Wilkinsburg is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The borough has a population of 14,349 as of the 2020 census. Wilkinsburg is located as part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. The borough was named for John Wilkins Jr., a United States Army officer who served as Quartermaster General of the United States Army from 1796 to 1802.
An active shooter is the perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting. The term is primarily used to characterize shooters who are targeting victims indiscriminately and at a large scale, who oftentimes, will either commit suicide or intend to be killed by police. More generally, an active perpetrator of a mass murder may be referred to as an active killer.
Kayla Renee Rolland was an American six-year-old girl from Mount Morris Township, Michigan, United States, who was fatally shot on February 29, 2000, by a six-year-old male classmate at Buell Elementary School in the Beecher Community School District. The boy had found the gun while living at his uncle's house; the house was a crack house where guns were frequently traded for drugs.
The timeline of some of the most relevant events in the Mexican drug war is set out below. Although violence between drug cartels had been occurring for three decades, the Mexican government held a generally passive stance regarding cartel violence through the 1980s and early 2000s.
On April 4, 2009, a shootout occurred at 1016 Fairfield Street in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, stemming from a mother and her 22-year-old son's argument over a dog urinating in the house. At approximately 7:11 a.m. EDT, 22-year-old Richard Poplawski opened fire on two Pittsburgh Police officers responding to a 9-1-1 call from Poplawski's mother, who was attempting to get the police officers to remove her son from the home. Despite Poplawski's mother telling the 9-1-1 operator that Poplawski had guns, the police officers were not told. Three police officers were ultimately confirmed dead, and another two were seriously injured.
The Collier Township shooting, also referred to as the Bridgeville LA Fitness shooting, was a mass shooting and murder-suicide that took place on August 4, 2009, in an LA Fitness health club in Collier Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The attack resulted in four deaths, including the perpetrator, George Sodini, who killed himself. Nine other people were injured. The fitness center is approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Pittsburgh, in the Great Southern Shopping Center, a strip mall located in the Kirwan Heights section of Collier Township, just outside of the borough of Bridgeville.
A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers kill or injure multiple individuals simultaneously using a firearm. There is no widely accepted definition, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are often characterized by the indiscriminate targeting of victims in a non-combat setting, and thus the term generally excludes gang violence, shootouts and warfare. Mass shootings may be done for personal or psychological reasons, but have also been used as a terrorist tactic. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
Odin Leonardo John Lloyd was a semi-professional American football player who was murdered by Aaron Hernandez, a former tight end for the New England Patriots of the National Football League, in North Attleborough, Massachusetts, on June 17, 2013. Lloyd's death made international headlines following Hernandez's association with the investigation as a suspect. Lloyd had been a linebacker for a New England Football League (NEFL) semi-professional football team, the Boston Bandits, since 2007.
Edward C. Gainey is an American politician who is the 61st mayor of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Previously, he served as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from the 24th district. In November 2021, Gainey became the first African-American to become the mayor of Pittsburgh and assumed office on January 3, 2022.
Eric Matthew Frein is an American domestic terrorist and murderer, convicted and sentenced to death for the 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack in which he shot and killed one State Trooper, and seriously injured another. A letter to his parents made it clear that he hoped to spark a revolution by his actions.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims.
Antwon Rose II was a 17-year-old African-American who was fatally shot in East Pittsburgh on June 19, 2018, by police officer Michael Rosfeld after being suspected of attempted murder by participating in a drive-by shooting. According to the police report, Rose had an empty handgun magazine in his pocket and gunshot residue on his hand. Allegheny County Medical Examiner Daniel Wolfe said the residue was likely the result of Rose firing a gun. He was transported to UPMC where he was later declared deceased.
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was an antisemitic terrorist attack that took place at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshipped in the building, was attacked during Shabbat morning services on October 27, 2018. The perpetrator killed eleven people and wounded six, including several Holocaust survivors. It has so far been the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in American history, seconded by the 2019 Jersey City shooting committed by a Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI).
On October 24, 2018, a man and woman were shot and killed by a gunman at a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, a suburb of Louisville.
On November 17, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Fresno, California football watch party with 35 to 40 attendees where four people were fatally shot and six others were injured.
On March 22, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Ten people were killed, including a local on-duty police officer. The shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, was arrested after being shot in the right leg. He was temporarily hospitalized before being moved to the county jail. After undergoing mental evaluations during the legal proceedings, Al-Issa was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in December 2021 and in April 2022. On August 23, 2023, prosecutors announced that Al-Issa was mentally competent to stand trial; a judge ruled as such on October 6 of that same year. On September 23, 2024, Al-Issa was found guilty in the shooting and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On May 30, 2021, twenty-three people were shot, of whom three were killed, in a mass shooting outside a banquet hall in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. Some of the suspects in the shooting are still at large.
On March 1, 2000, a racially motivated shooting spree occurred in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, when 39-year-old Ronald Taylor, a black man who embraced anti-white and anti-semitic ideologies, shot and killed three white men and wounded two others within an eight block radius, primarily at local Burger King and McDonald's restaurants. Hours later, Taylor surrendered to police and was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death the following year. He was incarcerated at SCI Phoenix in eastern Pennsylvania until his death in 2024.
