The mid to late 1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history with a series of school shootings, most notably were; December 30, 1974 Olean, New York, Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old Regents scholar armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Nicholas then injured Sam Marino. Answer (1 of 7): the 1760s iirc, an attack by native americans on a schoolhouse somewhere on the western frontier. On April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold opened fire inside their high school near Denver. 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.. According to the National School Safety Center, since the 1992-1993 U.S. school year there has been a significant decline in school-associated violent deaths (deaths on private or public school property for kindergarten through grade 12 and resulting from schools functions or activities): 1992-1993 (44 Homicides and 55 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) 2007-2008 (3 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) In that time, 952 people . Want to leave a comment? Matt Ward, 28, whose father was a six-time Kentucky state representative who lived in an $80,000 mansion with nine enslaved Black workers, was arrested along with his brother, who was 19. Mass shootings are going to happen again. On Saturday, Tim Throne, who heads the Oxford Community. Then in a quiet voice, Matt Ward demanded to see Mr. Butler, one of the teachers at the high school. Dixon calls it the "Enoch Brown Schoolhouse Massacre" (p. 223). K-12 School Shooter Statistics. With lyrics like And he can see no reasons / because there are no reasons, it topped the U.K. charts for four straight weeks. [3] John McCullough, a settler who had been held prisoner by the Delawares since 1756,[4] 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. Police arrived quickly on the scene, but unaware of the gunmans identity, they initially pursued the first victims boyfriend. Still, as infamous as it was, Columbine wasn't the first, or the deadliest, school shooting in America. 2008-2009 (10 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) The previous "record holder" was the University of Texas massacre by Charles Whitman. February 24, 1903 Inman, South Carolina Edward Foster, a 17-year-old student at Inman High school, was shot and fatally wounded by his teacher Reuben Pitts after he had jerked a rod from Pitts' hands to resist punishment. The Enoch Brown Massacre is thought to be the earliest known killing to occuron school property in what would one day become the United States. I shot a pig [a policeman], I think, and I want to shoot more. By the end of her sniping assault, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer had shot 11 people. [9] In 1843, the grave was excavated to confirm the location of the bodies. Principal Burton Wragg rushed over to the children, many of whom were paralyzed in place by fear, to guide them to safety. November 15, 1995 Lynnville, Tennessee A seventeen-year-old boy shot and killed a student and teacher with a .22 rifle. While we often consider Columbine to be the first school shooting of the modern era, there were a shockingly large number of school shootingsbefore thattragic event. February 23, 1943: Port Chester, NY Harry Wyman, 13-year-old, shot himself dead at the Harvey School, a boys' preparatory school. Three students were shot to death and five critically injured before a gunman took his own life Monday at Michigan State . An 18-year-old gunman got out of his car and opened fire at the school. March 6, 1884 Boston, Massachusetts As news of Jesse James reached the east coast, young kids started to act in the same manner. That morning, Spencer had told her father she was too ill to attend class. 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 . They often result in high death tolls and unimaginable grief for those involved. The massacre took only five minutes and 32 seconds. 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. The lead prosecutor was Alfred Allen, who had just turned 30. Eyewitnesses had seen Ward shoot Butler. March 11, 1949: New York City A 16-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School was accidentally shot in the arm by a fellow student who was 'showing off' with a pistol in a classroom. The Enoch Brown school massacre[1] was "one of the most notorious incidents"[2] of Pontiac's War. The first U.S. school shooting was in 1853. It wasn't until 1966, though, that the next mass shooting or, at least,. Neither did most of America. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. [5], Incidents such as these prompted the Pennsylvania Assembly, with the approval of Governor John Penn, to reintroduce the scalp bounty system previously used during the French and Indian War. RED LAKE HIGH SCHOOL, March 2005, 9 dead. April 2, 1921 Syracuse, New York Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed dean J. Herman Wharton in his office at Syracuse University before committing suicide. October 20, 1956: New York City, New York A junior high school student was wounded in the forearm yesterday by another student armed with a home-made weapon at Booker T. Washington Junior High School. Foster's motivations wereunclear. Not finding the teacher at the school, they continued to his house, where a gun battle rang out, leaving three dead. He then fled the school grounds and shot and wounded himself. 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. In July 1764, 10 Pennsylvania students and their teacher died in the very first school massacre. This article was corrected to reflect the year for the interview Brenda Spencer gave about the shooting. It is an unfortunate truth that there have been dozens of school massacres in the United States, particularly throughout the last thirty years. 409 shooters (19.9%) had no school affiliation. 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. 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. 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. May 1, 1992 Olivehurst, California Eric Houston, 20, killed four people and wounded 10 in an armed siege at his former high school. Cruz had recently been expelled for disciplinary reasons and was currently enrolled in a different school in the same district. 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 Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). According to newspaper accounts, he was killed by a group of men, probably Confederate raiders, who were trying to steal his enslaved people. July 14, 1952 New York City, New York Bayard Peakes walked in to the offices of the American Physical Society at Columbia University and shot and killed secretary Eileen Fahey with a .22 caliber pistol. Yeah, Spencer said. Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, also called Newtown shootings of 2012, mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, that left 28 people dead and 2 injured. 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. Subscribe for free weekly updates from this History site. Prosecutors said the attack was in retribution for a failing grade. Smith ordered the hostages to lie down on the floor in a circle. [10] In 1885, the area was named Enoch Brown Park and a memorial was erected over the gravesite. Police say the shooting stemmed from a dispute between the victim and a 16-year-old student accused of pulling the trigger. 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. Franklin County, Pennsylvania, 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. Regardless, an event such as this was unprecedented for the time and ultimately sparked the creation of various SWAT teams across the country. The teacher had just passed out. On July 26, 1764, four Lenape American Indian warriors entered a log schoolhouse of white settlers in what is now . September 14, 1934 Gill, Massachusetts. Even Spencers self-inflicted scars became matters of interpretation. List of battleships of the United States Navy. Windows were broken, and the mob threatened to put the torch to other buildings. December 9, 1985 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania At the Archbishop Ryan High School for Boys, a 22yr old Mental health patient took 6 students hostage with what ended up being a starter pistol. March 2, 1987 Missouri an honours student Nathan Ferris, 12, killed a classmate and then himself. The shooter killed seven people at the school, including students, a teacher and a security guard, and injured five others. Matt Ward, who was short and slight, pulled out a small pistol that he had concealed in his coat pocket and shot Butler in the chest. Character witnesses remarked that Spencer would often talk about guns, and that she would shoot at cans and birds for fun. Public outrage led to a push for federal changes to gun laws, but the bill did not pass; however, a number of states have since amended their local laws. On Sept. 30, 1862, Ward walked out the front door of his plantation. Teachers from all over the country came to Butlers funeral. It was fun to watch the children that had red and blue ski jackets on, as they made perfect targets, she later said to a police investigator. Primary School and Kindergarten Incidents. Morgan Doughty Filed A Lawsuit Against The Murdaugh Family, The Subject Of This Netflix True Crime Doc Is Now Guilty Of Murdering His Wife & Son, Heres How To Watch The Alex Murdaugh Trial Live, Sophie Turners Joan Charts The Rise Of A Famous British Jewel Thief, Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter. October 10, 1906 Cleveland, Ohio Harry Smith shot and killed 22-year-old teacher Mary Shepard at South Euclid School after she had rejected him. Peakes was reportedly upset that the APS had rejected a pamphlet he had written. 24 were injured. The first victim, was fatally shot in the stomach, and the second victim received a non-fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. November 19, 1969 Tomah, Wisconsin Principal Martin Mogensen is shot to death in his office by a 14-year-old boy armed with a 20 gauge shotgun. Military Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. The Sandy Hook shooting was, at the time, the second-deadliest mass shooting in the United States after the 2007 shooting at . He entered through a window and immediately took down the principal and school psychologist. On July 26, 1764, four Delaware (Lenape) American Indian warriors entered a settlers' log schoolhouse in the Province of Pennsylvania in what is now Franklin County, near present Greencastle. On May 18 at 9:45 am, they detonated by way of alarm clock. 19921993 (44 Homicides and 55 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19931994 (42 Homicides and 51 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19941995 (17 Homicides and 20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19951996 (29 Homicides and 35 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19961997 (23 Homicides and 25 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19971998 (35 Homicides and 40 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.), 19981999 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.), 19992000 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.). As of June 2022, there were 153 school shootings in total in the . A coroner's jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident. This massacre happened during Pontiac's War. Four women and a three-year-old girl died, one woman and a baby were injured but survived. 1994-1995 (17 Homicides and 20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.) On July 26, 1764, a group of Lenape American Indians entered a schoolhouse near Greencastle, PA, and clubbed and scalped schoolmaster Enoch Brown and killed 9 or 10 of his children (precise numbers vary). The first person Spencer hit was 9-year-old Monica Selvig, who was struck in the wrist by a bullet. February 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Washington Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class. St. Mary's Parochial School Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain 16 School Shootings That Took Place Before Columbine. It was learned that Spencers father gave her the rifle and 400 rounds of ammunition as a Christmas gift, none of which she requested. Data on the mass shootings that have occurred so far this year can be found here.. [3] Four children were taken as prisoners. Lawyers and state officials were skeptical, feeling if these allegations were true, they would have likely come out 20 years before. Ultimately, it seems that virtually no conversation about gun violence in the U.S. would be complete without mentioning the mass casualties that have occurred at the hands of mentally troubled and otherwise disturbed young people on school grounds. 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.