​2024 Preliminary Findings

School Shootings in the United States

July 26, 1764 - July 26, 2024

Public Security Professionals

The Rosack Group, LLC

Contact: PIO@RosackGroup.org

Key Preliminary Findings:


  • 746 incidents from 26 July 1764 to 26 July 2024 (260 years)
  • 709 total fatalities
  • 1,233 total injuries
  • 1,942 total casualties
  • 678 of 746 incidents resulted in casualties (90.88%)
  • 472 of 746 incidents resulted in injuries (63.27%)
  • 356 of 746 incidents resulted in fatalities (47.72%)
  • Most Fatal Incident (33): The Virginia Tech shooting of Monday, April 16, 2007, comprised two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia. SEUNG-HUI CHO, an undergraduate student at the university, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. CHO committed suicide.
  • Incident With Most Casualties (76): The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis of Friday, May 16, 1986, in Cokeville, Wyoming. Former town marshal DAVID YOUNG, 43, and his wife DORIS YOUNG, 47, took 154 hostages (136 children and 18 adults) at Cokeville Elementary School. The YOUNGS transported ten firearms and an improvised gasoline bomb and entered the school and corralled students and faculty into a single classroom to hold them for ransom. With the bomb trigger tied to his wrist, DAVID YOUNG threatened, at any time, to detonate the IED. After a two-and-a-half-hour standoff, DAVID YOUNG became increasingly agitated and decided to leave the room, transferring the trigger string to his wife's wrist. DORIS YOUNG inadvertently lifted her arm, and the IED detonated prematurely. Returning to the scene, DAVID YOUNG fatally shot his wife, wounded a teacher, then committed suicide. All the hostages survived, though 76 were later hospitalized with burns and injuries, the majority of which were severe. The two perpetrators were the only firearm fatalities.
  • The earliest recognized school shooting, in what would become the United States, was the notorious Enoch Brown School Massacre during the Pontiac's War. Four Delaware (Lenape) American Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and nine children (reports vary). Only two children survived. However, this incident may only incidentally be considered a school "shooting" because only the teacher was shot, while the other 9 victims were killed with melee weapons.
  • School Shootings continue to follow a known pattern during the annual school year with peaks in December, March, and May.​

*Includes perpetrator(s)

​**Fatalities and injuries