Standoff I remember being applied to things like assholes in a house/bank/store vs cops outside. I absolutely do not understand the "active shooter" dislike, if there's a shooting in progress and you don't have the other info (aside from shooting in progress and location) about what happened, do you not report there's something going on? This is really one of the benefits to instant/24hr news, people can be informed of a dangerous situation in real time. Now that details are available, it's widely being described as "shooting" or "shootout".