The D.C. sniper attacks were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Ten people were killed, and three others were critically wounded.
John Allen Muhammad was an American convicted murderer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He, along with his partner and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, a native of Kingston, Jamaica, carried out the D.C. sniper attacks of October 2002, killing 10 people. Muhammad and Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert citizens. Although the actions of the two individuals were classified by the media as psychopathy attributable to serial killer characteristics, whether or not their psychopathy meets this classification or as a spree killer is debated by researchers.
Murder, Inc. was an organized crime group, active from 1929 to 1941, that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate – a closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia.
Lee Boyd Malvo, also known as John Lee Malvo, is a convicted murderer who, along with John Allen Muhammad, committed a series of murders dubbed the D.C. sniper attacks over a three-week period in October 2002. Malvo was aged 17 during the span of the shootings. Currently, he is serving multiple life sentences at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, a supermax prison. Muhammad was executed in 2009.
Thomas Hurndall was a British photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On 11 April 2003, he was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper, Taysir Hayb. Hurndall was left in a coma and died nine months later.
The Algiers Motel incident occurred in Detroit, Michigan, United States, throughout the night of July 25–26, 1967, during the racially charged 12th Street Riot. At the Algiers Motel, approximately one mile east of where the riot began, three civilians were killed and nine others abused by a riot task force composed of the Detroit Police Department, the Michigan State Police, and the Michigan Army National Guard. Among the casualties were three black teenage boys killed, and two white women and seven black men wounded as a result. The task force was searching the area after reports were received that a gunman or group of gunmen, possibly snipers, had been seen at or near the motel.
James Henry Dominic Miller was a Welsh cameraman, producer, and director, and recipient of numerous awards, including five Emmy Awards. He was killed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gunfire while filming a documentary in the Gaza Strip. Miller worked regularly with Saira Shah for several years, and they formed a business partnership to operate an independent production company called Frostbite Productions in 2001.
The "Zebra" murders were a string of racially motivated murders and related attacks committed by a group of four black serial killers in San Francisco, California, United States, from October 1973 to April 1974; they killed at least 15 people and wounded eight others. Police gave the case the name "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned to the investigation.
Thomas Lee Dillon was an American serial killer who shot and killed five men in southeastern Ohio, beginning April 1, 1989 and continuing until April 1992. He was nicknamed "Killer" for boasting about shooting hundreds of animals.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., better known by the nickname Grim Sleeper, was an American serial killer who was responsible for at least 10 murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1984 to 2007. He was also convicted for rape and sexual violence. Franklin earned his nickname when he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002.
On the morning of September 4, 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, members of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), ostensibly responding to a call from an officer under fire, shot and killed two civilians at the Danziger Bridge: 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison. Four other civilians were wounded. All the victims were African-American. None were armed or had committed any crime. Madison, a mentally disabled man, was shot in the back. The shootings caused public anger and further eroded the trust New Orleans had in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the NOPD.
James Craig Anderson was a 47-year-old African American man who was murdered in a hate crime in Jackson, Mississippi on June 26, 2011, by 18-year-old Deryl Dedmon of Brandon. At the time of his death, Anderson was working on the assembly line at the Nissan plant in Canton, and raising an adopted son with his partner.
The Beitunia killings refers to the consecutive killings of two Palestinian teenagers, which took place on the occasion of the annual Nakba Day protests on May 15, 2014, near the Israeli Ofer Prison outside Beitunia in the occupied West Bank. Israel described the protest as a riot in which a crowd refused to disperse, and initially denied responsibility, saying the cause of the deaths was unknown, the deaths were faked, that video clips of the killings either failed to capture the violence of the scene shortly before or might have been manipulated, that soldiers had been provoked and that only rubber bullets had been fired.
On April 4, 2015, Walter Scott, a 50-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Michael Slager, a local police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Slager had stopped Scott for a non-functioning brake light. Slager was charged with murder after a video surfaced showing him shooting Scott from behind while Scott was fleeing, which contradicted Slager's report of the incident. The racial difference led many to believe that the shooting was racially motivated, generating a widespread controversy.
On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among the fatalities was the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. Emanuel AME is one of the oldest black churches in the United States, and it has long been a center for civil rights organizing.
A mass shooting occurred on September 24, 2017, when a gunman opened fire at the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, part of the Greater Nashville area, killing one person and injuring six others.
The Seminole Heights serial killer is an alleged serial killer who is believed to have murdered four people, three men and one woman, in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Florida, in October and November 2017. All four victims were shot dead seemingly at random.
On the night of September 6, 2018, 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean was murdered when off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger entered Jean's apartment in Dallas, Texas and fatally shot him. Guyger, who said that she had entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own and believed Jean to be a burglar, was initially charged with manslaughter. The absence of a murder charge led to protests and accusations of racial bias, since Jean was an African American and unarmed and was killed in his own home by a white off-duty officer who had apparently disregarded police protocols. On November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on a charge of murder. On October 1, 2019, she was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment the following day. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2021.
One-year-old Antonio Santiago was murdered on March 21, 2013, during an attempted robbery in Brunswick, Georgia, United States. As Santiago and his mother, Sherry West, were returning home from the post office, they were confronted by two youths, 15-year-old Dominique Lang and 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins. Elkins, who had previously shot another victim he tried to rob, pointed a gun at West and demanded money. When she did not comply he fired two .22-caliber bullets, one of which grazed her head, and the other of which went through her leg. He then shot Santiago in the face, killing him. The murder received national as well as international attention due to the victim's young age.
