Three years ago, RealClearInvestigations reported that the FBI was undercounting the number of armed civilians who had thwarted active shooters by a factor of three.
Even though the FBI acknowledged the issue at the time, it never corrected the error involving the politically fraught issue. In the years since, the problem has only gotten worse. Since RCI’s 2022 article, the FBI has acknowledged just three additional incidents of armed good Samaritans stopping active shooters from 2022 to 2024, and none in the last two years. In contrast, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I head, has documented 78 such cases over that same period – a 26-fold difference.
The discrepancy highlights systemic problems in the nation’s record-keeping regarding the politically potent issue of crime and safety. The refusal of many local jurisdictions, including Chicago, Maricopa County, Arizona, and New Orleans, to provide accurate crime data to the FBI has long made comparisons with many cities unreliable. The ongoing Justice Department investigation into whether Washington D.C. police falsified crime rates to create a “false illusion of safety” may provide more evidence to distrust the numbers that local authorities submit.
The FBI has the ability to set the record straight in at least some cases, providing a clearer view of remedies to crime. But its unwillingness to correct errors – or its efforts to fix them on the sly, as RCI reported last year – and improve its methodology raises more concerns. Its shortcomings regarding armed citizens thwarting active shooters illuminate many of these problems.
“It is understandable that the FBI or those they hire to compile cases might miss some,” said Carl Moody, a crime researcher at the College of William & Mary. “I don’t understand why the FBI never corrects overlooked or misidentified active shooting cases, even after researchers and the media point them out. I worry that we can’t trust the FBI with crime data.”
The FBI declined to comment.
Hellbound and Down 