The victims were identified as: James Thompson, 16 Gabriel Torres, 29 Mary Marshall, 34 Susan Karnatz, 49 Nicole Conners, 53
“The article states: The victims were identified as:”
I prefer lead in paragraphs have some form of accounting rather than the word “mass.”
News articles don’t have to be set up to read like a mystery novel, just the facts.
Using the destriptor “mass” is not a factual number for a handful of victims. A square block of New York City, would be a suitable time to use the word mass because the numbers would be too large to get an immediate accurate accounting.