History of School Shootings in the United States: 2013
History of School Shootings in the United States: 2013
On January 10, 2013
in Taft, California 16-year-old student Bryan Oliver walked into a science class at Taft Union High School with a shotgun, wounding 16-year-old student Bowe Cleveland. He also shot at but missed another student. The classroom teacher Ryan Heber convinced Oliver to drop his weapon, he was arrested and on January 14, he was charged with two counts of attempted murder and assault with a firearm. He accepted a plea deal with a sentence of 27 years 4 months.
On January 12, 2013
in Detroit, Michigan A 16-year-old Osborn High School student was shot and wounded after a basketball game.
On January 15, 2013
in St. Louis, Missouri a 34-year-old gunman wounded an administrator in his office on the fourth floor of the Stevens Institute of Business and Arts. The suspected gunman, Sean Johnson, a part-time student, wounded himself in a stairwell. Both the administrator and Johnson were hospitalized in stable conditions. Johnson was convicted of three felony charges, including assault and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Court records indicate Johnson may have mental health issues along with his long criminal background. In 2009, when being sentenced on charges of Second Degree Assault and Unlawful Use of a Weapon for an assault on a cab driver, his sentence was suspended and Johnson was ordered to take prescribed medication. A few years later, he tried to assault a highway worker in a construction zone. The probable cause statement confirmed rumors that Johnson was upset about his financial aid status and may have shot the administrator who told him that he was no longer receiving funds for his education.
On January 15, 2013
in Hazard, Kentucky, Dalton Lee Stidham murdered Caitlyn Cornett (the mother of his son), her uncle Jackie Cornett and her 12-year-old niece Taylor Cornett. He shot all three victims when he met at his ex-girlfriend, Caitlin Paige Cornett, so he could return their son, Jaydien Miller, 2, after a court-ordered visitation. Also killed were Cornett's uncle Jackie Doug Cornett, 53, of Happy, and his daughter, Taylor Cornett, a sixth-grader at R.W. Combs Elementary School in Perry County. Jackie and Taylor Cornett had brought Caitlin to pick up her son. 21-year-old Dalton Lee Stidham was arrested and charged with three counts of murder, and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2014. A court of appeals upheld his conviction in 2019.
On January 16, 2013
in Chicago, Illinois a 17-year-old named Tyrone Lawson was killed in a parking lot at Chicago State University. The shooting happened after high school basketball games held on the campus, at which Lawson had been a spectator. Police arrested two brothers, Michael McNabb, 33, and Brian Hewlett (under alias Stephen Gilbert), 30 after the shooting and recovered a weapon.
On January 22, 2013
in Houston, Texas at the Lone Star College–North Harris, three people were injured in a shooting in the campus courtyard near the library. The gunman was heard arguing with a student named Jody Neal, and initially walked away but returned and pulled out a handgun from his backpack. The gunman shot Neal three times. A maintenance worker was also hit in the leg by a bullet, and the shooter accidentally shot himself in the buttocks. Witnesses said up to six shots were fired.
Immediately after the shooting, the campus was evacuated and put on "lockdown." Two individuals with multiple gunshot wounds were in serious condition at Ben Taub Hospital along with a fourth person who suffered a stroke. The shooter fled into nearby woods and was followed by officers who later arrested him.
There were two people detained for further questioning. Carlton Berry, age 22, who was initially believed to be the gunman, was charged with aggravated assault in the shootings. These charges were later dropped.
Aggravated assault were filed against Berry because two victims in the shooting had identified Berry as the shooter. Initially, Berry denied even being at the shooting, but when he was notified of the two charges he told investigators that he had been there and said he wasn't the shooter. He told investigators the shooter was a friend, Trey Foster.
"If we hadn't arrested Berry, we wouldn't have found out about Foster and we would still be looking for a weapon," Sheriff Garcia said. "With the witness statements from the victims, we had enough to meet probable cause, and Berry was charged. This is how investigations work sometimes."
Foster was later arrested in Plano, Texas, where a gun matching the description of the weapon used in the shooting was also found. Trey Foster, the so-called "Lone Star College Shooter," pled guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in September 2014 and was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Harris County District Court. Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia said, “…being bumped into is at the root of this incident." The sheriff blamed the shooting on "idiocy and stupidity, and I think today I'll add pre-puberty behavior.”
On January 31, 2013
in Atlanta, Georgia a 14-year-old male student was wounded at Price Middle School when a 15-year-old student, believed to be arguing with the other student, used a handgun to shoot him. A teacher was also wounded. Afterward, the gunman was disarmed by a school resource officer and arrested; police charged him with aggravated assault.
On March 18, 2013
in Orlando, Florida at the University of Central Florida, 30-year-old student James Oliver Seevakumaran pulled a fire alarm at the Tower One dormitory. He pointed a handgun at his roommate and threatened to shoot him in their room; then he released the roommate, who ran out and called 9-1-1. Seevakumaran then fatally shot himself in the head. Authorities found a semiautomatic rifle, a couple hundred rounds of ammunition and four homemade bombs inside his backpack.
On April 12, 2013
in Christiansburg, Virginia at New River Community College two women were wounded during a shooting on campus when Neil Allen MacInnis opened fire with a shotgun at a satellite campus at the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg, Virginia. An off-duty security guard and two police officers subdued the gunman.
Neil Allen MacInnis of Christiansburg was 18 years old at the time of his arrest. Minutes prior to the attack, a message was posted on 4chan about threats of a shooting at the campus. The message also included the name of Neil MacInnis. MacInnis was convicted of two counts of malicious wounding and two counts of use of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and was sentenced to 38 years in prison.
On April 16, 2013
in Grambling, Louisiana three students were injured in a shooting on the campus of Grambling State University.
On April 18, 2013
in Cambridge, Massachusetts three days after committing the Boston Marathon bombing, and still at large, the brothers Tsarnaev shot and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer Sean Collier in his patrol car near MIT's Ray and Maria Stata Center.
About three hours after the MIT shooting and after carjacking a vehicle, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a gunfight with police in Watertown, Massachusetts. Another officer was seriously wounded. Shot in the neck and hiding in a boat parked nearby, Dzhokha Tsarnaev was arrested 18 hours later, and hospitalized in critical condition. He was sentenced to death in 2015.
On May 14, 2013
in Birmingham, Alabama the mother of a student fired a weapon on the campus of Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School, allegedly in response to a student fight she fired a shot into the ground. No one was injured or arrested although she allegedly aimed the weapon at another mother first.
On June 7, 2013
in Santa Monica, California, 23-year-old John Zawahri began his killing spree at his home, where he killed his 55-year-old father, Samir "Sam" Zawahri, and his 25-year-old brother, Chris Zawahri. He then set the house on fire. The bodies of two men were found in the house by police, both having died from gunshot wounds, after the fire was extinguished by firefighters.
Dressed all in black with body armor and wielding an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle which he assembled (though he was legally prohibited from possessing firearms), Zawahri carjacked 41-year-old Laura Siska in her Mazda hatchback. He shot 50-year-old Debra Fine as she attempted to intervene when she passed by the scene in her car. Fine estimates Zawahri fired about eight shots. She was hit twice in the left shoulder, three times in the right shoulder and once in the right ear. She told the LA times she still has bullet fragments lodged in her chest. Zawahri then forced Siska to drive him to Santa Monica College.
On the busy college campus, Zawahri began shooting at passing vehicles, including a police car and a city bus, injuring three people. Zawahri targeted a Ford Explorer, killing the driver, 68-year-old campus groundskeeper, Carlos Navarro Franco, and fatally wounding the passenger, his 26-year-old daughter Marcela Diaz-Franco, a student at the college, who died two days later.
He then continued on foot toward the college library, fatally shooting another woman immediately outside, 68-year-old Margarita Gomez, who was collecting cans outside the library. She died after being shot in the abdomen and chest. Zawahri also opened fire on students who were trying to run away. Entering the library, Zawahri opened fire on students inside, then focused his gunfire on a group of library employees barricaded in a storage room. Witnesses stated they heard gunshots and screams, but were able to hide or escape unharmed. While on the campus, he fired at least 70 rounds, and dropped a duffel bag loaded with magazines, boxes of ammunition and a .44 caliber revolver.
When police arrived at the college, they exchanged gunfire with Zawahri, still in the library. He was shot by Santa Monica Police Officers Robert Sparks, Jason Salas and Santa Monica College Captain Ray Bottenfield inside the library, and then brought outside, where he died. Authorities investigated up to nine crime scenes tied to the thirteen-minute-long shooting spree. Though Zawahri was killed, officers still actively searched the college campus for additional shooters and victims for over eight hours.
On August 20, 2013
in Decatur, Georgia armed with an AK-47-type assault rifle and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition, 20-year-old Michael Brandon Hill entered the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy shortly after 1:00 PM and took several employees hostage in the principal's office.
Hill ordered his hostages to call local ABC News affiliate WSB-TV, and declared that he wanted a camera crew to record him killing police officers. When responding law enforcement officers arrived at the school, Hill exited the office and fired six rounds at police, who immediately returned fire. No one was hit in the brief gunfight; Hill returned to the office with his hostages. During the resulting standoff with police, Hill claimed to have a bomb in his car, with another in the school, and repeatedly threatened to kill himself and the hostages. Police managed to evacuate students and staff out the back of the school while the standoff was ongoing. Hill was eventually persuaded to surrender by one of the hostages, Antoinette Tuff, who shared stories with him and tried to keep him calm during the siege.
After pleading guilty to numerous charges stemming from the incident, Hill was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 20 years of supervised probation in September 2014.
On August 22, 2013
in Memphis, Tennessee a 5-year-old kindergarten student fired a handgun in his elementary school cafeteria. The Westside Elementary School student brought the gun to school in his backpack. While waiting for the opening bell in the cafeteria, the gun accidentally discharged one time inside the boy's backpack. There was no evidence of harmful intent and nobody was injured. To date, the boy is the youngest documented school shooter.
On August 23, 2013
in Sardis, Mississippi 15-year-old student, Roderick Bobo, was killed during a football game at North Panola High School in what was termed a gang-related shooting. Two others were injured. Three men were charged- Dante Darious McNeil, Quintarious Lashard Mabry and John Germaine Haines were all charged in the shooting. Another man, Kevin Durell Motley, was found shooting at a nearby elementary school, and charged with having a gun on campus.
On August 30, 2013
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina a 15-year-old male student was shot at Carver High School, at 2:30 p.m.. He was hospitalized with minor injuries. An 18-year-old male student was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, carrying a concealed gun, possessing and discharging a firearm, and carrying a firearm onto educational property. The shooting was believed related to a dispute between the suspect and the victim.
On October 4, 2013
in Pine Hills, Florida a 16-year-old student was shot in the hip outside Agape Christian Academy after a fight broke out at 2 p.m.. An innocent bystander was hit by a stray bullet or shrapnel. The two victims were treated for minor injuries. The suspected shooter reportedly fled in a car with several other males, and was not caught.
On October 21, 2013
in Sparks, Nevada a 12-year-old seventh-grade student Jose Reyes opened fire with a handgun at the basketball courts of Sparks Middle School, injuring one student in the shoulder. Michael Landsberry, a teacher and veteran, tried to intervene and was killed by Reyes. Reyes also wounded a student trying to help the teacher. Reyes then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. The shooting happened before classes, and the school was evacuated and was closed for the week.
On November 2, 2013
in Greensboro, North Carolina a 21-year-old student was wounded at North Carolina A&T State University. The victim was hospitalized for serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The university was temporarily locked down that night. No suspects are in custody.
On November 3, 2013
in Lithonia, Georgia a Stephenson High School student and a janitor were shot in an apparent confrontation between football team members and a group of teens who were not attending the school. Both were innocent bystanders.
On November 13, 2013
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania after classes ended, at least one gunman came out of the woods and opened fire on three students as they were walking to their cars at Brashear High School. One student was grazed in the head, another was struck in both the neck and shoulder, and a third hit in both the leg and foot. Six people were taken into custody. The shooting was believed to be drug related.
On December 4, 2013
in Winter Garden, Florida a 15-year-old student was wounded by a 17-year-old student near a soccer field on the campus of West Orange High School. The shooting occurred after a fight broke out between the two students. The 17-year-old suspect was taken into custody several miles from the school, and was charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm by a minor and possession of a firearm on school grounds. In October 2014, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.
On December 13, 2013
in Centennial, Colorado at Arapahoe High School an 18-year-old Karl Pierson, shot 17-year-old student Claire Davis in the head, killing her, in a hallway. Pierson then took his own life. Pierson was armed with a shotgun, three Molotov cocktails, and a machete. His intention was to shoot a librarian who had previously disciplined him. Claire Davis died from her injuries on December 21, 2013.
On December 19, 2013
in Fresno, California, four teens (16, 16, 16 and 17 years old) entered Edison High School in what was believed as a gang-initiation process. After accosting a 62-year-old woman about a mile away from school grounds, they found an athletic trainer who taught at Edison High and shot him several times in the leg and stomach.