Law enforcement officers gather outside Annunciation Church following a mass shooting event, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, August 27, 2025.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Some of America’s deadliest shootings in recent years have occurred at religious institutions, including churches, synagogues and temples, as well as affiliated schools. Here’s a look at six such incidents since 2012:
A Christian school in Wisconsin (Dec. 16, 2024)
A 14-year-old student and a staff member were killed in a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, that left one teacher and five students injured.
The authorities said a 15-year-old student carried out the attack with a handgun and then died of a self-inflicted gunshot.
A Religious school in Nashville, Tennessee (March 27, 2023)
An armed assailant killed three students and three staff members at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville. The three students who died were all 9 years old.
The assailant was later identified as a former student at the school who the authorities said fired 152 rounds while on the campus, beginning with shots fired through the doors to the school. The attack had been planned for months, police said.
A Pittsburgh synagogue (Oct. 27, 2018)
A man shouting antisemitic slurs opened fire at the Tree of Life Congregation, a synagogue in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, killing 11 congregants and wounding four police officers and two others.
The assailant was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and at least three handguns. The shooting was one of the deadliest attacks targeting Jewish people in the United States.
A Church in Rural Texas (Nov. 5, 2017)
A gunman, wearing black clothing and a ballistic vest, killed 26 people with a military-style rifle at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, a small town east of San Antonio. The youngest victim was 5 years old, and the oldest was 72. At least 20 others were wounded.
It is the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history.
A Black church in South Carolina (June 17, 2015)
In an outburst of extremist violence that shocked the nation, an unrepentant white supremacist opened fire inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, killing nine people.
Among the dead, who ranged in age from 26 to 87, was the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, the pastor of the church, who was also a prominent state senator.
A Sikh temple near Milwaukee (Aug. 5, 2012)
A man armed with a semiautomatic handgun killed six people and wounded three others at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a suburb south of Milwaukee. One of the wounded victims, a prominent priest at the temple, was paralyzed in the attack and died in 2020.
The gunman had ties to the white supremacist movement, the authorities said.