OMITTED

What the news leaves out.

← Omitted front page

Shootings Kill Two at Spirit Halloween Stores

8 sources · updated 2026-11-01
Left 38% Center 25% Right 38%
3 left · 2 center · 3 right

What happened

On Friday at about 8:30 p.m., gunfire broke out inside a Spirit Halloween store at the Solano Town Center mall in Fairfield, California, killing one person and wounding six others, at least three of them critically. Fairfield police said a suspect remained at large, detectives were interviewing witnesses and hoped to obtain mall camera footage, and the FBI’s Sacramento field office deployed an Evidence Response Team to assist. Police later said they believed the shooting “stemmed from a targeted incident involving one suspect”; the woman who died was identified as 31-year-old Constance Hages, who family members told police was pregnant, and the six injured were males ages 16 to 43. Hours earlier the same day, an unrelated fatal shooting at a Spirit Halloween store in Madison Heights, Michigan, left a 21-year-old dead and a suspected shooter in custody.
Sourcing check · Mostly on the record · 8 articles

6 of 7 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 6 of 7
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Fairfield Police Department, Dan Marshall, David Bernal, Madison Heights Police Department, Fairfield Police and NBC Bay Area
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 7
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
Credits another outlet 0 of 7
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 7
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 31, 07:14 UTC by New York Post, naming its source.
Not counted 1
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Left-leaning coverage still presents the Fairfield Halloween store shooting as a random public attack, not gunfire aimed at a specific person already inside the shop. The police account of a "targeted incident" inside the store appears in Daily Wire rather than in left-leaning coverage. The competing frame is a manhunt with unnamed victims, which is how NBC News opened its report. Last-minute shoppers packing a seasonal store, and people running through the mall after shots, are how the New York Post opens its account. The police bulletin, an active crime scene, and a request for mall camera footage are how ABC News opens. How did a shooting that police call targeted leave seven people with gunshot wounds in the store?
Bottom line

If you only saw ABC or NBC, you would not know Fairfield police called the Spirit Halloween shooting a targeted incident. That police account ran in Daily Wire.

The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Police said the shooting stemmed from a targeted incident involving one suspect inside the store official statementin Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • The dead woman was identified as 31-year-old Constance Hages individual casein Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Family members informed police that Hages was pregnant individual casein Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • A 16-year-old male was among three victims listed in critical condition numberin Daily Wire · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • FBI Sacramento said it was deploying its Evidence Response Team to assist Fairfield police official statementin New York Post · absent from left-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets treated the Fairfield shooting as breaking crime news, leading with police confirmations of the death and injuries and Chief Dan Marshall’s appeal for community tips and mall-camera footage. ABC News and NBC News stressed that the scene remained active, that victims had not yet been publicly identified in early reports, and that detectives were still trying to name a suspect. Human-impact coverage centered on a husband who told NBC affiliate KCRA that his wife called “crying” after hearing “five big bangs” and fleeing through an emergency exit. NBC also noted the Michigan Spirit Halloween killing hours earlier, stating the two incidents “do not appear to be connected.”
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets described last-minute Halloween shoppers fleeing the store and, in the New York Post, SWAT officers sweeping the mall—including a theater showing the film “Halloween,” which some moviegoers compared to the 2012 Aurora cinema shooting. Breitbart headlined the event “Gun Control Fail,” listing California’s universal background checks, “assault weapons” ban, magazine ban, carry restrictions, registration, and ammunition rules, and arguing the state “leads the nation in gun control” while having “led the nation in ‘active shooter incidents’ in 2021 and 2023.” The Daily Wire, citing police, reported the shooting was “believed to have stemmed from a targeted incident,” named Hages and her pregnancy, and listed the ages and conditions of those wounded.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument, implicit in the ABC and NBC coverage, is that the immediate story is an unsolved shooting whose facts were still being gathered—an at-large suspect, unnamed victims in early reports, and witness accounts of sudden gunfire—so the responsible frame is investigation and human impact rather than a policy verdict. The right’s strongest argument, stated outright by Breitbart, is that the casualties occurred in a state that “leads the nation in gun control” yet “led the nation in ‘active shooter incidents’ in 2021 and 2023,” so the event illustrates the limits of that regime; Daily Wire’s police-sourced finding that the shooting was “targeted” is the right’s best evidence that this was not a random massacre uniquely invited by a gun-restricted retail space. The central unresolved tension is whether a still-developing, apparently targeted attack in a crowded store should be read chiefly as a local crime under investigation or as a test of California’s gun laws.

8 sources

More stories

The week's bottom lines, in your inbox

One email a week: the five stories that mattered and what they actually mean. Free.