drive-by shooting
A shooting fired from a vehicle, codified in US federal law as 18 U.S.C. § 36.
A drive-by shooting is, in American law and criminal terminology, a shooting in which the perpetrator fires a firearm from a vehicle or from the immediate vicinity of a vehicle used to bring the shooter or the weapon to the scene. The concept belongs to American law and criminal culture and has no direct legal parallel in Danish legislation.
In practice, a drive-by shooting is typically described as a targeted attack in which one or more shots are fired at a particular person, a vehicle, a building or a group of people while the perpetrator is inside or alongside a moving or stationary vehicle. The method is characterised by the attacker's ability to leave the scene quickly, which complicates identification and arrest. It is precisely this opportunity for escape that makes the approach widespread in gang environments and organised crime.
Under US federal law, the term is codified in 18 U.S.C. § 36, which criminalises the firing of a weapon from a vehicle in connection with, or in order to avoid detection of, a major drug offence. The provision covers shooting at a group of two or more persons with intent to intimidate, harass, injure or kill. The official title of the section is precisely "Drive-by shooting".
The cases of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. are among the best-known examples of drive-by shootings in modern American criminal history. Tupac Shakur was struck by shots fired from a vehicle in Las Vegas in September 1996 and died of his injuries. Notorious B.I.G. was likewise killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles in March 1997. Both cases officially remain unsolved and have been the subject of years of speculation about possible gang involvement.
In the Juan Catalan case and the Crystal Theobald case, the concept illustrates how drive-by shootings can result in mistaken charges or investigations resting on eyewitness statements and incidental connections to the scene. The Crystal Theobald case is additionally notable because the investigation was partly driven forward through social media, specifically MySpace, underlining how drive-by shootings in gang-related environments are often embedded in social networks and cycles of revenge.
