DETROIT _ A statistic that claims there have been 18 school shootings in 2018, including one in Dearborn, Mich., has stirred up controversy online and been called "kind of misleading" by a spokesman for Dearborn Schools.
Numbers from Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that researches gun violence, have been cited by media around the country, including outlets like CNBC, Politico, and The Daily News, after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school Wednesday.
The Everytown database, which tallies 291 school shootings since 2013, accounts for any time a firearm discharges a live round on a school premise, including incidents such as a cafeteria shooting in Italy, Texas, that left one injured; an unintentional discharge at a Los Angeles middle school; and the Dearborn case involving a drive-by shooting in the Dearborn High School parking lot during a basketball game.
David Mustonen, director of communications for Dearborn Public Schools, said that while the Dearborn shooting on Jan. 26 was unfortunate, it's important not to lump together incidents like the one in Dearborn, where no one was injured, and other "very tragic, very high-profile" incidents.
"We're talking about children who died," Mustonen said. "And we hope that we're not trying to sensationalize this epidemic even more by lumping in things such what happened at Dearborn High, where you had a random, isolated incident that doesn't fit the same motive or criteria as these other school shootings."
Some took to Facebook to express their confusion about the Dearborn shooting being mentioned along with other school shootings.
"How did we not hear about the Dearborn shooting?!" Tori Molesworth wrote Friday morning. "Never heard of a school shooting in Dearborn," wrote Lora Makki Taha on Thursday. Hussein Salloom took to Facebook Thursday to question whether it was fake news.
Mustonen said the district hasn't heard from parents since the incident resurfaced this week and that the only reaction they've seen is on social media.
"The night that that incident happened at Dearborn High, we had communications out explaining what took place," Mustonen said. "So the people in this community understand...how different that incident was compared to the horrific things that happened down in Florida."
Everytown included another Michigan shooting in its 2018 data but USA Today reports that it has since taken it down after The Washington Post reported that the school was closed.
The Lansing State Journal reported that the Jan. 3 shooting occurred in the parking lot of the former East Olive Elementary School in St. Johns, where a 31-year-old military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The school had been closed since June and no children or staff were there at the time of the shooting, the Lansing State Journal reported.
