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James Swann

American spree killer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ2180387 ↗
Source-derived summary

James Edward Swann Jr. a.k.a. The Shotgun Stalker (born 1964), is an African-American serial killer whose random drive-by shotgun shootings in Washington, D.C. in 1993 earned him his nickname in the press. Swann was living in the Iselin section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey before the attacks. He has been confined to St. Elizabeths Hospital since 1994 as a forensic patient since he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. His request for a furlough in 2011 was denied.

Murders

Swann drove to Washington to carry out the attacks, which took place in the Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. Each of the attacks followed a standard format: Swann would slow his car down next to a pedestrian and fire a 20-gauge shotgun at the target before driving away. Swann killed four people and injured five in 14 attacks before he was apprehended by the Metropolitan Police on April 19, 1993.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James Swann” is american spree killer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Swann and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1993, 1994, 2011—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-01-01. For this dossier, James, Swann and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american spree killer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2180387. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1993, 1994 and 2011.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James Swann” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.