The 'near miss' shootings at schools in 2024

A near miss had the elements to be a very bad, mass fatality school shooting. Since the 2000s, the frequency of these near misses has increased significantly.

A near miss in aviation is an incident that could've caused physical injury or property loss but didn't. This could be two planes that were told to land on the same runway, but one pilot turned away right before a crash. Recording these almost crashes is important because something went wrong with training, equipment, or procedures to create the conditions for a collision. Identifying and correcting these flaws can prevent an actual tragedy from happening.

When a near miss happens in an airplane, a report needs to be filed with the FAA within 7 days so that other pilots know what went wrong. Creating a culture that prioritizes safety above all else means that mistakes are not kept secret, they are documented and openly shared across the aviation industry.

As an example of a near miss at a school (video above), a teen who was ejected from a high school soccer game in Florida fired a flare gun at the field that nearly hit a player in November. Unlike aviation where this dangerous incident would be documented and studied, the federal government has not made analyzing these incidents a top priority at schools.

From collecting data on sixty years of school shootings, I’ve seen a wide array of different circumstances. Based on these real-world incidents, I’ve adapted the aviation definition of near miss to include shootings at schools that had the potential to be much worse. A near miss can be an incident without injuries or deaths. It can also be a shooting with some victims killed or injured, but there was either the capability or intent to harm even more victims.

Here are some factors that go into classifying an incident as a near miss:

• Intent/plan: Detailed plan, maps, hitlist, or manifesto showing the intent to harm more students than were shot during the incident.

• Multiple weapons: Shooter was armed with multiple guns demonstrating an intent to cause harm. While a teen might carry a handgun for self-defense, a teen with multiple weapons is probably committing a planned attack.

• Amount of ammo: Assailant had dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of rounds of ammunition showing a capability to cause many deaths and injuries.

• Number of shots fired: Many shots were fired but most of them missed the targets. Example: 240 shots were fired at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, DC but only 4 people were wounded.

• Gun malfunctioned: Shooter was attempting to harm students, but the gun jammed or was loaded with the wrong ammo.

• Early intervention: Shooter was in the process of shooting (or attempting to fire) when staff, students, or bystanders intervened and stopped the attack.

Analysis of near misses

Since 1966, I’ve documented 397 near misses at schools. 18 of these near miss incidents happened in 2024. While there have been near misses every year except for 1978, the frequency of these near misses has steadily increased.

For example, looking back at 2000—the year after the Columbine shooting—there were five near miss school shootings involving student assailants:

• North Carolina: 17-year-old recent high school dropout called in a bomb threat and then fired a rifle at students leaving the gym. All the shots missed.

• Washington: 13-year-old student got onto a cafeteria table and started firing shots at the ceiling. He told other students he was planning a school shooting on the last day of classes and had 116 rounds of ammo in his bag.

• Ohio: 14-year-old fired a shot into the classroom ceiling leading to a 25-minute standoff in the classroom before he surrendered.

• Arizona: 14-year-old dressed in camouflage held an elementary school class at his former school hostage at gunpoint before releasing the students and then surrendering.

• Texas: 15-year-old student held his class hostage for 30 minutes before surrendering to police.

The biggest difference in looking at near misses versus the high profile, mass fatality attacks is that most of these incidents have few or no victims (thus, a near miss). On this scatter plot, you can see how both the severity and frequency of near misses has increased over time.

These near miss incidents reinforce some of the patterns with shootings at schools. For example, just like planned attacks, morning classes are the most frequent time period of the school day for a near miss.

Most planned school shootings are surprise attacks by insiders (current or recently former students who know the campus and security procedures). These insider attacks usually begin and end inside the same room. When looking at the attack type for near misses, single shooter insider attacks inside a classroom are the most frequent type.

Aligning with my findings on planned attacks, the classroom is also the most common location for a near miss. This finding is important because classroom fortifications and lockdowns don’t work when the shooter is allowed to be inside the room and the attack is a surprise.

Just like actual shootings at schools, most of the near misses involve teens between 13 and 19 years old. This makes sense because that is the age of kids in middle and high school.

A near miss is 4x more likely at a high school compared to an elementary school or middle/junior high school. I think this is an interesting finding because even with kids who are slightly older in middle school, there is not a difference in the rate of near misses between middle and elementary.

This is just a small sample of the types of information that I can analyze with this near miss data. Please let me know what else you would like to see.

Near Misses in 2024

My list of near misses at schools in 2024 includes shootings that had the potential to be much worse and incidents without injuries or deaths. For example, at Apalachee High in Georgia, a student committed a surprise insider attack with an AR-15 rifle during morning classes. With the speed and type of rounds than an AR-15 fires, it is a near miss because only 4 students and staff were killed when there could have easily been many more.

Date: 2024-12-04
Location: Palermo, CA
School: Feather River Adventist School
Time Period: Afternoon Classes
Location of Incident: Playground
Attack Type: Single shooter insider attack
Summary: Man shot two students and then killed himself.

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Date: 2024-11-21
Location: Bradenton, FL
School: Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School
Time Period: Sport Event
Location of Incident: Football Field
Attack Type: Single shooter insider
Summary: Teen who was ejected from a soccer game fired a flare gun at the field nearly hitting a player.

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Date: 2024-11-07
Location: Kenosha, WI
School: Roosevelt Elementary School
Time Period: Morning Classes
Location of Incident: Entryway
Attack Type: Single shooter insider
Summary: Teen with a duffle bag attempted to enter the school, ran away when confronted by staff, and had a photo with a rifle on social media.