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Counting the victims of the Texas church shooting
We have continued to discuss the Texas church shooting and the best choice of words when discussing the number of deaths in the attack. Police have reported that the gunman killed 26 people. However, we now know that they were counting the fetus of one of the victims.
Under Texas law, and in many other states, an assailant may be charged with homicide for the killing of a fetus. Therefore, the police have a legal basis in Texas for counting 26 victims of the gunman.
In our stories related to the shooting, we have decided that the more accurate figure we will use is that 25 people were killed, including a pregnant woman. We will note that authorities have put the figure at 26, accounting for the woman’s pregnancy.
In addition, where possible, we should avoid using either 25 or 26 as stand-alone figures without the explanation, especially in cases where space is a concern, such as in headlines, alerts, summaries, Twitter cards and captions. Where a quick reference is needed, consider using “more than two dozen,” “the worst shooting in Texas history,” “the massacre” or similar phrasing.
