It didn’t take long for the world to tune into Colorado Springs on Friday as a gunman started shooting outside Planned Parenthood on the west side of the city.

Police radios, which can be monitored on the internet, were followed by reporters, bloggers and anyone else who wanted to listen in.

Photographers and reporters descended into the area, talking to anyone who was near and snapping and sharing any photo they could get.

For a bit, it seemed the Twitterverse was alive with every bit of news.

“It was probably the most well-documented police operation in the city’s history,” said Dwight Haverkorn, a retired police officer and volunteer historian for the Colorado Springs Police Department. “In homicides before, we didn’t have the Internet, we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have the news media trying to record every minute of what happened.”

While the rampage is among the worst shootings in the history of the city, the history of homicides here is complex, Haverkorn said, and there have been horrific instances in Colorado Springs where more people were killed than Friday.

For instance, in 1911 authorities think there was axe murderer wandering the country along rail lines and he is suspected to have killed a couple and their young child in their sleep, then did the same to a mother and her two children next door.

Since 2000, there have been at least five homicides in the city where three or more people have been killed.

What is probably most frightening about the shootings on Friday is the perceived randomness of it, Haverkorn said.

“This seems so out of the blue and people wonder how they could defend themselves to something like this.”

Also, he said, the death of a peace officer makes it a rare occurrence. Garrett Swasey, an officer for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, was killed Friday when he rushed to the scene upon hearing there was an active shooter situation.

The Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks officers killed across the nation, records 15 police officers and sheriff’s deputies killed in the line of duty in El Paso County since 1791. Of those, 12 are from the Colorado Springs Police Department and a total of nine from both agencies were killed by gunfire. Swasey, 44, was the first officer UCCS officer killed in the line of duty.

MASS SLAYINGS IN COLORADO SPRINGS

The following list, with information compiled from Haverkorn and Gazette research, contains slayings where three or more people were killed in a single incident. The list does not contain every such event.

OCT. 31, 2015: Noah Jacob Harpham, 33, walked down the street near downtown Colorado Springs and shot and killed Andrew Alan Myers, 35, Jennifer Michelle Vasquez, 42, and Christina Rose Baccus-Gallela, 34. Harpham was later killed in a shootout with Colorado Springs Police Department officers.

JULY 7, 2011: Michael Arangio, 24, opened fire on a vehicle that cut him off on Mira Loma Circle, shooting and killing brothers Wayne Fix, 19, Aaron Fix, 16 and Austin Howse, 16. Arangio fled and was found a few days later by police in a north Colorado Springs apartment. After an hours-long standoff, he shot and killed himself. The night the teens were killed, police responded to three shootings with four deaths.

DEC. 9, 2007: Matthew J. Murray, 24, opened fire at Arvada’s Youth with a Mission training center, shooting and killing Philip Crouse, 24, and Tiffany Johnson, 26. He then drove to Colorado Springs and opened fire at New Life Church, 11025 Voyager Parkway, where he shot and killed sisters Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachel Works, 16. Their father David Works, 51, was wounded in the shooting. He was shot several times by a church security guard and died when he shot himself in the head.

MARCH 7, 2003: Three children, 11-year-old Jay, 5-year-old Sophia and 3-year-old Sierra Nicholls, were killed in a house fire planned by their parents Timothy and Deborah Nicholls. The parents were convicted for their roles in the deaths.

DEC. 20, 2002: Tosha Wasserburger, 29, Michaela Hernandez, 8, and Mykel Wasserburger, 4, were fatally shot by Ernest “Sonny” Hernandez. He then shot and killed himself.

JAN. 20, 1988: Ervin C. Bryant, 57, shot and killed his 69-year-old wife, Emma Lue Bryant, at 465 Loomis Ave., an hour after fatally shooting Ernestine Addison, his ex-girlfriend, and her teen-age son, Robert “Bobby” Addison Jr., at 130 Coleridge Ave.

AUG. 23, 1987: 56-year-old retired schoolteacher Henry “Hank” Waller killed himself after strangling his wife, Ola Mae Waller, 54. He also fatally shot their daughter, Lucinda Joan Zupan, 30, and her son, Brandon Zupan, 7, at 2520 Concord St.

MAY 17, 1986: Gilbert Archibeque shot and killed two women and a man during a robbery at the Grandview Lounge, 5672 N. Union Blvd. He then set fire to the lounge and went to a nearby Qwik Way store, where he killed two sisters. Archibeque shot himself to death the next day after police tracked him to his apartment.

FEB. 14, 1985: Cassandra Rundle, 37, and her children, Detrick Sturm, 12, and Melanie Sturm, 10, were found strangled in their Ivywild home on La Clede Avenue. The mother and daughter had been raped. No arrests were made.

SEPT. 24, 1978: Investigators found the bodies of Glada Hibbard, 51, husband Thomas Mack Hibbard, 58, and children Deborah Lynn Hibbard, 16, and Duane Thomas Hibbard, 12, in their home on West Espanola Street. Police say Glada Hibbard shot her children while they slept, then shot her husband in the head before killing herself.

SEPT. 17, 1911 An unknown killer sneaked into a west-side house with an axe and killed a couple and their young child in their sleep, then did the same to a mother and her two children next door. The crime was never solved but is thought to be the work of an unknown serial killer who committed several similar murders in the Midwest.

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