News coverage in the days following the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, relied upon a common source for context: The AP/USATODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killing database. That’s because it’s the most comprehensive, most up-to-date repository of information on U.S. mass killings, says James Alan Fox, who is a criminologist at Northeastern University and one of the nation’s leading researchers on mass murder.
It’s research by Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern, and his colleagues that underpins the database.
“There’s a lot of misinformation floating around when it comes to mass murder,” Fox says. “My hope is that this database will be a standard place where people can get the most valid information.”