How to Find Data on Shootings
Shootings in Baltimore, MD in less than a month period There are many different datasets currently being curated involving shootings - homicides involving firearms, suicides involving firearms, accidental shootings, police involved shootings, mass shootings - but nothing specifically to track all shootings, no matter the circumstance. SpotCrime is the only crime mapping company that intentionally breaks out shootings from assaults and makes a shooting it’s own stand alone icon. In many cases, this is not an easy task. Police agencies identify shootings a couple of ways so the ability for residents to identify when a shooting occurs becomes difficult. Occasionally shooting data is easy to find, and other times it is buried under complex systems of crime classifications. We’ve found that CAD data sets identify shootings immediately, mainly because they have not been assigned a crime classification yet (think UCR/NIBRS). RMS (Records Management System) data can be great if t...