Some San Jose State community members are apprehensive about the prospect of returning to campus in fall, as there have been more mass shootings in 2021 than there have been days.
There have been 182 people killed in 169 mass shootings nationwide this year alone, according to the website of Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit that provides data on mass shootings.
Jacob Clark, a science and mechanical engineering graduate student, said he’s slightly hesitant to come back to campus because he thinks mass shootings will become more common as businesses and activities resume.
“[Potential shooters] have been festering in their rage for the whole year,” Clark said in a Zoom call. “So all these people suddenly, they’re able to go see these crowds they couldn’t see before and get the news attention they craved before.”
GVA defines mass shootings as an incident where at least four people, not including the shooter, are killed or injured.
There’s no standard definition of a mass shooting and many organizations, media outlets, researchers and law enforcement agencies often use different definitions, according to an April 6, 2020 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) article.
The NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Mass shootings typically occur in a public place with a single shooter and most victims are killed or wounded indiscriminately, according to the same NIJ article.
Not all students share Clark’s hesitancy. Computer engineering senior Dagan Johnson said he feels safe enough to live in the dorms, but doesn’t discount the possibility of a mass shooting on campus.
“[The University Police Department] is in the middle of the school,” Johnson said in a Zoom call. “They could get to any side of the school in like three or four minutes. When I have had to call the cops in the past, they’ve gotten to the dorms pretty quickly or wherever I’ve been at the time.”
UPD Capt. Frank Belcastro said the department has a behavioral investigation team that evaluates concerning incidents on campus and conducts threat analyses of those occurrences.
Belcastro said the team connects with the FBI, Santa Clara County, the California State University system and the San Jose Police Department, especially its intelligence unit, in cases of threats.
The team also connects with the Northern California Information Center, a regional information center that provides intel on active threats in the area, he said.
Belcastro also said UPD is trained for an active shooter.
There’s never been a defined mass shooting on the SJSU campus, according to the GVA website. However, mass shootings have occurred next to campus.
Two San Jose residents were killed and five were shot in a mass shooting on South 8th Street, according to a Sept. 16, 2020 CBS Bay Area article.
A crowd was gathered on the sidewalk at a memorial for a local car crash victim when a man in a white car drove by and started shooting. The shooter was never caught, according to the same CBS Bay Area article.
There’s been more mass shootings between Jan. 1 and April 9 than in 2018, 2019 and 2020, according to the GVA website. In 2021’s first quarter, there were 133 mass shootings. Last year had the second-most shootings with 81 incidents in the same time period.
The U.S. federal criminal code lacks a clear mass shooting offense, which could explain the various definitions or why different criminal offenses are used when convicting mass shooters, according to the NIJ article.
Justice studies lecturer Greg Woods said the increase in mass shootings isn’t just a gun issue, but also a mental health issue.
Woods said mental health is neglected in the U.S., and the pandemic has exacerbated it further as many people have dealt with hardships in isolation that can destroy mental well-being.
“Think about the impact isolation would have when it comes to seeking help,” Woods said in a Zoom call. “We don’t have the ability to reach those people who need it most with mental health services.”
Johnson said he believes if there was a mass shooting on campus, the perpetrator would be a community member, not a student, because students have access to more mental health resources including the Student Wellness Center.
“I feel like there are resources apparent for people that are in any sort of mental distress, at least for students,” Johnson said in a Zoom call. “But that doesn’t necessarily protect us from anybody that’s just in downtown.”
Belcastro said UPD will always consider the type of threats that affect the campus community, including the annual number of gun violence deaths and current mental health crisis.
He said the CSU critical response unit and various other “resources” would respond if the campus needed more aid.
The CSU critical response unit is a highly-trained unit comprised of police officers from across the CSU and is available to all CSU campuses with “critical incidents, emergencies and disasters,” according to the unit’s webpage.
The unit would be dispatched if the chancellor approved the request, according to the same webpage.
Woods said while it seems like an easy solution, gun control wouldn’t stop mass shootings because there are more guns than U.S. residents and the majority of criminals don’t use a firearm they legally own.
However, he said holding gun-producing companies accountable for what their guns are used for might help hinder mass shootings.
Woods also said several countries lack gun laws but they don’t face nearly as many mass shootings.
“It's really interesting that Canada has the same access to firearms as we do in the [U.S.] but they don’t have the crime,” Woods said. “Greenland has the access to firearms but they don’t have the crime. Why is that? It must be something unique to our American experience.”
