Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and fuel centers. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
On June 25, 2006, Michael Julius Ford, 22, went on a shooting spree in a Safeway warehouse in Denver, Colorado, killing one and injuring five before he was shot and killed by police.
On December 11, 2012, a shooting occurred at the Clackamas Town Center in the relatively urban section of Clackamas County, just outside the city of Portland, Oregon, United States. The gunman, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts, ran into the shopping center wearing black clothing and a white expressionless facial mask and sporadically opened fire using a Stag Arms AR-15 rifle stolen from a friend. He fired a total of 17 shots, killing two people and seriously wounding a third. Many shots were ricochets. Having attempted to reload his weapon and dropping three magazines, Roberts entered an employee-only back stairwell that runs behind all stores in the mall and committed suicide after descending one level. He had no connection to any of his victims, and it was believed to be a random act of violence.
The Washington Navy Yard shooting occurred on September 16, 2013, when 34-year-old Aaron Alexis fatally shot 12 people and injured three others in a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) inside the Washington Navy Yard in southeast Washington, D.C. The attack took place in the Navy Yard's Building 197; it began around 8:16 a.m. EDT and ended when police killed Alexis around 9:25 a.m. It is the deadliest mass shooting in Washington, D.C. history, as well as the second deadliest mass murder on a U.S. military base, behind the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
The Umpqua Community College shooting occurred on October 1, 2015, at the UCC campus near Roseburg, Oregon, United States. Chris Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old student who was enrolled at the school, fatally shot an assistant professor and eight students in a classroom, and injured eight others. Roseburg police detectives responded to the incident and engaged Harper-Mercer in a brief shootout. After being wounded, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The mass shooting is the deadliest in Oregon's modern history.
On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.
On July 21, 2018, a hostage incident occurred at a Trader Joe's store in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. 28-year-old Gene Evin Atkins, armed and fleeing police, crashed into a utility pole and ran into the nearby store. He fired at two pursuing police officers during the pursuit and after the crash; the two officers returned fire in Atkins's direction, hitting and killing a store employee, Melyda Corado, and hitting Atkins in the left arm. After escaping into Trader Joe's, Atkins barricaded himself and the rest of the store's patrons and employees inside the store. By the end of the incident, Atkins was arrested for various criminal felonies.
On February 15, 2019, a mass shooting took place at Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois, United States. Six people died, including the perpetrator, 45-year-old former employee Gary Montez Martin, who was shot and killed by responding police officers. Six others were injured, including five police officers.
On July 28, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. The gunman killed three people and wounded 17 others before killing himself after a shootout with responding police officers.
The Columbine effect is the legacy and impact of the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. The shooting has had an effect on school safety, policing tactics, prevention methods, and inspired numerous copycat crimes, with many killers taking their inspiration from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold by describing the two perpetrators as being martyrs or heroes.
On August 4, 2019, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people, including his brother, and wounded 17 others near the entrance of the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Betts was fatally shot by responding police officers 32 seconds after the first shots were fired. A total of 27 people were taken to area hospitals. It is the deadliest mass shooting to occur in Ohio since the 1975 Easter Sunday Massacre.
On August 31, 2019, a spree shooting occurred in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa, involving a gunman shooting multiple people from a vehicle. Eight people were killed, including the perpetrator, and twenty-five people were injured, including three police officers. It was the third major mass shooting to take place in the United States in August 2019, following the El Paso Walmart shooting and the Dayton shooting.
On March 22, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Ten people were killed, including a local on-duty police officer. The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, was arrested after being shot in the right leg. He was temporarily hospitalized before being moved to the county jail. After undergoing mental evaluations during the legal proceedings, Al-Issa was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in December 2021 and in April 2022. On August 23, 2023, prosecutors announced that Al-Issa was mentally competent to stand trial; a judge ruled as such on October 6 of that same year.
On May 26, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) rail yard in San Jose, California, United States. A 57-year-old VTA employee, Samuel James Cassidy, shot and killed nine VTA employees before committing suicide. It is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Collierville Kroger shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on September 23, 2021, at a Kroger grocery store in Collierville, Tennessee. One person was killed and 13 others were injured before the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Uk Thang, committed suicide by gunshot. Thang was working at the store as a third-party vendor. It was the second shooting in 2021 to occur at a Kroger-owned property; the first occurred at a King Soopers store in Boulder, Colorado, in March.
On May 14, 2022, a mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, United States, at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in the East Side neighborhood. Ten people, all of whom were African Americans, were murdered and three were injured. The shooter, identified as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, livestreamed part of the attack on Twitch, but the livestream was shut down by the service in under two minutes. Gendron was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder. He formally entered a plea of "not guilty" on May 19, 2022. On November 28, 2022, Gendron pleaded guilty to all state charges in the shooting, including murder, domestic terrorism, and hate crimes. On February 15, 2023, Gendron was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole; as of that date, federal charges are still ongoing, and the federal prosecution also expressed their intention to seek the death penalty.
On November 22, 2022, Andre Marcus Bing killed six co-workers and injured four others before killing himself, in retaliation for perceived workplace harassment at the Walmart Supercenter where he worked as a night-supervisor in Chesapeake, Virginia, United States. Bing's suicide note cited concern he was being "led by Satan" and asking forgiveness - while also mentioning cancer treatments and loneliness.
On April 23, 1987, a mass shooting occurred in Palm Bay, Florida when 59-year-old retired librarian William Bryan Cruse Jr. opened fire outside a shopping mall killing six people, including two police officers, and injuring 14 others before being captured by police in the early hours of the following day. Cruse was sentenced to death for the crime but died on death row in 2009 of natural causes before his execution could be carried out. The incident is the worst mass shooting in Brevard County history.
