Whitman also murdered his wife and mother earlier that day before continuing on to the university not unlike Adam Lanza, who shot and killed his mother before opening fire at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. Contributing writer, Timeline (@Timeline_Now); reader and excavator of generally good things. Published by Statista Research Department , Jan 4, 2023. When the school originally opened in 1922, local taxes were raised as a means to pay for it. Now considered the deadliest school shooting, the Virginia Tech attack was once the deadliest mass shooting in the US in general but now ranks third. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in gun and gun violence in the schools. On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris (18) and Dylan Klebold (17) entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. [1], Historian Richard Middleton described the massacre[2] as "one of the most notorious incidents" of Pontiac's War. The late 1990s started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings including; October 12, 1995 Blackville, South Carolina A suspended student shot two math teachers with a .32 caliber revolver. William H.G. Regardless, an event such as this was unprecedented for the time and ultimately sparked the creation of various SWAT teams across the country. When a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults with an assault rifle at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, it rattled Newtown, Conn., and reverberated across the world.Since then, there . With every school shooting, I feel Im partially responsible, she said. In the modern era, the rarity of these events has been steadily decreasing, which may be caused by the confusion that surrounds gun laws and regulations. Spencers assault lasted 15 minutes, before a police officer and a security guard risked their lives to drive a garbage truck in front of Spencers house, blocking her line of sight and attack. More than a century earlier, on July 26, 1764, a teacher and 10 students were shot dead by four Lenape American Indians in Greencastle, Penn., in what is considered the earliest known U.S. mass. Lanzas weapons of choice were firearms that his mother had previously purchased, including a .22-calibre rifle and an AR-15, the civilian semiautomatic version of the military M16 assault rifle. They also planted bombs, although the explosives never detonated. The two most notable U.S. school shootings in the early 1970s were the Jackson State killings in May 1970, where police opened fire on the campus of Jackson State University and the Kent State shootings also in May 1970 where the National Guard opened fire on the campus of Kent State University. As he tried to help, he was shot in the chest and killed. The victims were named as Tate Myre, 16, Madisyn . Primary School and Kindergarten Incidents. Mass shootings are going to happen again. 24 were injured. [2], A day earlier, the warriors had encountered a pregnant woman, Susan King Cunningham, on the road. May 23, 1940: New York City, New York Infuriated by a grievance, Matthew Gillespie, 62-year-old janitor at the junior school of the Dwight School for Girls, shot and critically wounded Mrs. Marshall Coxe, secretary of the junior school. Six months prior to the attack, the FBI had been alerted to a comment he made on YouTube stating: Im going to be a professional school shooter. Nothing came of it. Dixon calls it the "Enoch Brown Schoolhouse Massacre" (p. 223). Teachers from all over the country came to Butlers funeral. That night, students started a bonfire. January 10, 1912 Warrenville, Illinois Sylvester E. Adams shot and killed teacher Edith Smith after she rejected his advances. This was considered one of the worst school shootings to occur at that time. Adams then shot and killed himself. Eight children and a police officer were injured, and two men custodian Michael Suchar and principal Burton Wragg were killed in what is considered the first modern school shooting in the United States. Inside were the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and a number of young students. Uvalde school shooting Essay: America's first modern mass shooting never really ended. The following few years would provide an abundance of conflicting reports. The newspapers reported that Allen was also Matt Wards best friend. One by one, his students testified to how he had helped them. Police say the shooting stemmed from a dispute between the victim and a 16-year-old student accused of pulling the trigger. Variations on the name in sources include the "Enoch Brown massacre" and the "Enoch Brown Indian massacre". Data on the mass shootings that have occurred so far this year can be found here.. On July 26, 1764, four Delaware (Lenape) Native Americans entered a settlers' log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania and killed the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and ten students. The boy fled for the 2nd floor, were he encountered the janitor, and he shot him in the head. January 29, 1979 Grover Cleveland Elementary School Shootings, California, where a 16yr old girl opened fire with the rifle, a gift from her father, killing 2 and wounding 9. Answer (1 of 7): the 1760s iirc, an attack by native americans on a schoolhouse somewhere on the western frontier. Using this definition, the history of mass school shootings in the United States dates back to even before the U.S. officially became a country. January 17, 1989 Cleveland School massacre of Stockton, California where 5 school children were killed and 29 wounded by a single gunman firing over 100 rounds into a schoolyard from an AK-47. The gunmen were identified as Eric Harris . The earliest known school shooting in the United States took place in 1764 and was known as the Pontiac Rebellion School Massacre; out of 13 children enrolled in the . Even more startling was news that the week before the shooting, Spencer told classmates she was about to do something big to get on TV.. Jhavon McIntyre was injured but survived the attack. According to newspaper accounts, he was killed by a group of men, probably Confederate raiders, who were trying to steal his enslaved people. The teacher had just passed out. Even though they are in actuality quite rare, these traumatic events have many people concerned about their safety and that of their children. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. September 24, 1937 Toledo, Ohio 12-year-old Robert Snyder shot and wounded his principal, June Mapes, in her office at Arlington public school when she declined his request to call a classmate. Education in the United States during COVID-19, History of Education in the United States, Primary School and Kindergarten Incidents, College and University School Incidents , History of School Shootings in the United States. The deadliest school shooting in the United States was the Virginia Tech massacre, with 33 fatalities and 23 injuries. March 9, 1873 Salisbury, Maryland After school as Miss Shockley was walking with four small children, she was approached by a Mr. Hall and shot. November 15, 1995 Lynnville, Tennessee A seventeen-year-old boy shot and killed a student and teacher with a .22 rifle. Townspeople were incensed. February 22, 1978 Lansing, Michigan After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, kills one student and wounds a second with a Luger pistol. List of battleships of the United States Navy. School shootings don't just deprive children of their lives and innocence; they deprive parents of a sense of safety and security their parents and grandparents took for granted. Brenda Spencer leaves court, Oct. 1, 1979, in Santa Ana after pleading guilty to charges stemming from her shooting spree. June 4, 1936 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Wesley Crow shot and killed his Lehigh University English instructor, C. Wesley Phy. Windows were broken, and the mob threatened to put the torch to other buildings. October 2, 1957: New York City, New York "A 16-year old student was shot in the leg yesterday by a 15-year old classmate at a city high school." Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school. After her case was moved to Orange County to keep it from becoming a spectacle, Brenda Spencer pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to 25 years to life. Charles Whitman (25) was a student and ex-Marine who would go down in history as the "Texas Tower Sniper." On August 1, 1966, he fired down at the passersby below from the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin. Character witnesses remarked that Spencer would often talk about guns, and that she would shoot at cans and birds for fun. Still, as infamous as it was, Columbine wasn't the first, or the deadliest, school shooting in America. Law enforcement toxicology tests showed no sign of intoxicants in either Spencers blood or urine. February 12, 1909 San Francisco, California 10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. The ugly reason The Star-Spangled Banner didnt become our national anthem for a century, A century ago, Mississippis Senate voted to send all the states Black people to Africa, After World War II, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers mutinied and won, Kyle Kuzma, Wizards start fast and dont look back in win over Raptors, Nationals relievers see benefit in tinkering with new pitches, Roger Goodell, Muriel Bowser discussed future of RFK site in December call. During the argument Beard pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot at Hachmeister, wounding him. Nicholas then injured Sam Marino. Wives and mothers testified and fainted. October 2, 1953 Chicago, Illinois 14-year-old Patrick Colletta was shot to death by 14-year-old Bernice Turner in a classroom of Kelly High School in Chicago. At least 71 people (65 students and 6 school employees) had been killed with guns at school. The first known mass shooting in the U.S. where students were shot, was on April 9, 1891, when 70 year old, James Foster fired a shotgun at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, Newburgh, New York, causing minor injuries to several of the students. The Enoch Brown School Massacre is one of the first documented school shootings in U.S. history. Police arrived quickly on the scene, but unaware of the gunmans identity, they initially pursued the first victims boyfriend. Neither did most of America. April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colorado 14 students (including shooters) and one teacher killed, 27 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. October 17, 1961 Denver, Colorado Tennyson Beard, 14, got into an argument with William Hachmeister, 15, at Morey Junior High School. 2001-2002 (4 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) June 13, 1889 New Brunswick, New Jersey Charles Crawford upset over an argument with a school Trustee, went up to the window and fired a pistol into a crowded school room. [11], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}394929N 774521W / 39.8246N 77.7559W / 39.8246; -77.7559. [4] John McCullough, a settler who had been held prisoner by the Delaware since 1756,[6] later described the return of the raiding party in his captivity narrative: I saw the Indians when they returned home with the scalps; some of the old Indians were very much displeased at them for killing so many children, especially Neep-paugh'-whese, or Night Walker, an old chief, or half king,he ascribed it to cowardice, which was the greatest affront he could offer them. There have so far been 674 mass shootings in the US in 2022, according to the Gun . May 20, 1999 Conyers, Georgia Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend, 2000-2001 (19 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) T hree men entered a schoolhouse in, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster and ten children. School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. That morning, Spencer had told her father she was too ill to attend class. Brown and ten children were killed. She was beaten to death, scalped, and the baby was cut out of her body.[3]. GAO found that shootings at K-12 schools most commonly resulted from disputes or grievances, for example, between students or staff, or between gangs, although the specific characteristics of school shootings over the past 10 years varied widely, according to GAO's analysis of the Naval Postgraduate School's K-12 School Shooting Database. May 1, 1958: Massapequa, New York A 15-year-old high school freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom of the Massapequa High School. Andrew Kehoe (55) methodically planned out his attack, spending months placing dynamite and explosives around the school. The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indian entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). He entered through a window and immediately took down the principal and school psychologist. The majority of attacks during this time period by students on other students or teacher, usually involved stabbing with knives, or hitting with stones. Who do you thinks doing the shooting?, The reporter then asked Why? and the answer Spencer gave would become famous. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods. All in all, they killed 12 students, one teacher, and themselves, and they wounded 21 others. In August of that year, a 25-year-old man named Charles Whitman went on a 96-minute shooting spree from an observation deck at the University of Texas-Austin, killing 17 people and wounding 31 others in an attack that sounds eerily reminiscent of the stories that you're all too used to hearing today. Only one shot was fired in order to detonate dynamite in the car. [3] Four children were taken as prisoners. Have a question about history? 16 School Shootings That Took Place Before Columbine. April 27, 1936 Lincoln, Nebraska, Prof. John Weller shot and wounded Prof. Harry Kurz in a corridor of the University of Nebraska, apparently because of his impending dismissal at the end of the semester. Lawyers and state officials were skeptical, feeling if these allegations were true, they would have likely come out 20 years before. Armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, Cruz killed seventeen people and left more than a dozen injured. The Issue: Over the past two decades, 143 American public schools have experienced shootings during school hours that resulted in at least one fatality. May 20, 1988 Winnetka, Illinois 30yr old Laurie Dann shot and killed one boy, and wounded five other kids, in an elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself. 1996-1997 (23 Homicides and 25 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) As tragic as it was, Columbine wasn't the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. school, either. 1764 massacre in Pennsylvania, United States, "Enoch Brown" redirects here. The testimony of the traumatized children didnt precisely agree, so the defense argued that Butler had mesmerized them with his presence. Here are the 10 deadliest school shootings in American history: 10. On April 20,1999, teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Kleboldgunned downtheir classmates and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, killing 15people and wounding 24. 2007-2008 (3 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) 2004-2023 K12academics.com All Rights Reserved. Lee Arthur Hester, a 14-year-old student, is later convicted of the murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison. On the morning of January 29, 1979, teenager Brenda Spencer took a break from shooting people through her window to answer the phone. There were 51 school shootings with injuries or deaths last year , the most in a single year since Education Week began tracking such incidents in . Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged. They exchanged words that were hard for witnesses to make out. With lyrics like And he can see no reasons / because there are no reasons, it topped the U.K. charts for four straight weeks. Distancing herself from her actions, she also claims to have no memory of the event. One other student named Archie McCullough was wounded. The previous "record holder" was the University of Texas massacre by Charles Whitman. This incident occurred near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania and was named the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre. This livens up the day.. The master, surmising their objective, prayed them only to take his life and spare the children, but all were brutally knocked in the head with an Indian maul and scalped."[5]. Butler was lifted up by several of his students and taken to a nearby house. School massacres, such as the one that involved the Ohio National Guard and protesting students at Kent State University, Charles Whitman and his shootings of students from the tower at the University of Texas, the Columbine High school massacre, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school and the Virginia Tech massacre. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then blew the car up, killing himself and four others. March 27, 1919 Lodi Township, Michigan 19-year-old teacher Irma Casler was shot and killed in her classroom at Rentschler school in Lodi Township, Michigan by Robert Warner, apparently because she had rejected his advances. . From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person whos on TikTok, even if you arent. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) On the morning of January 29, 1979, teenager Brenda Spencer took a break from shooting people through her window to answer the phone. The lead prosecutor was Alfred Allen, who had just turned 30. The stabbing was reportedly sparked over a dispute about a basketball game. On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza (20) rocked the nation when, after killing his mother, he drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Charles Whitman (25) was a student and ex-Marine who would go down in history as the Texas Tower Sniper. On August 1, 1966, he fired down at the passersby below from the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin. Smith ordered the hostages to lie down on the floor in a circle. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. The man who had sold him the guns had testified under oath, and the ammunition matched the pistol. Butler was revealed to have previously worked in the Ward mansion as a private tutor. Foster's motivations wereunclear. Today, a commemorative park marks the site. December 1, 1997 West Paducah, Kentucky Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School. The majority of mass school shootings were carried out by a lone gunman, with just two - Columbine and the 1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro, Arkansas - carried out by two gunmen . It is an unfortunate truth that there have been dozens of school massacres in the United States, particularly throughout the last thirty years. He had bought two self-cocking pistols the morning of the shooting at Dickson & Gilmore, a local gun store, and had a history of violent threats and angry letters to teachers. After Smith escaped and committed suicide in a barn near his home two hours later. Her memoir, reportedly titled A Mother's Reckoning, will be published next week, with profits going to mental health charities and research. A coroner's jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. He was discharged in 1964 and returned to university a year later. 1999-2000 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.). Meanwhile, Whitman was dealing with rage. A database of mass shootings compiled by Mother Jones going back to 1982 counts 123 such incidents in which at least three people were killed, not including the gunman. 409 shooters (19.9%) had no school affiliation. February 8, 1968 Orangeburg, South Carolina In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, about 200 mostly student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University, located in the city of Orangeburg, to protest the segregation of the All Star Bowling Lane. The crime was never solved. Seung-Hui Cho (23) opened fire at two locations on campus, first the dormitory, followed by an academic building where he locked the doors and went from classroom to classroom shooting at random. List of school shootings in the United States (2000-present) See also List of school shootings in the United States by death toll This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title List of school shootings in the United States. [4] When the warriors returned to their village on the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country and showed the scalps, an elder Delaware chief rebuked them as cowards for attacking children. In 2018, Nikolas Cruz (19) opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. After a nearly seven-hour SWAT negotiation, Spencer left her house, surrendered, and was arrested. The officers fired into the crowd, killing three young men: Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding twenty-seven others. Wards lawyers said he had acted in self-defense after Butler had struck him. It's been almost 17 years since teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 15 people including themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The U.S. ended 2021 with 693 mass shootings, per the Gun Violence Archive.The year before saw 611. [4] Settlers could collect $134 for the scalp of an enemy American Indian male above the age of ten; the bounty for women was set at $50. June 7, 1960 Blaine, Minnesota Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun. (In 1840, a University of Virginia teacher had been shot by a student. Columbine wasn't the first, or the deadliest, school shooting. From the very first school shooting in the 18th century, to sniper Charles Whitman, who enacted the actualfirst school mass shooting in modern UShistory, toBrenda Spencer,a female shooter who not only defied the "loner white male" stereotype but also inspired a pop song by the Boomtown Rats. Brown pleaded with the warriors to spare the children before being shot and scalped. On July 26, 1764, four Delaware (Lenape) Native Americans entered a settlers' log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania and killed the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and ten students.