This combination of photos provided by the City of Virginia Beach on Saturday, June 1, 2019 shows victims of Friday's shooting at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Va. Top row from left are Laquita C. Brown, Ryan Keith Cox, Tara Welch Gallagher and Mary Louise Gayle. Middle row from left are Alexander Mikhail Gusev, Joshua O. Hardy, Michelle "Missy" Langer and Richard H. Nettleton. Bottom row from left are Katherine A. Nixon, Christopher Kelly Rapp, Herbert "Bert" Snelling and Robert "Bobby" Williams. (Courtesy City of Virginia Beach via AP)
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Officials in Virginia Beach are making a concerted effort to focus on the victims of the country's latest mass shooting, not the suspect.
City leaders on Saturday quickly released details and photos of the 12 people who died Friday.
They said little about the man who's been identified as the shooter inside the city building.
Police uttered DeWayne Craddock's name just once at a news conference and promised not to mention it again. The 40-year-old died in a shootout with officers.
This coastal Virginia city is employing an increasingly common public information strategy: Release more details about the victims of mass shootings than of the killers to limit the criminals' exposure and prevent copycat shootings.
Deputy city manager of public safety Steve Cover says officials "wanted to control the narrative."
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Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie contributed to this report.
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