Bryan shooting was 8th mass shooting in Texas so far this year

Friday, April 9, 2021

Thursday's mass shooting at a Bryan, Texas, cabinet shop was the latest in a trend in shootings that involve three or more victims.

Tim Smith, 40, of Bryan died and four others were injured when they were shot by a co-worker, police said.

It was the 8th mass shooting in Texas so far this year, according to statistics from the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit group that tracks gun violence in the United States.

On April 4, four people were injured in a Beaumont shooting during a parking lot disturbance. The police department there took a 23-year-old into custody and charged him with four counts of aggravated assault. All four victims survived the ordeal.

In north Texas, six members of the same family were killed on April 5 in a murder-suicide plot, according to the Allen Police Department. A family friend told authorities they were concerned because one person in the home was suicidal. When officers arrived, they found all six dead from gunshot wounds.

Four people were injured at a San Antonio apartment complex on March 28 in a shooting involving at least two teens and three different weapons. Some of the victims may have been bystanders, police told KSAT-TV at the time.

In Houston, five people were shot at a nightclub on the North Freeway on March 20. Police were called to the club after a report of a disturbance inside the club when officers found a man had been shot. They later found four others had been injured in the incident.

On the same night as the North Freeway shooting, seven people were shot at a Dallas bar, including an 18-year-old who was fatally wounded. It began as an altercation inside the bar when a 21-year-old is believed to have opened fire, according to police. The suspect, Johnathan LaCory Terrell Rogers, was arrested.

In Austin, four people were shot by a pair of gunmen outside a barber shop on March 12. Two victims were critically injured in the incident.

The first mass shooting in Texas of the year happened in Houston on March 11, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Gunmen shot four people, killing three of them in a southwest Houston apartment complex parking lot. Police called the shooting completely unprovoked.

"In time, we will learn more about the killer and a possible motive while politicians will offer thoughts and prayers," wrote Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies last month. "Following a high-profile mass killing, the public usually becomes briefly interested in some kind of gun control. But the support always fades."

HEAR THE AUDIO: Chaos heard on police dispatch audio during Bryan shooting