Data On Mass Killings In Arizona Reveals Domestic Violence Trend

ARIZONA — At least 63 people have died in 14 mass killings in Arizona since 2006, according to data compiled by The Associated Press and made available to Patch.

Nationally, more than 2,400 people have died in 457 mass killings — defined by The AP as incidents in which four or more people died — in the past 15-year, four-month period.

They died by gunfire nearly 80 percent of the time (stabbings were the second-most frequent cause of death, occurring in 7 percent of cases); and victims died at the hands of family members almost as often as they did in school, workplace and other public venues.

The danger people face inside their homes at the hands of family members is echoed in a recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice showing that domestic violence spiked by 8.1 percent in the United States following the imposition of stay-at-home warnings to control the spread of the coronavirus.

"I'm just thinking of the toll that it's taken on victims of domestic violence, and then the children in the house who experience and witness that violence," researcher Alex Piquero, a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Miami and a criminologist who co-authored the study, told U.S. News & World Report.

Over the period analyzed by The AP, 998 people died in 219 mass killings committed by family members.

In Arizona, there have been nine mass killings committed by family members since 2006, resulting in 34 deaths.

Guns were used in 13 of the 14 mass killings in Arizona.

Mass killings in Arizona since 2006 include:

• Scottsdale (May 30, 2018): Dwight Jones had a history of mental illness and domestic violence. He had used abusive language towards his son, and then beat up his wife. After his arrest for domestic violence, he was court-ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and was involuntarily committed to a behavioral health facility. After nine years, he posted a YouTube video detailing his beliefs that there was a conspiracy between his ex-wife, psychiatrist, the law firm, and the local government to keep his son away from him. He then killed his psychiatrist, two paralegals who worked for his wife's law firm, a man that happened to be renting the office of a therapist that saw his son, and two friends.
• Casa Grande (Oct. 5, 2017): Alec Perez had repeatedly abused his recent wife, and she had gotten a restraining order against him. He threatened to kill her, and told her he'd be back with the right people. He and another man murdered her and three others.
• Phoenix (Feb. 23, 2016): A 26-year-old shot and killed his mother, father, and two younger sisters in their family home before being killed by police. The suspect also set the house on fire, impeding police efforts to rescue any potential survivors.
• Tempe (Oct. 18, 2015): Police say Glenn Edward Baxter, 27, deliberately drove his estranged wife's SUV into a suburban lake, with Danica Baxter, 25, and the couple's three young children seatbelted inside. The whole family drowned.
• Tucson (May 12, 2015): A man diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia shot his parents, brother and 17-year-old niece at the family's longtime home. He killed himself before police arrived.
• Phoenix (April 16, 2015): A dispute over how to run the family limousine business ended with Driss M. Diaeddinn shooting his two brothers, mother and sister-in-law at home. His wife and children escaped. Diaeddinn held police at bay for hours before committing suicide.
• Phoenix (Oct. 26, 2013): Michael Guzzo, 56, used a shotgun to kill the family next door — a man, his daughter, her husband and their son. He also killed two of their five dogs. He crossed a courtyard, fired into a unit where dogs were barking, returned home and killed himself.
• Tempe (June 2, 2012): Facing a brain tumor and a bitter divorce, James Butwin killed his wife and three children, loaded their bodies in an SUV, took it to the desert and set it afire. A business partner called police after finding "blood everywhere" at the family's home.
• Gilbert (May 2, 2012): Jason "J.T." Ready, a well-known white supremacist who had run for public office, shot his girlfriend, three of her family members and then himself. In February, police told Ready's girlfriend to get a protective order against him; she declined.
• Yuma (June 2, 2011): One morning, four years after his fifth divorce, Carey Hal Dyess, 73, drove around Yuma County, shooting six people, five of them fatally: his latest ex-wife, three of her friends and her divorce lawyer. He then pulled over and killed himself.
• Tucson (Jan. 8, 2011): Jared Lee Loughner went to an event for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and shot her and constituents waiting to speak with her. Six died and 13 others, including Giffords, were hurt. Loughner pleaded guilty in 2013 to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to life.
• Lake Havasu City (Aug. 28, 2010): Brian Diez, 26, barged into his ex-girlfriend's house, shot dead five adults and took his two young children. He brought the kids to a relative in California before committing suicide. His ex, who was killed, had a restraining order against Diez.
• Phoenix (May 16, 2006): The bodies of four adults were discovered outside a car in a recreation area near Phoenix International Raceway. All had been shot. There have been no arrests.
• Mesa (Feb. 21, 2006): William Miller, 28, of Scottsdale, Ariz., was sentenced to death for murdering two former employees, Steven Duffy, 30, and Tammy Lovell, 32. They were working as police informants in an arson case against Miller, who also killed three of their relatives.

The AP database does not come close to measuring the enormous scope of gun violence and its toll on victims and their families, witnesses, first responders and society in general.

Much of the focus on mass killings has been on instances when a shooter opens fire in a crowded public place, as multimillionaire Stephen Paddock did in 2017 when he fired upon a concert crowd on the street below his Mandalay Bay hotel room, killing 60 people (two of the victims died years later from their injuries). Of the 867 people injured, 411 were by gunfire.

But experts say mass killings with high death counts are only a part of America’s problem with gun violence, overshadowing the increase in domestic and interpersonal violence.

Lisa Geller, state affairs manager at the nonprofit Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in Washington, told NBC News those shootings and killings are often seen as “private events.”

“If we're talking about mass shootings, those tend to be left out because they're seen as private events,” Geller said. “Some of these high-lethality events are inherently random, but if you include some of the events in private spaces, the role of domestic violence in mass shootings is large.”

What happened in 2020, a year many Americans spent isolated in their homes to control the spread of the coronavirus, bears that out.

Last year, there were 108 mass killings. That’s fewer than half the total of 237 in 2019, but the number of mass killings committed by family members increased.

In 2020, there were 31 such killings that left 136 people dead, compared with 20 mass killings that left 88 people dead in 2019.

The trend so far in 2021 is alarming, and if it continues at the current pace, the year will be as deadly as previous years. The AP database, current through April 28, shows a dozen mass killings with 68 total victims, five of them committed by family members and leaving 23 people dead.

The AP database does not include those who died in a spate of mass killings already in May, including those at a deadly Colorado birthday party over the weekend.

• Six people died in mass killings in 2018
• Four people died in mass killings in 2017
• Four people died in mass killings in 2016
• 12 people died in mass killings in 2015
• 4 people died in mass killings in 2013
• 8 people died in mass killings in 2012
• 11 people died in mass killings in 2011
• 5 people died in mass killings in 2010
• 9 people died in mass killings in 2006