1976 California State University, Fullerton massacre | |
---|---|
Location | Fullerton, California, U.S. |
Date | July 12, 1976 , 46 years ago |
Target | California State University, Fullerton |
Attack type | Mass shooting, school shooting, mass murder |
Weapons | .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle |
Deaths | 7 |
Injured | 2 |
Perpetrator | Edward Charles Allaway |
The California State University, Fullerton, massacre was a mass shooting committed by a custodian, Edward Charles Allaway (born 1939), on July 12, 1976, at California State University, Fullerton, in Fullerton, California, United States. [1] Seven people were killed as a result. It was the deadliest act of mass murder in Orange County until the 2011 Seal Beach shooting, in which eight people died. [2]
Allaway had a history of violence and mental illness. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and found insane by a judge after being convicted by a jury. He was initially imprisoned at Patton State Hospital under medical treatment. [3] In 2016, the then-77-year-old was transferred to Napa State Hospital. [4]
The gunman, 37-year-old Edward Charles Allaway, was a custodian at the university's library. Armed with a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle [5] he purchased at a Kmart in Buena Park, Allaway killed seven people and injured two others in the library's first-floor lobby and at the building's Instructional Media Center (IMC), located in the basement. Witnesses told investigators that Allaway's attack began shortly before 7 am, with some witnesses claiming the gunfire was like a machine gun in a movie, while others likened it to a "popping" noise. [5] He reportedly chased down Deborah Paulsen and Donald Karges before killing them, and shot Bruce Jacobson after Jacobson attempted to subdue him with a metal statue. After shooting Seth Fessenden and Paul Herzberg, he took a service elevator down to the first floor and shot Frank Teplansky and left a visiting high school student unharmed. He then shot Stephen Becker before he ran out of bullets. [6]
An eyewitness who was a part of a high school program stated Allaway was agitated when he saw him. The eyewitness stated that he saw Allaway pass by him and another counselor who had gone into the hallway to investigate the noises. Allaway reportedly stated, "He doesn't belong here; he doesn't belong here." before aiming his rifle at the eyewitness and the other counselor. However, instead of firing at the two individuals Allaway lowered the gun and ran in the opposite direction, and soon after the two could hear more gunfire. [5]
Allaway fled the school campus, went to Hilton Inn Hotel [5] a nearby hotel in Anaheim, where his former wife worked, and telephoned police to report his actions. He told them, "I went berserk at Cal State Fullerton, and I committed some terrible act. I'd appreciate it if you people would come down and pick me up. I'm unarmed, and I'm giving myself up to you." [7]
The deceased victims were Paul Herzberg, 30, Bruce Jacobson, 32, Donald Karges, 41, Deborah Paulsen, 25, Seth Fessenden, 72, Frank Teplansky, 51 and Stephen Becker, 32. The injured victims were Maynard Hoffman, 64 and Donald Keran, 55. [8]
Allaway was found guilty of six counts of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder. A second phase of the trial determined that he was not sane. Five different mental health professionals diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. [9] He presented a history of mental illness, as he had tried to commit suicide and had been hospitalized and treated with electroconvulsive therapy in the past. He was committed to the California state mental hospital system, beginning at Atascadero State Hospital. He was then transferred and held at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino. In 2016, the 77-year-old was transferred to the less secure Napa State Hospital. The families of Allaway's victims protested his transfer. [4]
He was found to have injured a co-worker at a Michigan plant. A short time before the shooting rampage, he had threatened his wife with a knife and raped her. [3] Allaway's apparent motive was that he had delusions that pornographers were forcing his wife to appear in movies. The couple had separated over Memorial Day Weekend 1976 after a blow-up. His wife had filed for divorce shortly before Allaway attacked co-workers at the university.
The defense alleged that library staff members screened commercial pornographic movies before library opening hours and in break rooms, but Allaway's wife was not in them.
After a 1977 jury convicted Allaway of murder but deadlocked in the sanity phase of the trial, a judge found Allaway not guilty by reason of insanity. By law, defendants found insane are committed to a mental institution until they are found sane. Allaway remained institutionalized at Patton State Hospital for a number of years. During his time at Patton, Allaway made several failed petitions to the courts asking for his release. [3] He was eventually transferred to Napa State Hospital in 2016 where he currently resides. [4]
In the summer of 2009, officials at Patton indicated that Allaway was asymptomatic, had not needed medication, and they would recommend his release. The district attorney contacted the governor and the state mental health director to protest the hospital's planned action, given his history of violence and the mass murder. Patton withdrew the recommendation for release a few months later. [10]
Victim Stephen Becker's father was the university's founding dean of students. [11] He provided comments against Allaway's release on several occasions. [12] [13]
In July 2016, survivors and family of the deceased victims commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the attack with a candlelight vigil. [6]
Mass murder is the violent crime of killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. A mass murder typically occurs in a single location where one or more persons kill several others.
California State University, Fullerton is a public research university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the California State University (CSU) system, and its graduate student body of more than 5,000 is one of the largest in the CSU and in all of California. As of fall 2016, the school had 2,083 faculty, of whom 782 were on the tenure track. The university offers 109 degree programs: 55 undergraduate degrees and 54 graduate degrees, including 3 doctoral programs.
The San Ysidro McDonald's massacre was a mass murder, which occurred at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, California, on July 18, 1984. The perpetrator, 41-year-old James Huberty, fatally shot 21 people and wounded 19 others before being killed by a police sniper approximately 77 minutes after he had first opened fire.
Patton State Hospital is a forensic psychiatric hospital in San Bernardino, California, United States. Though the hospital has a Patton, California address, it lies entirely within the San Bernardino city limits. Operated by the California Department of State Hospitals, Patton State Hospital is a forensic hospital with a licensed bed capacity of 1287 for people who have been committed by the judicial system for treatment.
On February 23, 2001, a vehicular homicide and assault occurred in the student community of Isla Vista, California, near the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus. Four people were killed and a fifth, who suffered critical injuries, died in October 2016. The driver, David Attias, was ruled legally insane and sentenced to 60 years in a mental institution. In September 2012, a court approved Attias' release after 10 years.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans football program represented California State University, Fullerton from the 1970 through 1992 seasons. The Titans originally competed as a member of the California Collegiate Athletic Association from 1970 to 1973 before moving to the Pacific Coast Athletic Association in 1974 where they remained through the 1991 season. The Titans would compete in their final year as an I-A Independent prior to the program being disbanded. Fullerton played its home games at multiple stadiums throughout their history with the most recent being Titan Stadium, in Fullerton, California.
On October 12, 2011, a mass shooting occurred at the Salon Meritage hair salon in Seal Beach, California. Eight people inside the salon and one person in the parking lot were shot, and only one victim survived. It remains the deadliest mass killing in Orange County history.
Napa State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Napa, California, founded in 1875. It is located along California State Route 221, the Napa-Vallejo Highway, and is one of California's five state mental hospitals. Napa State Hospital holds civil and forensic mental patients in a sprawling 138-acre campus. According to a hospital spokesperson, there were 2,338 people employed at the facility during the 2016 to 2017 fiscal year, making it one of the region's largest employers.
Eugenics in California is a notable part of eugenics in the United States. As an early leading force in the field of eugenics, California became the third state in the United States to enact a sterilization law. By 1921, California had accounted for 80% of sterilizations nationwide. This continued until the Civil Rights Movement, when widespread critiques against society's "total institutions" dismantled popular acceptance for the state's forced sterilizations. There were an estimated 20,000 forced sterilizations in California between 1909 and 1979; however, that number may be an underestimation. In 2021, California enacted a reparations program to compensate the hundreds of still living victims from its eugenics program.
Ernest A. Becker was an American tennis player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He was a founding dean, first athletic director, and important influence at the beginning of Orange County State College, which became California State University, Fullerton. According to the Orange County Register, Becker
typed the first college catalog and launched the first student newspaper. He also staged an amazingly successful attention-getting event designed to put the young campus on the map: the "First Intercollegiate Elephant Race in Human History," held in 1962. It started as a joke but drew more than a dozen entries from universities around the world and was covered in 82 news publications. The elephants were rented from a Hollywood studio, and the largest was ridden by the editor of the Harvard University student newspaper, the Crimson.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans women's tennis team competes at the NCAA Division I Collegiate level and is a member of the Big West Conference. All home collegiate tennis matches are played at the California State University, Fullerton, Titan Courts, located in Fullerton, California.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims. Using this definition, a 2016 study found that nearly one-third of the world's public mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 occurred in the United States, In 2017 The New York Times recorded the same total of mass shootings for that span of years. A 2023 report published in JAMA covering 2014 to 2022, found there had been 4,011 mass shootings in the US, most frequent around the southeastern U.S. and Illinois. This was true for mass shootings that were crime-violence, social-violence, and domestic violence-related. The highest rate was found in the District of Columbia, followed by Louisiana and Illinois.
The 2016–17 Cal State Fullerton Titans men's basketball team represented California State University, Fullerton during the 2016–17 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Titans, led by fourth year head coach Dedrique Taylor, played their home games at Titan Gym as members of the Big West Conference. They finished the season 17–15, 10–6 in Big West play to finish in third place. They defeated Cal State Northridge in the quarterfinals of the Big West tournament to advance to the Semifinals where they lost to UC Davis. They were invited to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament where they lost in the first round to Weber State.
The 1982 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team represented California State University, Fullerton as a member of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) during the 1982 NCAA Division I-A football season. Led by third-year head coach Gene Murphy, Cal State Fullerton compiled an overall record of 3–9 with a mark of 0–6 in conference play, placing last out of seven teams in the PCAA. The Titans played home games at Titan Field on the Cal State Fullerton campus. The football team shared the stadium with the Cal State Fullerton Titans baseball from 1980 to 1982.
The 1983 Cal State Fullerton Titans football team represented California State University, Fullerton as a member of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA) during the 1983 NCAA Division I-A football season. Led by fourth-year head coach Gene Murphy, Cal State Fullerton finished the season with an overall record of 7–5 and a mark of 5–1 in conference play, winning the PCAA title. As conference champion, the Titans were invited to play in the California Bowl in Fresno, California against the champion of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), Northern Illinois. Cal State Fullerton won the game, 20–13.
The Cal State Fullerton Titans women's basketball team is the basketball team that represents California State University, Fullerton in Fullerton, California. The school's team currently competes in the Big West Conference.
On January 10, 2001, a shooting spree took place in Nevada County, California when 40-year-old Scott Harlan Thorpe opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol killing three people and wounding three others in two separate shootings in the Nevada County area. The victims were 19-year-old Laura Wilcox, 68-year-old Pearlie Mae Feldman, and 24-year-old Mike Markle. The shooting spree led to the implementation of Laura's Law, a California state law that allows for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment. The law was named after Laura Wilcox, one of the victims of the shooting spree. Michael Moore's 2002 documentary film Bowling for Columbine was dedicated to Wilcox's memory.
On March 31, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at an office complex in Orange, California, United States. Four people were killed, including a child, and a fifth person was critically wounded. The suspect was critically injured following a shootout with responding police officers and taken into custody.
Jason Edward Dietrich is a baseball coach and former pitcher, who is the current head baseball coach of the Cal State Fullerton Titans. He played college baseball at Santa Ana College before transferring to Pepperdine where he played for head coach Andy Lopez in 1994 before playing professionally from 1995 to 1998.
Among various professional achievements, he'll be remembered for an elephant race