(NewsNation) — There have been at least 22 shootings in the United States with four or more fatalities in 2024, according to a website that tracks them. Nearly half of these have occurred since the start of the summer, a time when violence typically surges.
In total, there have been at least 385 shootings this year where at least four people were killed or injured, according to Gun Violence Archive. The not-for-profit organization based this statistic on what it calls “mass shootings” off information from over 7,500 law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources. Gun Violence Archive defines “mass shootings” as ones where four or more people are wounded or killed.
Officials in Georgia responded to one such incident Wednesday on the campus of Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Four people were reported dead, and nine others were injured in the shooting. Two of the dead were students and two were teachers. A suspect, a 14-year-old student, is in custody. He is expected to be charged with murder, police said.
Gov. Brian Kemp said in a statement that he was praying for the “safety of those in our classrooms.”
“I have directed all available state resources to respond to the incident at Apalachee High School and urge all Georgians to join my family in praying for the safety of those in our classrooms, both in Barrow County and across the state,” the statement said.
Just days before the shooting in Georgia, four people were killed early Monday morning in a shooting on a train in suburban Chicago. NewsNation local affiliate WGN reports that the victims were shot as they slept on a Chicago Transportation Authority train, and likely did not see the shooting coming their way. The alleged shooter, a 30-year-old man from Chicago, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
“I’m grieving. My heart goes out to those families and to those who lost their lives in this senseless, wicked act,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said.
Earlier this year, also in Illinois, there was a string of attacks over two days in Joliet and Will County that left eight dead and one injured. The suspect in that January incident died by suicide during a confrontation with authorities in Texas after a manhunt. Another shooting in January, in which six men died in San Bernardino County, California, was likely from a dispute over marijuana, authorities said. All victims in that cause were shot, and four were burned. Five suspects in that case were arrested.
NewsNation digital producer Sean Noone contributed to this report.
