

59 (1.7) c

4,339 (5.8)

< 0.001

Primary weapon used to inflict fatal injuries

 Firearm

104 (74.3) a

2,810 (82.3) c

49,509 (69.2)

< 0.001

 Other

36 (25.7) a

604 (17.7) c

22,062 (30.8)

< 0.001

Number of weapons used to inflict fatal injuries

 1

120 (85.7) a,b

3,208 (93.5) c

72,460 (99.6)

< 0.001

 2

17 (12.1) a,b

210 (6 1) c

313 (0.4)

< 0.001

 3+

3 (2.1) b

14 (0.4) c

0 (0)

< 0.001

One or more nonfatally shot

30 (21.3) b

561 (16.3) c

6,008 (8.1)

< 0.001

Number nonfatally shot

 0

107 (75.9) b

2,774 (80.7) c

62,525 (83.8)

< 0.001

 1

14 (9.9)

398 (11.6) c

4,695 (6.3)

< 0.001

 2

5 (3.6)

95 (2.8) c

920 (1.2)

< 0.001

 3+

11 (7. 8) a,b

68 (2.0) c

393 (0.5)

< 0.001

 Unknown

4 (2. 8)

104 (3.0) c

6,090 (8.2)

< 0.001

Perpetrated by more than one suspect***

23 (18.3)

563 (20.0) c

9,106 (16.4)

< 0.001

Circumstances d

 Interpersonal violence/life stressor

  Intimate partner violence-related

41 (34.5) a,b

622 (21.9) c

9,637 (17.4)

< 0.001

  Family relationship problem e

18 (28.1) a,b

184 (12.0) c

1,480 (5.2)

< 0.001

  Crisis during previous or upcoming 2 weeks f

24 (27.3) a,b

354 (16.7) c

3,760 (9.4)

< 0.001

  Argument or conflict

31 (26.1) b

947 (33.3) c

22,757 (41.1)

< 0.001

  Perpetrator of interpersonal violence in past month f

13 (14.8) b

202 (9.5) c

1,697 (4.2)

< 0.001

  Other relationship problem (non-intimate or family) e

4 (6.3)

90 (5.9)

1,473 (5.2)

0.46

  Victim of interpersonal violence in past month f

3 (3.4)

54 (2.6)

996 (2.5)

0.84

  Jealousy (lovers’ triangle)

3 (2.5)

159 (5.6) c

2,001 (3.6)

< 0.001

  Physical fight (2 people, not a brawl) e

1 (1.6) b

90 (5.9) c

4,006 (14.0)

< 0.001

  Brawl

1 (0 8)

56 (2.0)

1,223 (2.2)

0.42

 Crime-related

  Drug involvement

15 (12.6)

513 (18.0) c

7,175 (13.0)

< 0.001

  Gang-related

7 (5.9)

235 (8.3) c

3,790 (6.8)

0.01

  Drive-by shooting

3 (2.5)

151 (5.3)

2,883 (5.2)

0.41

  Hate crime

2 (1.7) b

10 (0.4) c

73 (0.13)

< 0.001

  Terrorist attack

2 (1.7) b

4 (0.1) c

6 (0.01)

< 0.001

  Walk by assault e

0 (0)

64 (4.2) c

1,632 (5.7)

0.01

 Other

  Victim(s) killed at work

12 (10.1) a,b

120 (4.2) c

1,580 (2.9)

< 0.001

  Random violence f, ****

7 (8.0) b

77 (3.6) c

861 (2.1)

< 0.001

  Victim used a weapon

6 (5.0)

257 (9.0) c

3,209 (5.8)

< 0.001

  Victim was a bystander

6 (5.0) b

171 (6.0) c

973 (1.8)

< 0.001

  Justifiable self defense

5 (4.2)

87 (3.1)

1,584 (2.9)

0.56

  1. * To consolidate information about incidents with > 1 homicide, the authors developed an incident-level dataset with one record per incident (1 or more homicide victims) to describe all victims and suspects in the incident. This avoids overrepresenting data such as incident circumstances and suspect demographics associated with multi-victim homicides by counting these characteristics once per incident instead of once per victim
  2. **All 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are currently funded to participate in NVDRS, but at the time of this study several of the newer states/jurisdictions had not yet completed a data collection cycle and therefore are not included. States and jurisdictions were first funded to participate in NVDRS in different years. Data for this study comes from the following 37 states/jurisdictions: Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia (2003–2017); Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin (2004–2017); Kentucky, New Mexico, and Utah (2005–2017); Ohio (2010–2017); Michigan (2014–2017); Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington (2015–2017); Hawaii (2015–2016); California, Delaware, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (2017). Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington collected data on ≥80% of violent deaths in their state, in accordance with requirements under which these states were funded. Data for California are for violent deaths that occurred in four counties (Los Angeles, Sacramento, Shasta, and Siskiyou)
  3. *** Percentages are based on the number of incidents with known suspect information: mass (126), multiple (2,826), single (55,468). The sum of percentages in columns may exceed 100% because more than one circumstance could have been present per incident
  4. ****Random violence is defined as an act in which the suspect is not concerned with who is being harmed, just that someone is being harmed. An example of random violence is an incident in which a person who shoots randomly at passing cars from a highway bridge or opens fire in a crowded shopping mall
  5. aStatistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence between mass versus multiple homicide
  6. bStatistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence between mass versus single-victim homicide
  7. cStatistically significant difference (p < .05) of the prevalence between multiple versus single-victim homicide
  8. dUnless otherwise specified, percentages are based on incidents with known circumstances: Mass = 119; Multiple = 2,843; Single = 55,416
  9. eCircumstances introduced in 2013; denominator adjusted to include only years 2013–2017
  10. fCircumstances introduced in 2009; denominator adjusted to include only years 2009–2017
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Injury Epidemiology

ISSN: 2197-1714