On the other hand, I also did not know that this event was listed as the first high profile school shooting. 0.184 Tw /Span<>> BDC California has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country and yet still there is gun violence, like the school shooting described in this article. ( )Tj I didnt think it all the way through, Several children were injured by gunshot wounds. /T1_4 1 Tf -2.118 -1.529 Td During the uninterrupted shooting, two teachers were killed, who saved their children at the cost of their lives. /T1_3 1 Tf Michael Suchar, age 56, school custodian, went to the aid of Mr. Wragg and was also shot., Youre shooting people as they come to the aid of others, he said. Then the inmate proceeded to commit one of the most notorious crimes in the history of this nation., He went on: At 8:30 a.m., the children were lining up to enter Cleveland Elementary School She picked up her .22 caliber, semiautomatic scoped rifle and began shooting children. On January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine when she fired on San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School with a .22-caliber rifle from her family's house across the street. Yet her father, who died in 2016, was by all accounts a very odd man. /Span<>> BDC (60)Tj 0 Tw 2.118 0 Td However, I find their reasons to be interesting to learn about. 0 Tc 0 Tw 8.5 0 0 8.5 336 453.5 Tm I think that article such as these, that have to do with people like this that kill or shoot up schools filled with little kids are so heartbreaking to read. Surprisingly, the suspect was identified as a 16-year-old girl, Brenda Ann Spencer, who was living across the street from Grover Cleveland Elementary. A student organization of St. Marys University of San Antonio, Texas, featuring scholarly research, writing, and media from students of all disciplines. On Monday, January 29, 1979 started out as a normal day. 0 Tw 2.118 0 Td On April 4, 1980, a day after her 18th birthday, she was sentenced to 25 years to life. 0 Tw 2.118 0 Td That summer, Spencer, who was known to hunt birds in the neighborhood, was arrested for shooting out the windows of Grover Cleveland Elementary with a BB gun and for burglary. /T1_3 1 Tf They slept on a single mattress on the living room floor, with empty alcohol . They slept on a single mattress on the living room floor. She barricaded herself and 7 hours did not succumb to the police persuasion. /T1_4 1 Tf ( )Tj 21.746 0 Td T* (100)Tj [(\223H)23 (earing 2009,)80 (\224 pp. /Span<>> BDC /T1_3 1 Tf )]TJ (\027)Tj The parole board chairman said that as she had not previously told any prison staff about the allegations, he doubted whether they were true. Spencer has tried to garner sympathy by stating that her father beat and sexually abused her. EMC /T1_4 1 Tf /T1_3 1 Tf /T1_4 1 Tf /Span<>> BDC /T1_4 1 Tf /T1_2 1 Tf School Shooter She was sentenced to twenty-five years to life in prison, and is still serving her sentence at the California Institute for Women. -2.118 -1.529 Td [(H)23 (art)30 (, )]TJ %PDF-1.7 % Whether Spencer was a cold-hearted killer or a truly lost and confused soul that simply wanted an escape, it is undeniable that her horrible actions have had some frightening consequences in our modern world. H\0z EMC ( p. 8.3965 0 0 8.5 318 463.5 Tm What if they got the idea from what I did?. Her claims were treated with scepticism, given that she had never mentioned them before. On the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, Spencer began shooting at children waiting for Principal Burton Wragg (age 53) to open the gates to Grover Cleveland Elementary. At her first hearing, Spencer said she had hoped police would shoot her and that she had been a user of alcohol and drugs at the time of the crime, although the results of drug tests done when she was taken into custody were negative. Neighbors claimed Spencer had . )]TJ ( p. Not long after Brenda Spencer went to jail, her father married his daughter's teenage cellmate. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. He had been called to testify against her. Including shooting each other in school., The comments below have not been moderated, By /T1_4 1 Tf After several hours, Brenda Spencer surrendered her weapon and several rounds of ammunition, and was subsequently arrested. EMC EMC She answered a reporters question on why she fired the gun, by saying I dont like Mondays. The place he loved the most. ( )Tj )]TJ /GS0 gs -2.118 -1.529 Td The victims are not only those killed, but the survivors who live the tragedy for the rest of their lives.. -2.118 -1.529 Td 0.237 Tw /Span<>> BDC ( )Tj /T1_3 1 Tf Both girls had witnessed the death of the principal and the custodian. They had a child, and the little girl attended Buell's preschool. /Span<>> BDC (101)Tj As she continued shooting, SWAT officers surrounded the house and evacuated the school from the rear. -2.118 -1.529 Td She shot him because, by her own words, he was making it more difficult for her to shoot the kids, the representative said. The commissioner said they would get back to all that. The blood hadnt been scrubbed from where he had fallen on the concrete. You didnt follow through with your plan.. /T1_3 1 Tf She showed little interest in her studies and hated authority. The other daughter had been saved from harm when a notebook with a pouch of pens stopped a bullet. She did it, she said, because she didn't like Mondays. Brenda Spencer's net worth During a 2009 parole hearing, her most recent, she insisted that she had not intended to shoot anybody. I dont like Mondays, she told him. ( )Tj At 16 and using a .22 rifle her father had given her as a Christmas present she started shooting, wounding 8 and killing 2. /T1_4 1 Tf [(\223H)23 (earing 2001,)80 (\224 pp. Brenda Spencer explained her act by shooting at children just for the sake of her pleasure, and also for laughs. EMC Principal Wragg was fatally shot in the heart. EMC The girl was born in the USA, California, the city of San Diego, in 1962. 0.038 Tw 2.118 0 Td Spencers absent mother, Dot, claimed she suspected father and daughter had an unhealthy relationship but insisted she couldnt afford a lawyer to fight for custody. EMC The issue is not owning guns, the issue is mental health. When she was 16 years old, at Christmas, her father presented her with a rifle with an optical sight. Ive seen first hand how these tragedies affect a community. 7)30 (3, 75. [(M)31 (urd)-5 (er C)30 (ase,)]TJ 0 Tw T* I did not know about this case. /T1_4 1 Tf 40. Tom Leonard for the Daily Mail After a 20-minute shooting spree, eight children and three adults had been hit, among them a police officer who was shot through the neck. (MD)Tj But for the heroic efforts of a police officer who risked his life to drive a trash truck in front of her residence to block her field of fire, no doubt further children would have been shot.. She described arriving at school and hearing shots and seeing the principal and the custodian lying dead. When her father gifted her the .22 caliber rifle, she thought that he was finally telling her to do it: to take her life successfully, unlike her past suicide attempts, and leave the world forever.7. The woman eventually left. You didnt go to school that day? the commissioner asked. ( )Tj /T1_3 1 Tf EMC /T1_1 1 Tf He said his wife had heard on the radio of a shooting at the school and called him at work. ( )Tj Spencer subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. A comment so flippant, sarcastic and callous as "I don't like Mondays" as a motivation for shooting up a school tells FBI profiler Candice DeLong that Brenda Spencer was not mentally ill at the time of the shooting and knew what she was doing. EMC /Span<>> BDC /T1_3 1 Tf At various parole hearings since the first in 1993, she has blamed her father and also the influence of drugs for the shooting. )Tj BT )Tj Former student 42. ( pp. ( )Tj )]TJ Ugh, its Monday are the words that usually follow the arrival of the most dreaded day of the week. [(\223H)23 (earing 2009,)80 (\224 pp. (63)Tj Thrill Killers. The Investigation Discovery network portrayed Brenda Spencer's crimes in one of the three cases presented in the premiere episode of season 2 on the crime documentary series Deadly Women, titled "Thrill Killers", first air date: October 9, 2008. Or as Wilfred Suchar, son of the murdered school caretaker, put it at a parole hearing: My question is, will there be another boring Monday for her?. Across the street, Brenda Ann Spencer was watching them from her home, a ramshackle house filled with empty alcohol bottles and a single mattress she shared with her father. Successive parole hearings have heard powerful testimony from those who say their lives were permanently scarred by Spencer. Survivors of the shooting who attended court recall a bespectacled Spencer staring at them blankly. On January 29, 1979, in San Diego, California, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who lived just across the road from the Cleveland Elementary School, opened fire on the students and school personnel with a .22-caliber rifle. /T1_5 1 Tf According to the testimony of neighbors and family acquaintances, parents often spoke about weapons in her presence, moreover, my father even taught her how to shoot. [(H)23 (art)30 (, )]TJ ( )Tj ( )Tj 0 Tc 0 Tw 8.4751 0 0 8.5 561.6812 581.5 Tm 58. In April 1980, Spencer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Sixteen-year-old Brenda Spencer fired from the window of her house children who had come to school, across the road from the ill-fated home. Brenda Ann Spencer, now 56, has spent the last 40 years in prison at the California Institution for Women. I walked around this place, not stepping on the splotches and the puddles, and didnt want to be hugged by anyone. The principal of the elementary school, Burton Wragg, age 53, had gone to the aid of the students and was subsequently shot himself, the commissioner said. [(Langman, P)90 (. -2.118 -1.529 Td ( p. Brenda Ann Spencer. Trivia (3) On January 29, 1979, sixteen year old Brenda Spencer pointed her .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle that she had received as a Christmas present from her father out her bedroom window to San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School across the street. -2.118 -1.529 Td -2.118 -1.529 Td [(M)31 (urd)-5 (er C)30 (ase,)]TJ 0.177 Tw /Span<>> BDC This was a Monday morning in January 1979. A teacher had called for her to duck. 0 Tw (-)Tj /T1_4 1 Tf )]TJ HtyTY Q" }]iwQQ*=L`:i_L{NSTw)k+CZ"Rhtn [(\223H)23 (earing 1994,)80 (\224 p. EMC 1.647 0 Td Brenda Spencer was born April 3rd, 1962 to her mother and father, Dorothy and Wallace Spencer. EMC The Brenda Spencer Murder Case, which was published in 2012, and is the single best source I am aware of regarding Spencer. /T1_4 1 Tf The perks of Golden Girl membership include a front-line pass for meals and medication and access to a specific dining room closest to the members cell.