Was the Crown Center gunfire that hurt 6 a mass shooting? It depends on who you ask

Six people were injured and others detained by police after gunfire broke out in Kansas City’s Crown Center shopping mall Wednesday night.

Was the incident a mass shooting?

Witnesses told authorities that a verbal argument between two groups of young people preceded the shooting. The six known victims all had injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening, Kansas City Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Jake Becchina said Wednesday night.

It’s unclear whether these victims were involved in the altercation or were unrelated bystanders.

Deciding whether the gunfire at Crown Center qualifies as a mass shooting depends on what definition you use. Here are a few definitions from different organizations, compared with the facts of the Crown Center shooting.

Federal Bureau of Investigation definition

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI defines a “mass shooting” as any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun.

Notably, this definition requires that victims die in order for an incident to be considered a mass shooting. The Crown Center gunfire wouldn’t qualify under this definition, since the six victims are not expected to die from their injuries.

The FBI’s Kansas City office did not immediately respond on Thursday to a request for clarification on the agency’s definition of a mass shooting.

Definition used by research and advocacy groups

The Gun Violence Archive is a nonprofit organization that collects data on gun violence and mass shootings in the United States. The group defines a mass shooting as “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”

Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit research and political advocacy organization, adopted the same definition in March of 2023. Everytown is the parent organization of the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. The Brady Campaign, another gun violence prevention group, also uses the Gun Violence Archive’s definition of a mass shooting.

Six people were injured at Crown Center, but it’s still unknown how many of them were actually shot, as some may have sustained injuries other than bullet wounds. It’s also unknown at this time how many of the six victims were involved in the gunfire — including how many were shooters themselves.

USA Today

The USA Today network, which includes dozens of local news outlets around the United States, defines a mass shooting as “an incident where at least four people are hit with gunfire, even if there are no fatalities.”

If four of the six victims of the Crown Center shooting sustained their injuries directly from gunshots, that means the shooting would qualify as a mass shooting under this definition.

Do you have more questions about gun violence in Kansas City? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.