A Year of Gun Violence
Some of the most devastating gun violence headlines of 2013.
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Too Much Bloodshed - Every year in the U.S., an average of more than 100,000 people are shot, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Additionally, one person is killed by a firearm every 17 minutes, 87 people are killed during an average day, and 609 are killed every week. While the gun violence and firearms debate continues, BET.com takes a look at some of the major gun violence headlines of 2013. — Dominique Zonyéé(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Santa Monica College - Armed with a homemade assault rifle in June, John Zawahri, 23, killed his brother and his father at their home and set the home on fire, then headed out to the Santa Monica Community College campus to continue his killing spree. Zawahri let off several rounds near the college campus wounding one man and killing another before he was shot to death by campus police.(Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn)
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Jonylah Watkins - Jonylah Watkins was just 6 months old when she was killed on March 11 after she was hit by five bullets in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Jonylah was with her father, Johnathan Watkins, 29, who was also shot several times. Koman Willis, 33, was charged with killing the infant and shooting her father.(Photo: Family photo via Chicago Tribune/ MCT /LANDOV)
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DC Navy Yard - Panic near Capitol Hill erupted in September, when Aaron Alexis, 34, a lone gunman, armed with a shotgun, fatally shot 12 people at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) inside the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Alexis was also fatally shot during a gun battle with police.(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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LAX Terminal 3 - Paul Ciancia, 23, walked up to Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport in November, pulled an assault rifle and opened fire, killing a Transportation Security Administration officer, Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, and wounding two other TSA officers. Ciancia was wounded in a shootout with airport police and taken into custody. The death of Officer Hernandez marked the first TSA officer killed in the line of duty in 12 years of the agency’s history.(Photo: AP Photo/CBS-LA)
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Taft Union High School - A 16-year-old student opened fire on his classmates at Taft Union High School in January, wounding one student in the chest and attempting to shoot another student. The shooter was apprehended after teachers and other school officials talked him into putting the gun down.(Photo: Cumberland County Detention Center)
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Londyn Samuels - Louisiana has the highest gun violence rates in the United States. Londyn Samuels, 1, was just learning to walk before she was shot dead on Aug. 29 in Central City, New Orleans. She was struck by a bullet that was fired into her 18-year-old nanny's back as she carried Londyn home from the park. Police arrested Keelen Armstrong, 24, a suspect in the shooting.(Photo: Courtesy of Keion Reed/Father)
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Cornell Square Park - In a gang-related shooting, two men opened fire and shot 13 people in Cornell Square Park in the South Side of Chicago in September. The ages of the wounded ranged from 3 to 41; including Deonta Howard, 3, who was shot in the face. Seven people were arrested in connection with the shooting.(Photo: AP Photo/Family photo via Rev. Corey Brooks)
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Hialeah Florida Apartment Complex - Pedro Vargas, 42, called the police to ask them to run the license plates on a vehicle that had allegedly been following him hours before he embarked on a shooting spree in his Hialeah, Florida, apartment complex. Five hours after the bizarre call, Vargas set his mother’s apartment on fire; shot and killed the husband and wife building managers; a family of three; and a man who was returning from his son's boxing practice.(Photo: REUTERS/Gaston De Cardena)
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Manchester Massacre - Rick O. Smith, 43, broke into a public housing complex in Manchester, Illinois, in April to shoot and kill a grandmother, a young couple and their two small children at point-blank range. He also seriously wounded a 6-year-old, who was also in the home. Smith died at the hospital after being wounded in a gun fight with State Troopers.(Photo: AP News)
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Kimani Gray - Kimani Gray was standing outside of a friend’s house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, in March with friends when two out-of-uniform police officers approached the group. According to police reports, Gray removed himself from the group and the two officers fired 11 rounds at Gray after he allegedly pointed a gun them. He died later that night at Kings County Hospital.(Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
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Dallas Mavericks Dance Teacher Domestic Killing Spree - Erbie Lee Bowser, 44, a former Dallas Mavericks dancer with the Dallas Mavs ManiAACs, shocked the Dallas area in August when he went on a killing spree. He allegedly shot his girlfriend, Toya Smith, her daughter and son and a family friend, then drove to a Dallas suburb and shot and killed his estranged wife, Zina Bowser and her daughter, and wounded two boys, ages 11 and 13.(Photo: Dallas County Sheriff's Department)
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Poore Brothers Quadruple Murders - Brothers Cedric Poore, 39, and James Poore, 32, allegedly shot four Tulsa, Oklahoma, women to death in a Fairmont Terrace apartment complex. According to neighbors the brothers, who also lived in the complex, were planning on robbing the home of twin sisters Kayetie Melchor and Rebeika Powell. The two other victims, Misty Nunley and Julie Jackson, happened to be at the apartment at the time.(Photo: KJRH News via NBC)
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Labor Day Weekend in Chicago - Eight people were killed and at least 25 other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago during Labor Day weekend in September. Among those killed was Maurice Knowles, 16, who was sitting on his porch when he was shot in the chest. Knowles was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The police apprehended a suspect immediately after the incident.(Photo: Courtesy of Maurice Knowles Family)