The FBI said active shooter incidents increased by more than fifty percent in 2021, while resulting deaths also surged to 103, nearly tripling from the previous year, USA Today reports. The new data, which identified 61 such attacks in 30 states, comes just over a week after 10 people were killed at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store by a gunman who allegedly targeted his victims because they were Black. According to the FBI report, the 103 deaths last year were up from 38 killed in 2020. Federal authorities define an active shooter as a "individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined or populated area."
As in Buffalo, last year's most deadly attack occurred in a grocery store, where 10 people were killed at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Co. In that incident, the assault was allegedly carried out by a lone gunman whose prosecution has been on hold because of his mental competency. Of the 61 incidents, all but one were allegedly carried out by male attackers, who ranged in age from 12 to 67 Fourteen of them were killed by law enforcement.