Last Friday, premium cable channel Showtime premiered a documentary miniseries entitled “active shooter: America Under Fire.” The program is scheduled to run for eight one-hour episodes, each providing an in-depth feature on some of the deadliest mass shooting incidents in the US in past years. The premiere episode was due for a repeat broadcast this Monday evening. But on Sunday night, another mass shooting incident took place at the Las Vegas Strip which has since killed 58 people and wounded 500 more. The attack was the work of another “active shooter.” In solidarity with the victims, Showtime decided not to air the repeat on its slated timeslot.
Rerun pulled
The evening of October 2nd was supposed to be the rerun on Showtime of the premiere episode of “Active Shooter: America Under Fire,” an hour-long eight-episode documentary series that takes a closer look at some notorious past mass shooting incidents. The title is taken from the parlance officially defined by the Department of Homeland Security as “a person actively engaged in or attempting to kill numerous people without bias in a confined and populated area, using firearms.” The mini-series would have included interviews with survivors, law enforcement investigators, and relatives of slain victims.
On its original premiere date of September 29th, “Active Shooter” featured the 2012 mass shooting inside a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Its repeat airing on Monday night was cancelled instead.
The was in consideration of the ongoing investigation following the Las Vegas Strip shooting committed by retired investor Stephen Paddock, who shot indiscriminately at the crowd of a country music festival from his suite at the Mandalay Bay. Showtime issued a statement the following day, October 3rd, that the second episode of the series, about the 2015 San Bernardino attack, will air as scheduled on Friday night, October 6th.
Mass shootings discussion
Showtime’s “Active Shooter: America Under Fire,” in addition to discussing the circumstances and aftermaths of mass shooting incidents, also features a discussion on the concept of “No Notoriety.” This is a movement that asks media outlets to cut down on coverage of active shooters, as press attention has been seen as one usual objective of such perpetrators.
Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas Strip shooter, used no less than 33 firearms modified to fire at full automatic in order to carry out the attack on the "Route 91 Harvest" country music at Las Vegas Village, several hundred feet from the Mandalay Bay hotel where he was shooting at the crowd from his room on the 32nd floor. His rampage arguably now has the worst casualty list in active shooter incidents in the US thus far.
“Active Shooter” is produced by Eli Holzman, Star Price and Aaron Saidman. Showtime, which features programming like spy thriller TV series "Homeland," is owned by Showtime Networks Inc., a subsidiary of CBS Corporation.
