The footprints of harm: exploring the impact of the Keyham mass shooting

• In Event: Female Offenders, Serial Killers and Mass shootings

Abstract

Mass shootings are relatively rare, but when they do occur they frequently receive substantial media attention focusing on the harms suffered by individual victims and their families. Research on the impact of mass shooting incidents at the wider community level is limited, which impedes local agencies tasked with supporting shooting-affected communities. On 12 August 2021, a 22-year-old male killed five people and injured two others with a licensed firearm in Keyham, a small residential neighbourhood in the south of England. In this paper, I draw on qualitative interview data gathered from a UK government-funded research project to explore the impact of this shooting on people living and working in this neighbourhood. The broad spectrum of reactions is examined using Innes’s (2014) notion of ‘harm footprints’, an extension of the signal crimes perspective that seeks to understand how and why communities react in the way that they do to major crime events. The research found that although some people were only minimally impacted by the events of that day, for others the incident did alter the way they thought, felt, and behaved in relation to their everyday security in the subsequent months. The findings also raised questions about perceptions of ‘legitimate victimhood’ and how these might have shaped processes of help-seeking in the aftermath of the incident. I argue that social reactions to mass violence are not as homogenous as media reports may suggest, which has implications for post-incident recovery plans designed on the presumption of a homogenous community reaction.

Author

• Caroline Watson, University of Plymouth