ATLANTA — The impact of Wednesday's mass shooting in Midtown Atlanta ripples beyond just the victims, their families and witnesses to the crime, according to criminologist Dr. Thaddeus Johnson. Johnson is a professor of criminal justice at Georgia State University and serves as a senior fellow on the Council on Criminal Justice.
"It's something about when it's the randomness and not the traditional street beat that really stirs and does something to the soul of communities," Johnson said. "It threatens everyone’s sense of safety, even though few people are actually involved.”
Deion Patterson is now behind bars, accused of shooting five women and killing one of them. Johnson said millions of people across metro Atlanta and the nation tracked the mass shooting developments on television and on social media. He said these shootings can lead to higher levels of depression, anxiety and PTSD among those affected.
Johnson said the growing fear among the larger community when it comes to mass shootings is linked to declines in overall health and changes in behavior of how people live their lives.
"Think about those who survive. These are life-changing injuries," Johnson said. "They may have to be on disability beyond the psychological trauma. But the fear of crime outpaces the actual crime rates. The fear of crime really impacts our social cohesion, how we engage with each other, how we’re willing to help each other with a sense of compassion.”
The FBI defines an active shooter situation as someone trying to kill several people in a populated area. According to the FBI's latest active shooter report, there was an 18 percent drop off in the number of mass shootings from 2021 to 2022. But while the number of shootings went down, data showed the number of victims shot went up. In 2022, there was nearly a 30 percent increase in victims from the year before and a 90 percent jump from 2020.
"These things happen very quickly, so to be able to injure or kill that many people with fewer incidents tells me there’s more firepower on the streets that we have access to," Johnson said.
To put the latest Midtown shooting in perspective, just one FBI-tracked mass shooting happened at a medical facility in 2022. With Patterson arrested Wednesday evening, that aligns with the majority of suspected shooters being taken into custody. Johnson said solutions to curb crime must come from every level of society.
"The one thing I'm most afraid of, beyond the trauma, is that we'll become numb to this, that we'll get used to it," Johnson said. "The solutions are a community-level aspect, lawmaker aspect, research aspect, law enforcement, but even more it’s a societal aspect.”