Olga Pierce

New York

Investigative Reporter at Freelance

Data editor at https://t.co/PLwzb3pTpJ, fmr data journalism prof at Nebraska and ProPublica deputy data editor, would-be vagabond, knitter. Opinions my own yadda yadda.

Articles

What We Learned From Analyzing 10 Years of Shooting Data

Jan 13, 2025 | thetrace.org | Samantha Storey |Brian Freskos |Olga Pierce |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace The Gun Violence Archive is a nonprofit digital database that houses detailed information on gun injuries and deaths. It began tracking shootings through media and police reports in 2014. By the end of 2023, a decade of data had been amassed, and at The Trace, we thought it timely to look for patterns and stories about the beat we cover. As it happens, The Trace has been around for almost as long as GVA.
Guns, gun violence, homicide rates

Jan 11, 2025 | homelandsecuritynewswire.com | Olga Pierce

GUNSHow Many People Were Killed by the Pandemic Surge in Shootings? Published 10 January 2025In a new analysis, The Trace figured out the number of people who might have lived if gun violence had remained at its 2019 level. Gun violence has a long tail. Michelle Kerr-Spry knows this well. She is a gun violence survivor and a community activist with Mothers in Charge through which she supports women in Philadelphia who’ve lost someone to a shooting.
The Actual Toll of the COVID-Era Gun Violence Spike

Jan 10, 2025 | thetrace.org | Sunny Sone |Olga Pierce

The Trace The coronavirus pandemic changed America in many ways we’re still trying to unravel: The intertwined economic, political, and social effects are still playing out, and difficult if not impossible to disentangle from the conditions that came before it. By comparison, the surge in gun violence that started in 2020, and its aftermath, are devastatingly easier to understand.
How We Analyzed the Toll of the Pandemic Shooting Surge

Jan 10, 2025 | thetrace.org | Olga Pierce |Brian Freskos |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace Anyone who has survived a natural disaster knows that the end of the event is just the beginning of the process of healing. The same is true for man-made disasters, like the elevated levels of gun violence we saw year after year, starting during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At The Trace, we wanted to quantify this disaster as a way to acknowledge its scale and significance, even when gun violence has gone back down to its normal, still-incredibly lethal levels.
How Many People Were Killed by the Pandemic Surge in Shootings?

Jan 9, 2025 | thetrace.org | Olga Pierce |Brian Freskos |Jennifer Mascia

The Trace Gun violence has a long tail. Michelle Kerr-Spry knows this well. She is a gun violence survivor and a community activist with Mothers in Charge through which she supports women in Philadelphia who’ve lost someone to a shooting.
Dozens of Cities Are Paying for Gunshot Detection Tech They May Not Need

Dec 11, 2024 | thetrace.org | Jennifer Mascia |Brian Freskos |Olga Pierce |Chip Brownlee

The Trace In June 2023, the town council in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, voted unanimously to install the gunshot detection service ShotSpotter. The town would get the system up and running in a few square miles of the city using $297,000 in federal COVID relief funding. “Crime is an issue, but it’s not unique to Phillipsburg,” Councilmember Keith Kennedy said after the vote.
Colorado Voters Pass Gun Tax to Fund Services for Domestic Violence Victims

Nov 6, 2024 | thetrace.org | Julianne McShane |Brian Freskos |Olga Pierce

The Trace Colorado voters on Tuesday brought to victory a ballot measure that will provide millions of critical dollars to organizations supporting victims of domestic and sexual violence through the creation of a new tax on firearms and ammunition. With nearly three-quarters of the votes counted as of this morning, the measure, known as Proposition KK, passed with 54 percent of votes.
Bulletin: Trump’s Gun Rights Priorities Include Longtime NRA Goals

Nov 4, 2024 | thetrace.org | Chip Brownlee |Jennifer Mascia |Olga Pierce

The Trace Former President Donald Trump has vowed to roll back a host of the Biden administration’s violence prevention efforts if he reenters the White House — and when it comes to gun policies he would pursue, Trump’s agenda includes many of the National Rifle Association’s long-standing goals. Filling the federal courts with gun-friendly judges “is crucial,” Trump’s team told the NRA’s magazine.
How The Trace Analyzed a Decrease in Shooting Deaths

Nov 1, 2024 | thetrace.org | Olga Pierce |Chip Brownlee

The Trace On Nov. 1 The Trace published a story about the steady decline in gun shooting deaths since the pandemic. Here’s how we did it. By the end of the summer, it was becoming clear from a variety of sources, including city dashboards and FBI data, that something big was happening in gun violence. Somewhat unexpectedly, after years of sky-high rates, starting during the pandemic, shootings were going down dramatically in cities across the United States.
Shooting Deaths Are Down by 10 Percent Across the U.S., Despite What Politicians Say

Nov 1, 2024 | thetrace.org | Olga Pierce |Chip Brownlee

The Trace If you believe the Republican Party’s telling, we live in an America where violent crime in general – and gun homicides in particular – are escalating, unchecked, destroying our cities. “Crime is rising. Pennsylvanians are less safe,” says a flyer that the dark money group Securing American Greatness in the commonwealth in October, featuring images of crime scene tape and Kamala Harris’s face.