Mass Killings In North Carolina: Here’s How Many People Have Died

NORTH CAROLINA — At least 55 people have died in 12 mass killings in North Carolina 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 North Carolina, there have been at least five mass killings committed by family members since 2006, resulting in 23 deaths.

Guns were used in all but one of the 12 mass killings in North Carolina.

Mass killings in North Carolina since 2006 include:

• April 28, 2021 — Four people, including two police officers who were fatally shot when conducting a welfare check, were shot and killed in Boone, North Carolina. After a 13-hour standoff, the gunman took his own life.
• June 22, 2020 — Four people in a crowd of about 400 gathered to celebrate Juneteenth were shot and killed in Charlotte. Police found 181 shell casings at the scene.
• March 15, 2020 — Seven family members were found dead in neighboring homes in an apparent murder-suicide in Moncure, North Carolina.
• Jan. 24, 2020 — Police went to check on the Ireland family in Vanceboro, North Carolina after receiving a call from a concerned relative who had not been able to reach their loved ones for days. In the living room of the home, deputies found the bodies of April Ireland, 26, Karen Ireland, 8 months, Michael Jason Ireland, 4, and Bryson Ireland, 3, all with gunshot wounds. In the master bedroom deputies found the family's dog shot dead next to Michael Ray Ireland, 39, who they suspect had killed his wife and children before taking his own life.
• Aug. 21, 2017 — Four assailants broke into the home of a federally-licensed gun salesman (who ran his business from his home) in Whitakers, North Carolina. The salesman, his wife, and another couple who were visiting were fatally shot. Authorities believe robbery was the motive and that the shooting was gang related.
• Dec. 24, 2016 — The gunman shot and killed four members of a family in Wilson, North Carolina due to a drug debt.
• Aug. 16, 2016 — The assailant beat his wife and their children to death in Greenville, North Carolina.
• Nov. 20, 2011 — Less than two days after gaining custody of her deceased sister's three children, a woman shot and killed two of them, along with two of her own children and her son's girlfriend. Police said the stress of the custody case, along with an ended affair, contributed.
• Nov. 1, 2009 — A gunman in Mount Airy, North Carolina killed his girlfriend's adult relatives and friends with a high-powered assault rifle after a romantic dispute.
• March 29, 2009 — A gunman entered a nursing home where his estranged wife worked and fatally shot seven elderly patients and a nurse.
• March 12, 2009 — A couple decided to steal a drug shipment from their partner in an opium ring. At the partner's Conover home, they killed his wife and three children. They died a week later in Utah while fleeing police.
• March 24, 2008 — Four people were found shot to death in a Charlotte apartment complex. More than a decade later, police made an arrest in the case. Charlotte investigators said the victims “were involved in a lifestyle that put them in jeopardy.”

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.

Patch graphic/Rich Scinto