Virginia Beach highlights the victims and not the mass shooter

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Victims of the latest mbad shootings in the United States have been dead for less than a day when police and city officials have released a detailed presentation with their names, photos, titles of post and the cities where they lived.

In all, 12 people – including 11 city employees – were killed by the shooter who opened fire inside a municipal building.

Much less was revealed Saturday about the man who, according to authorities, proceeded to the shooting. There was no picture. And the authorities promised to pronounce his name only once: "DeWayne Craddock", a 40-year-old engineer who worked in the city's public services.

"We wanted to control this story," said Steve Cover, Deputy Director of Public Security for the City of Virginia Beach, about the press conference officials held the day after Friday's shooting. "We did not want this to be spread room by room in family and friends, and so on in the media.We felt that it was somehow our obligation to spread this message."

This sprawling city on the Virginia coast is using an increasingly popular public information strategy: Communicate more details about mbad shootings than murderers – at least initially – to limit the exposure of victims of mbad shootings. criminals and prevent imitative fire.

A similar shot was taken in March after a mbad shootout in New Zealand. Premier Jacinda Ardern has promised to refuse a platform of white supremacy, which would have killed 50 people in two mosques.

The names of victims of a shootout in a Virginia Beach, Virginia, municipal building are posted during a vigil at Bridge Church on Saturday, June 1, 2019, in Virginia Beach, Virginia (Photo AP / Patrick Semansky)

"The goal is to somehow interrupt the cycle of new mbad shooters by citing the previous and new mbad shooters who become models for even more attackers," said Adam Lankford. , a criminologist at the University of Alabama.

Lankford studied the influence of advertising on future shooters and invited the media not to name or publish photos of the authors.

"The face of this guy does not look like the kind of information that will help stop the next mbad shot," he said.

But James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University who studied large-scale shootings, said it was appropriate for law enforcement officials to disclose basic facts.

"This is news," Fox said. "We provide basic information on other types of offenders."

It's the act, not the actor, that influences others, he said. "The Columbine mbadacre, for example, inspired the imitators, not the names and faces of the attackers."

But there is a limit to what should be reported, Fox said. Too much about a murderer's background can "humanize" him and transcend the boundaries between news reporting and "celebrities."

Virginia Beach officials have announced that more information on Friday's shooting will be unveiled.

"And we will share our lessons learned," said Cover, the Deputy City Manager.

But first and foremost, officials want everyone to know the city's deep loss: four engineers who worked on street maintenance and protecting wetlands; three rightholders who examined the property boundaries; an accounting clerk, a technician, an administrative badistant and a special project coordinator. In all, they served the city of Virginia Beach for over 150 years. The 12th victim was an entrepreneur who was in the building to apply for a permit.

"They leave a void that we will never be able to fill," said city director Dave Hansen, who has been working for many years with many victims.

Sandra McDonald, 54, an event organizer and nanny living in Virginia Beach, said she supported the city's strong focus on the victims.

"I think sometimes, these people think that going out in a flame of glory is the way they will know their hour of glory," said McDonald, referring to the mbad shooters. "I just think that if we do not give them this moment of glory anymore, maybe they will not take innocent people with them."

Alice Scott, whose husband, Joseph Scott, worked for Craddock in the public service, said he could understand why people do not want to hear the shooter's name.

But she said that maybe after a while, "we can discuss why this happened."

"Maybe he needed to talk to someone," she says. "Maybe he needed to (talk about) his problems like everyone else."

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Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie contributed to this report.

This combination of photos provided by the City of Virginia Beach on Saturday, June 1, 2019 shows victims of the Friday shooting in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The top row on the left is Laquita C. Brown, Ryan Keith Cox and Tara Welch Gallagher. and Mary Louise Gayle. The middle row, left, is Alexander Mikhail Gusev, Joshua O. Hardy, Michelle "Missy" Langer and Richard H. Nettleton. The lower left row consists of Katherine A. Nixon, Christopher Kelly Rapp, Herbert "Bert" Snelling and Robert "Bobby" Williams. (Courtesy of Virginia Beach via AP)

Virginia Beach City Manager Dave Hansen, left, Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera in the center, and Mayor Bobby Dyer listening to a press conference on Saturday, June 1, 2019 in Virginia Beach, in Virginia. DeWayne Craddock, a longtime employee of the city, opened fire. Friday, at the municipal building, before the police shot him, announced the authorities. (Bill Tiernan / The Virginian-Pilot via AP)