History of School Shootings in the United States: 2017
History of School Shootings in the United States: 2017
On January 20, 2017
in West Liberty, Ohio a 17-year-old student was charged with attempted murder and other crimes after firing two shots at a 17-year-old student with a shotgun in a bathroom at West Liberty-Salem High School. The victim was injured. The student was also accused of firing the weapon in a hallway before returning to the bathroom, where he was taken into custody.
On January 20, 2017
in Seattle, Washington a 34-year-old man was shot in Red Square at University of Washington while protesting a visit by right wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. The shooter turned himself in to the university police and was questioned and released without being charged with a crime.
On January 27, 2017
in Naperville, Illinois a 37-year-old Oswego man, Dr. Matthew Lange, was shot at Scullen Middle School. At the time of the shooting, there were two organizations renting the building out. The victim was killed in his car while waiting to pick his son up from a weekly Polish culture class. Dr Lange was a professor at nearby Lewis University, where he served as Assistant Professor and Director of the Accelerated Psychology Program. The shooter's identity is still unknown.
On March 21, 2017
in King City, California an 18-year-old King City High School student was shot outside the school's auditorium. The gunman ran across the school's campus and baseball field, and fled the area. The school was then placed on lockdown. The victim was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. A suspect was arrested in August 2017.
On April 10, 2017
in San Bernardino, California at the North Park Elementary School, Cedric Anderson, age 53, of Riverside, California, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing his estranged wife, Karen Elaine Smith, age 53, in a classroom. An eight-year-old student was also killed, and a seven-year-old student was injured.
Anderson's history of domestic violence was extensive. Documented in court filings obtained by the New York Daily News, an ex-wife filed a petition for a restraining order in which she claimed that Anderson had threatened to kill her, their three sons, and himself, and also threatened to kidnap their children. In a follow-up filing, the woman claimed Anderson assaulted her in front of his sister after a custody exchange drop off. She reported the assault to police, but did not want officers to arrest him in front of their sons. In 2013, a former live-in girlfriend won a three-year restraining order after Anderson assaulted her on two occasions; she said that one of the assaults nearly killed her.
Anderson made frequent social media posts about his wife in the month prior to the attack, depicting their relationship as loving, and ignoring their marital troubles. Smith's son from a previous relationship said that Anderson being "paranoid and possessive" was what led his mother to end her marriage. Anderson had apparently contacted Smith before the shooting and tried to get her to return to him, and also made threats towards her that were taken seriously enough that she began staying with friends and relatives to hide from him.
A man that met Anderson at a gas station two weeks prior to the shooting had been wearing a hat that caught Anderson's attention. Anderson confided in the man about his troubled marriage and his frustrations with Smith's family, who he blamed for their separation. He also told the man that he accidentally touched Smith's chest, and that Smith used that to accuse him of choking her. The man said Anderson mentioned killing the Smith family during the conversation, which prompted him to invite him to his ministry. There, he and his wife made efforts to help, but the man felt that he could not reach Anderson.
Cedric Anderson, a resident of Riverside, was in a four-year-long relationship with Karen Elaine Smith, but the two were only married from January to March, and their marriage ended by separation.
At the time of the shooting, he was unemployed and attempting to start his own business. He had a criminal history of weapons charges, accusations of domestic violence, and drug charges spanning from 1982 to 2013, but no convictions ever resulted from those arrests. These charges predated his marriage.
Before meeting Smith, Anderson lived around Atlanta, Georgia; Las Vegas, Nevada; and other cities in Southern California. He participated in an exposé by Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV on housing fees at Nellis Air Force Base in the late 1990s to early 2000s. KSNV reported Anderson had been in the U.S. Navy for eight years and was married to a nineteen-year Air Force veteran who had been deployed to Pakistan. Cedric Anderson served in the U.S. Navy as a hull technician, completing boot camp in San Diego in November 1983. Anderson posted a video of the exposé on YouTube.
On May 4, 2017
in Irving, Texas at North Lake College Adrian Victor Torres killed a 20-year-old student, Janeera Nickol Gonzalez, whom he was stalking. He fatally shot her three times and the college went into lockdown before discovering that the suspect had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A nurse who witnessed the shooting tried to help her but she was already dead.
A witness told police that Adrian Victor Torres walked up to Janeera Nickol Gonzalez, yelled "You know who I am and you know why I'm here," and then shot her three times.
Juan and Lucia Gonzalez, Janeera’s parents, said that "He had been stalking her for a quite a while, but she didn't make anything of it. She thought he was harmless but he had left the campus at North Lake to go to UNT or something like that. About three weeks ago he came back. We're not aware if he was actually back enrolled in North Lake or if he was just coming there just to keep an eye on her or whatever."
Her parents said that they got worried when their daughter didn't answer their text messages.
On June 14, 2017
in Chicago, Illinois two girls, 7 and 13, were shot and wounded on a playground of Warren Elementary during an end-of-the-year picnic. Police speculated they may have been bystanders. Three arrests were made.
On September 13, 2017
in Rockford, Washington at Freeman High School three students were injured and one killed after a shooter opened fire. The suspect was armed with an AR-15 and a pistol. He shot one student with the AR-15, but the gun jammed so he switched to his pistol. He killed one student after shooting him twice in the stomach and once in the head. He was stopped by a janitor. The suspect, a 15-year-old student, Caleb Sharpe, was taken into police custody, and sentenced to 40 years.
He'd come to the school armed to teach everyone a lesson about what happens when you bully others, Sharpe told investigators. He apologized to his victims in court before he was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison.
On September 20, 2017
in Mattoon, Illinois at Mattoon High School a 14-year-old male student was subdued by a female teacher when he attempted to open fire in the school cafeteria at 11:33 a.m. Multiple shots were fired in the process, and one student was struck in the chest and was driven to a nearby hospital suffering non-life-threatening wounds. The shooter was taken into custody without further incident.
On October 19, 2017
in Lubbock, Texas after being taken into custody at his dorm, a student at Texas Tech University shot a university police officer at the campus police station before stealing his body-camera and fleeing. He was captured 90 minutes later and later pled guilty to murder.
On October 25, 2017
in Grambling, Louisiana two men were shot and killed on the Grambling State University campus.
On November 13, 2017
in Albany, Georgia two people were shot on the Albany State University campus.
On November 14, 2017
in Rancho Tehama, California a crazed rampage left one student injured at Rancho Tehama Elementary School and five adults shot dead at several locations. The secretary heard the gunfire near the school and ordered the school to go on lockdown. 43 year-old Kevin Neal then rammed a truck into the gate of the school and fired at the classrooms hitting one student when a bullet pierced the wall. Neal fatally shot himself after sheriff's deputies rammed his vehicle during a pursuit. The body of Barbara Glisan, 38, was found beneath the floorboards of the home she shared with Kevin Neal in Rancho Tehama, California, a day later.
The gunman, 44-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, killed five people during the shooting spree and eighteen others were injured at eight separate crime scenes, including the elementary school. Ten people suffered bullet wounds and eight were cut by flying glass caused by the gunfire. The injured victims were transported to several area clinics and hospitals.
His sister described him as 'possessed' and 'demonic', and told NBC news she had watched his health decline over the last year. “His mental condition continued to deteriorate, and you know as a family you want to be supportive and you want to love them — and you know, he just continued to devolve and descend into conspiracy theories and hallucinations and delusions of grandeur,” Sheridan Orr, Neal's sister from Cary, North Carolina, said. “There were so many triggers, I have no idea and I would pay anything to know and to know why he would do this and hurt those people,” she cried.
“We cannot help but feel that a) he needed better mental health care and we needed a way to get that for him because that is something that would have changed this story, and b) he had no business with guns.” — Sheridan Orr
At the time of the spree, Neal had been free on bail pending trial for two felonies and five misdemeanors. Nine months earlier, a judge ordered Neal to surrender his guns as a condition of a restraining order for a neighbor. The restraining order expired in September, but was renewed before the shootings. Neal manufactured and possessed the guns in violation of his restraining order.
The killings started on the night of November 13 at Neal's home in Rancho Tehama when Neal shot his wife, Barbara Glisan (also spelled Gilsan) and hid her body under the floorboards. The next day Neal killed both neighbors (they had an ongoing feud over the neighbors alleged methamphetamine operation).
After killing the neighbors, Neal stole a pickup truck that belonged to them, and then began driving around and firing at random vehicles and pedestrians. He crashed the truck into a vehicle carrying a woman and her three sons, then drove up to the driver's side, and fired at them, injuring all of them with gunshots or flying glass. The woman was shot five times, four near her heart. She was carrying a gun and had a license to carry, but she was unable to shoot at Neal because he drove away too quickly. She stopped four motorists to help her get to the hospital, but they all drove off, until she finally received help from an assistant deputy sheriff who called for an ambulance.
At the Rancho Tehama Elementary School, Sarah Lobdell, the school's secretary, heard the gunfire near by and ordered the school to go on lockdown. Neal crashed the pickup truck through the front gates of the school, exiting the truck with his home made semi-automatic rifle, and ran into the center of the school's quadrangle, opening fire at the windows and the walls. One of Neal's neighbors later claimed that Neal was targeting the seven-year-old son of the neighbor he killed earlier.
One student hiding under a classroom desk was shot and injured by a bullet that penetrated a wall, and a six-year-old student was injured by a gunshot to the chest. A woman was also shot when she attempted to distract Neal from the school, which he fired nearly 100 rounds of ammunition into. Video shows Neal going into a field behind the school and firing into the air in frustration at being locked out of the classrooms. Neal discarded the rifle outside the school.
After fleeing from the school, Neal crashed the pickup truck into another vehicle and fired at the two occupants as they tried to flee; the female driver was killed, and her husband was wounded in the legs. The man survived after pleading with Neal for his life. A passerby, unaware of the shootings, stopped his car and asked Neal if he was okay; Neal shot and wounded him, stole his car, and continued his rampage.
As Neal was chasing an innocent victim and shooting at them from his car as he was being pursued by law enforcement. His stolen truck was ultimately rammed by two law enforcement officers, one from the Corning Police Department, who responded from the city of Corning to assist the sheriff's office, and a Tehama County Sheriff's deputy. As the truck came to a stop Neal fired at the officers, who exchanged heavy gunfire with him. Neal then killed himself with a shot above his left eye. The 25-minute attack took place at eight crime scenes using one semi-automatic ghost rifle and two semi-automatic pistols. The motive remains unclear, if there was a motive at all in this case. Two handguns and another rifle were recovered near his body. The handguns were not registered to him.
Casualties included seemingly targeted killings; Barbara Ann Glisan (aka Gilsan), 38 (Neal's wife, shot at their home); Danny Lee Elliott, 38 (Neal's neighbor, shot at home); Diana Lee Steele, 68 (Elliott's mother, shot at home) and seemingly random killings; Joseph Edward McHugh III, 56 (unknown location); Michelle Iris McFadyen, 55 (killed in vehicle crash).
The wounded include; Tiffany Nai Phommathep, 31 (shot in vehicle); John Phommathep Jr., 10 (Tiffany's son, shot in vehicle); Jake Phommathep, 6 (Tiffany's son, shot in vehicle); James Woods Sr. (shot in vehicle); James Woods Jr., 20 (shot in vehicle); Jessie Allen Sanders, 39 (shot near elementary school); Francisco Gudino Cardenas (shot in vehicle); Alejandro Hernandez, 6 (shot at elementary school); Troy Lee McFadyen, 59 (Michelle McFadyen's husband, shot near vehicle); and two unidentified people, and Nikos Phommathep, 2 (Tiffany's son) along with six unidentified children wounded by broken glass.
Kevin Janson Neal attended East Carolina University from August 2001 to May 2004 but did not qualify for a degree and never declared a major. Relatives said Neal, who moved to California in 2005, had a history of mental illness and anger management issues, as well as an obsession with conspiracy theories. His mother had reported a decline in his mental health since 2016. Neighbors complained to police about Neal firing guns from his property, but whenever sheriff's deputies visited his doorstep, Neal would not respond to their knocking. A neighbor later said he believed Neal might have been testing the response time of law enforcement. In total, deputies were called to Neal's Bobcat Lane home 21 times for various reasons in 2016 and 2017.
On January 31, 2017, Neal was arrested and charged with two felonies, and five misdemeanors, after stabbing neighbor Hailey Poland, assaulting her mother-in-law, and snatching a mobile phone away from them. He was held on $160,000 bail, which was posted by his mother with a bail bond, and his mother also spent $10,000 on legal fees to secure his release. Following his release, Neal continued to harass the neighbors, causing them to successfully seek a restraining order that required him to surrender his firearms and not purchase additional guns. He handed over a single pistol and attested that he had no other guns.
The day before the shootings, Neal called his mother to tell her he was "fed up" with his neighbors. He suspected them of making methamphetamine. He had previously attempted to report his neighbors to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. One of the neighbors involved in the January 31 incident was one of those killed in the shootings. Danny Elliott had meth in his system when Neal killed him and had been put on probation in 2016 for a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia, but sheriff's deputies and California Fire officials said they never found any evidence of a meth operation.
On December 7, 2017
in Aztec, New Mexico at Aztec High School a 21-year-old former student, William Atchison, snuck into Aztec High School disguised as a student, and hiding out in a school restroom. He was discovered before he could launch a major attack, but still shot and killed two students before killing himself. Investigators believe that the quick actions of teachers in barricading doors to classrooms helped prevent more casualties. About 900 students were in attendance at the time of the shooting.
William Edward Atchison was born on March 18, 1996. He lived in Belen, New Mexico, before moving to Aztec with his family. William was known by the nickname "Bill" and attended Aztec High School. According to his father and a former co-worker, Atchison was bullied in school. In one incident, he was allegedly attacked during a welding class and stabbed in the chest. Atchison attended sessions with school counselors for many years, and was seeing one regularly in Farmington until the counselor retired. He saw a new counselor two more times, but suddenly stopped going to his sessions.
A neighbor called the Aztec police on Atchison twice, once for firing his airsoft pellet gun at their dogs, and a second time for threatening to shoot her husband over an argument. Because of these disputes, the neighbor refused to allow her sons to play with Atchison. Atchison was suspended from high school on March 9, 2012 after using the classroom whiteboard to "memorialize" the Columbine High School massacre. He never returned to school after the suspension, and dropped out on August 20.
After dropping out, Atchison worked at a local Giant gas station near his home. In online posts from 2014, he vents frustrations with life in rural New Mexico and bleak career prospects. Atchison called his father a "fat lazy idiot who watches Fox News all day" and his mother "a psycho hillbilly drunk from Florida who's really mentally ill."
Atchison's online activity included writing pro-Hitler and pro-Trump posts on internet forums forums such as 4chan and Kiwi Farms, as well as white nationalist websites like The Daily Stormer. He used various usernames, such as "Future Mass Shooter", "Adam Lanza", "FuckYou" on Kiwi Farms and "AlGore" on Encyclopedia Dramatica. He often joked about school shootings, such as the Columbine High School massacre. He also posted on "The Columbine High School Massacre Discussion Forum", under the usernames, "FIBAgent", and "Seung Hui-cho". Atchinson was also interested in Jeff Weise, the perpetrator of the 2005 Red Lake shootings.
In early 2016, Atchison began communicating with 18-year-old David Sonboly, who several months later would become the Munich mass shooter in July of that year, killing nine and injuring 36, culminating in his suicide at the end. Police later concluded that Sonboly was partly driven by "radical right-wing" motives.
Together, Atchison and Sonboly participated in a Steam chat group called the "Anti-Refugee Club". The group was initially created on January 10, 2016, with Atchison as co-founder. In the chat group, gunmen and far-right domestic terrorists like Anders Breivik were stylized as heroes, and group members shared fantasies of killing directed against "non-Aryans", people of color, migrants, Jews, and refugees. The group communicated about weapons and mass murder as well as multiplayer first-person shooter video games such as Counter-Strike. Political scientist Florian Hartleb described the group as a "virtual, international network of potential mass murderers".
After the Munich shooting in July 2016, Atchison wrote an epitaph to Sonboly on Encyclopedia Dramatica, calling him a "true Aryan" and "true German".
Atchison had no previous criminal record; however, he was investigated by the FBI in March 2016. He came to the attention of the FBI when he asked on an internet forum "where to find cheap assault rifles for a mass shooting." Atchison told FBI investigators that he was simply "trolling", and the investigation was subsequently closed when it was determined that, other than an airsoft pellet gun, Atchison did not own a firearm.
In November 2017, Atchison traveled to Sportsman's Warehouse in Farmington, where he purchased a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol. Several weeks before the attack, Atchison visited Aztec High School to do surveillance, and he was escorted around the school and given a tour. Atchison's father later told police that his son also played a video game that allowed him to simulate a practice run of the school shooting. A timeline for the killings was found in Atchison's home, with the last entry being "8[a.m.] Die." A thumb drive discovered on his person contained the same schedule.
The night before the shooting, Aztec police officers filled up their patrol vehicles with gas at the station where Atchison was working. They spoke with him casually, and later reported not noticing anything suspicious. Early in the morning on the day of the attack, Atchison wrote his suicide note.
On December 7, 2017, at approximately 8:00 a.m., Atchison entered Aztec High as a student with a backpack containing a 9mm Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol. Atchison opened fire in the upper level hallway of the building. The school custodian, Thomas "Emery" Hill, chased after Atchison, shouting, "active shooter," and "lock down!" Katie Potter, a 74-year-old substitute teacher, heard the gunshots and the following loudspeaker announcement calling for a lock-down. As a substitute teacher, Ms. Potter did not have keys to the classroom, so she ushered her 17 students into the classroom office, and barricaded the door with a couch.
Atchison fired multiple rounds through the office wall, and then fatally shot himself. San Juan County Sheriff Ken Christensen credited Potter's swift action with saving many lives. Two students were confirmed dead, along with the shooter. State authorities confirmed that there were no other injuries reported. Officials said that Aztec police received a call about the shooting about 8:00 a.m.
Casey Jordan Marquez, aged 17, a senior, and Francisco "Paco" Fernandez, also aged 17, a junior, were identified as victims. Both were athletes at Aztec High school; Marquez was a cheerleader, and Fernandez was a football player. He had only recently transferred to the school.
The San Juan County Sheriff's Office, the FBI, and the New Mexico State Police all participated in the investigation. On December 15, a week after the shootings, The Daily Beast published an investigative article about the online posting history of the shooter. Several months later, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) followed up on The Daily Beast investigation, publishing a report that the white supremacist ideology of the shooter was to blame for the attack.
In the report, the SPLC argued that Atchison was linked to the alt-right, in particular a pattern showing at least 13 other males with alt-right views carrying out similar attacks since 2014. The San Juan County Sheriff's Office disputed the claim, accusing SPLC of politicizing the shooting, as they did not have a link between a possible motive and white supremacism in the case. The sheriff's office came to this conclusion based on the lack of evidence showing that Atchison's views led to him targeting the victims.
The sheriff’s office completed their investigation in August 2018, concluding that Atchison had no accomplices and no known motive for the attack, but chose the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred just before 8:00 a.m., on December 7, 1941. The only facts that could be ascertained with any certainty, the sheriff’s office said, were “that the shooter had serious issues and was hell bent on mass casualties for his own personal notoriety,” even though Atchison's body had several neo-Nazi symbols and words tattooed on his skin, including a swastika, SS runes, and the acronym "AMOG" (manosphere slang for "Alpha Male of Group") on his upper thigh, the phrase "BUILD WALL" above his left knee, along with "your home" on the right of his groin. Atchison's toxicology report revealed no drugs or alcohol in his body, and his coroner's report and autopsy found bruised knuckles and a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The incident led to New Mexico legislature to fund security improvements. At Aztec High School, more school resource officers were hired, the perimeter of the school was secured, and external doors were hardened with new remote locking technology. Additionally, there was a push by the New Mexico Police Chiefs Association to support red flag laws.