Orlando nightclub shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is described as being "quiet" but grew hateful, and now the FBI says they are "trying to understand every moment of this killer's path." Jillian Kitchener reports.Reuters
Earlier this week, The Globe and Mail and its digital products were heavily focused on the shocking murder of 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub.
Headlines and stories referred to it as "the worst mass shooting in U.S. history" but there has been debate about whether that is precisely correct.
Some readers and staff members noted there have been terrible massacres and mass violence in U.S. history, although not in modern times.
In 1890, the U.S. army killed more than 100 Sioux at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, one reader noted.
In 1857, 120 people were killed in Utah in a clash involving Mormons and others.
In 1919, at least 100 people, mostly blacks, were killed in Arkansas.
And in 1921, a race riot saw upwards of 300 killed.
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Some Globe writers have been using the "worst mass shooting in modern history" phrase, while others are using "worst mass shooting."
I think both are correct. Until Sunday, people understood Virginia Tech to be the deadliest U.S. mass shooting. Also in the case of the race and religion-based killings, massacre is probably a better description.
One other small error was in the name of the weapon used by the killer. Initial reports from law enforcement said it was an AR-15. In fact, The Associated Press news wire later corrected that, saying it was a very similar weapon, the Sig Sauer.
Here is the AP's correction: "In a story June 12 about a mass shooting at a nightclub in Florida, The Associated Press reported erroneously the precise type of weapon used by the shooter. The gunman was armed with a Sig Sauer MCX assault rifle, not an AR-15, which is a similar model."
Future stories should be careful to use this corrected information.
Sylvia Stead