Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)

Last updated

1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting
Location San Diego, California, US
Coordinates 32°47′47″N117°00′44″W / 32.7964°N 117.0123°W / 32.7964; -117.0123
DateJanuary 29, 1979
TargetStudents and faculty at Grover Cleveland Elementary School
Attack type
 Mass shooting, school shooting, double-murder, attempted pedicide
Weapons Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle
Deaths2
Injured9
PerpetratorBrenda Spencer
Verdict Pleaded guilty
Convictions First-degree murder (2 counts), assault with a deadly weapon
Sentence Life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years

The Cleveland Elementary School shooting was a school shooting that took place on January 29, 1979, at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, United States. The principal and a custodian were killed; eight children and police officer Robert Robb were injured. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. Charged as an adult, she pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, resulting in her being sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years. As of 2024, she is still in prison.

Contents

A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day," [1] [2] which inspired Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers to write the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays." [3]

Perpetrator

Brenda Spencer
Brendaannspencermugshot.jpg
Spencer in a 1996 mugshot
Born
Brenda Ann Spencer

(1962-04-03) April 3, 1962 (age 62)
San Diego, California, U.S.
StatusIncarcerated; Next parole hearing in 2025
Imprisoned at California Institution for Women

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) was born to Dorothy Nadine (née Hobel) and Wallace Edward Spencer, who married on December 12, 1954 in Chula Vista and had three children, Brenda being the youngest. After finding out her husband had been cheating on her with multiple women, she filed for divorce in January 1972. [4]

After her parents separated, Brenda allegedly lived in poverty with her father; both father and daughter slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles from alcoholic drinks. [5] [6] At later parole hearings, she claimed to have been subject to "total neglect" from her mother and sexual abuse from her father; the accusations have been disputed by the respective parents. [4] [7] At the time, she lived in a house across the street from the school. Aged 16 at the time of the shooting, she was 5'2" (157 cm) and had bright red hair. [8] [5] [9] [6] Spencer and the crime scene photos dispute poverty, the single mattress in the living room, sleeping in the same bed and the alcohol in the house. [10]

Acquaintances said Spencer expressed hostility toward policemen, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. [1] [5] Although Spencer showed ability as a photographer, winning first prize in a Humane Society competition, she was generally uninterested in school. She attended Patrick Henry High School, where one teacher recalled frequently inquiring if she was awake in class. Later, during tests while she was in custody, it was discovered Spencer had an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain. It was attributed to an accident on her bicycle. [11]

Spencer described herself as a "radical" and referred to policemen as "pigs", exclaiming "All right!" when seeing news on TV about cops being killed and often talking about wanting to kill cops or "blow them away". [4] She also claims to have been "gay from birth". Some classmates described her as "crazy" and reported being scared of her.

In early 1978, staff at a facility for problem students, into which Spencer had been referred for truancy, informed her parents that she was suicidal. 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. [1] [12] Police reports and eyewitnesses do not mention the use of a BB gun during the school vandalization. [10]

In December, a psychiatric evaluation arranged by her probation officer recommended that Spencer be admitted to a mental hospital for depression, but her father refused to give permission. For Christmas 1978, he gave her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition. [5] [6] Spencer later said, "I asked for a radio and got a rifle." Asked why he had done that, she answered, "He bought the rifle so I would kill myself." [13]

Shooting

On the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, Spencer began shooting from her house [14] at children waiting for 53-year-old Principal Burton Wragg to open the gates to Grover Cleveland Elementary. [15] She injured eight children; she began with nine-year-old Cam Miller, since he was wearing Spencer's favorite color, blue. Spencer shot and killed Wragg as he and teacher Daryl Barnes tried to help children. She also killed 56-year-old custodian Mike Suchar as he tried to pull a student to safety. [5] A 28-year-old police officer, Robert Robb, had responded to a call for assistance during the incident, where he was wounded in the neck as he arrived. [5]

Further casualties were avoided only because the police obstructed her line of fire by moving a garbage truck in front of the school entrance. [16]

After firing thirty-six times, [14] Spencer barricaded herself inside her home for several hours. While there, she spoke by telephone to a reporter from The Evening Tribune , who had been randomly calling telephone numbers in the neighborhood. Spencer told the reporter she had shot at the school children and adults because, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." She also told police negotiators the children and adults whom she had shot were easy targets and that she was going to "come out shooting". [5] [2] Spencer has been repeatedly reminded of these statements at parole hearings. [17] Ultimately, she surrendered and left the house, reportedly after being promised a Burger King meal by negotiators. [5] [6] Police officers found beer and whiskey bottles cluttered around the house but said Spencer did not appear to be intoxicated when arrested. [18] Crime-scene photos contradict these accounts. [10]

Imprisonment

Spencer was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. On April 4, 1980, a day after her 18th birthday, she was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. [19] Nine counts of attempted murder were dismissed. In prison, Spencer was diagnosed with epilepsy and received medication to treat epilepsy and depression. While at the California Institution for Women in Chino, she worked repairing electronic equipment. [6] [20]

Under the terms of her sentencing, Spencer became eligible for hearings to consider her suitability for parole in 1993.

At her first hearing, in 1993, 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. At her 2001 parole hearing, Spencer claimed that her father had been subjecting her to beatings and sexual abuse, but he said the allegations were not true. The parole board chairman said that, as she had not previously told anyone about the allegations, he doubted their veracity. [7] In 2005, a San Diego deputy district attorney cited an incident of self-harm from four years earlier, when Spencer's girlfriend was released from jail, as showing that Spencer was psychotic and unfit to be released. [20] Early reports indicated that Spencer had scratched the words "courage" and "pride" into her own skin; Spencer corrected this during her parole hearing as reading "unforgiven" and "alone".

In 2009, the board again refused her application for parole, and ruled it would be ten years before she would be considered again. [15] [21] In August 2022, Spencer and the Board of Parole Hearings agreed that she was not suitable for parole and that she would not be eligible for another hearing for another three years as a result of this parole suitability denial. She remains imprisoned at the California Institution for Women in Chino. Her next opportunity for a parole hearing will be in 2025. [22] [23] [24]

Aftermath

A plaque and flagpole were erected at Cleveland Elementary in memory of the shooting victims. The school was closed in 1983, along with a dozen other schools around the city, due to declining enrollment. [25] In the ensuing decades, it was leased to several charter and private schools. From 2005 to 2017, it housed the Magnolia Science Academy, [26] a public charter middle school serving students in grades 6–8. [27] In 2018, the school was demolished to construct a housing development, and the plaque was relocated to the former school's southern edge, at the corner of Lake Atlin Avenue and Lake Angela Drive.

In the months following the shooting, one of Brenda Spencer's first cell mates, a 17-year-old girl, moved in with Spencer's father, eventually marrying him on March 26, 1980 in Yuma, Arizona. They had a daughter together, after which she fled the household and eventually divorced, [28] leaving Wallace Spencer to raise her alone. [4] Wallace Spencer died in February 2016. [28]

On January 17, 1989, almost ten years after the events at San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary, there was another shooting at a school coincidentally named Grover Cleveland Elementary, this one in Stockton, California. Five students were killed and thirty were injured. Christy Buell, a survivor of the 1979 shooting, said that she was "shocked, saddened, horrified" by the headlines concerning the 1989 shooting. [29]

Media

Song

Bob Geldof, then the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, read about the incident when a news story about it came off the telex at WRAS-FM, the campus radio station at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He was particularly struck by Spencer's claim that she did it because she did not like Mondays, and began writing a song about it, called "I Don't Like Mondays". [20] It was released in July 1979, was number one for four weeks in the United Kingdom, [30] and was the band's biggest hit in their native Ireland. Although it did not make the Top 40 in the U.S., it still received extensive radio airplay (outside of the San Diego area) despite the Spencer family's efforts to prevent it. [3] Geldof later claimed that "[Spencer] wrote to me saying 'she was glad she'd done it because I'd made her famous,' which is not a good thing to live with", [31] though Spencer denies ever contacting Geldof. [32]

Films and television

The 1981 Japanese–American documentary film The Killing of America depicts the incident. The 2006 British documentary I Don't Like Mondays also revisits the case. [33]

The Lifetime Movies series Killer Kids released an episode "Deadly Compulsion" depicting Spencer's crimes, which first aired on September 3, 2014. [34] [35] [36]

The Investigation Discovery network portrayed 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", which aired on October 9, 2008. [37] [38] [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Geldof</span> Irish singer-songwriter and political activist (born 1951)

Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof is an Irish singer-songwriter and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved popularity as part of the punk rock movement. The band had UK number one hits with his co-compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof starred as Pink in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall. As a fundraiser, Geldof organised the charity supergroup Band Aid and the concerts Live Aid and Live 8, and co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles to date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark David Chapman</span> American convicted murderer

Mark David Chapman is an American man who murdered English musician John Lennon in New York City on December 8, 1980. As Lennon walked into the archway of The Dakota, his apartment building on the Upper West Side, Chapman fired five shots at the musician from a few yards away with a Charter Arms Undercover .38 Special revolver. Lennon was hit four times from the back. He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. Chapman remained at the scene following the shooting and made no attempt to flee or resist arrest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Institution for Women</span> Womens prison in Chino, California

California Institution for Women (CIW) is a women's state prison located in the city of Chino, San Bernardino County, California, east of Los Angeles, although the mailing address states "Corona," which is in Riverside County, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Atkins</span> Convicted murderer and member of the "Manson family" (1948–2009)

Susan Denise Atkins was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sadie Mae Glutz or Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, long since surpassed by fellow Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.

A thrill killing is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.

Mark Anthony "Gator" Rogowski is an American former professional skateboarder who was convicted of murder. He was mainly prominent in the 1980s and early 1990s. Rogowski's career ended when he pled guilty for assaulting, raping, and murdering Jessica Bergsten in 1991. His life was chronicled in a critically acclaimed 2003 documentary titled Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator by American filmmaker Helen Stickler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Kemper</span> American serial killer (born 1948)

Edmund Emil Kemper III is an American serial killer convicted of murdering seven women and one girl, between May 1972 to April 1973. Years earlier, at the age of 15, Kemper had murdered his paternal grandparents. Kemper was nicknamed the Co-ed Killer, as most of his non-familial victims were female college students hitchhiking in the vicinity of Santa Cruz County, California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment.

<i>The Fine Art of Surfacing</i> 1979 studio album by the Boomtown Rats

The Fine Art of Surfacing is the third album by Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, released in June 1979. The album peaked at No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Dragon massacre</span> 1977 shooting in San Francisco, California, USA

The Golden Dragon massacre was a gang-related mass shooting that took place on September 4, 1977, inside the Golden Dragon Restaurant at 822 Washington Street in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, United States. The five perpetrators, members of the Joe Boys, a Chinese youth gang, were attempting to kill leaders of the Wah Ching, a rival Chinatown gang. The attack left five people dead and 11 others injured, none of whom were gang members. Seven perpetrators were later convicted and sentenced in connection with the murders. The massacre led to the establishment of the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force, credited with ending gang-related violence in Chinatown by 1983. The restaurant itself closed in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Berkowitz</span> American serial killer (born 1953)

David Richard Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer who pled guilty to eight shootings that began in New York City on July 29, 1976. Berkowitz grew up in New York City and served in the United States Army. Using a .44 Special caliber Bulldog revolver, he killed six people and wounded seven others by July 1977, terrorizing New Yorkers. Berkowitz eluded the biggest police manhunt in the city's history while leaving letters that mocked the police and promised further crimes, which were highly publicized by the press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Bompensiero</span> American mobster (1905–1977)

Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero was a Sicilian-American mobster who was a longtime caporegime in the Los Angeles crime family. In 1956, with the death of boss Jack Dragna, Bompensiero was demoted to the rank of soldier by the new boss, Frank DeSimone. He was the older brother of associate Salvatore "Sam" Bompensiero. Bompensiero made a name for himself for the many killings he committed on the orders of his superiors. Jimmy Fratianno, a close associate, once said that Bompensiero "had buried more bones than could be found in the brontosaurus room of the Museum of Natural History."

The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, United States, on December 1, 1997. 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of students, killing three and injuring five.

Elisabeth Anne Broderick is an American woman who murdered her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, and his second wife, Linda Broderick, on November 5, 1989. At a second trial that began on December 11, 1991, she was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and later sentenced to 32-years-to-life in prison. The case received extensive media attention. Several books were written on the Broderick case, and a TV movie was televised in two parts. In 2020, an 8-episode miniseries was produced and aired about Broderick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I Don't Like Mondays</span> 1979 single by the Boomtown Rats

"I Don't Like Mondays" is a song by Irish new wave group the Boomtown Rats about the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. It was released in 1979 as the lead single from their third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing. The song was a number-one single in the UK Singles Chart for four weeks during the summer of 1979, and ranks as the sixth-biggest hit of the UK in 1979. Written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers, the piano ballad was the band's second single to reach number one on the UK chart.

Kayla Renee Rolland was an American six-year-old girl from Mount Morris Township, Michigan, United States, who was fatally shot on February 29, 2000 by a six-year-old classmate at Buell Elementary School in the Beecher Community School District. The boy had found the gun while living at his uncle's house; the house was a crack house where guns were frequently traded for drugs.

Cleveland school shooting may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Holmes (mass murderer)</span> American mass murderer

James Eagan Holmes is an American mass murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora theater shooting in which he killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a Century 16 movie theater on July 20, 2012. He had no known criminal background before the shooting occurred. Before the shooting, Holmes booby-trapped his apartment with explosives, which were defused one day later by a bomb squad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 North Park Elementary School shooting</span> School shooting in San Bernardino, California

On April 10, 2017, a shooting occurred inside a special education classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California. The shooting was an apparent murder–suicide and an act of domestic violence. Three people—the gunman; his wife, who taught at the school; and a student standing behind her—died from their wounds. Another student was wounded and hospitalized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poway synagogue shooting</span> Mass shooting in Poway, California

The Poway synagogue shooting occurred on April 27, 2019, at Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, United States, a city which borders the north inland side of San Diego, on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday, which fell on a Shabbat. Armed with an AR-15 style rifle, the gunman, John Earnest, fatally shot one woman and injured three other persons, including the synagogue's rabbi. After fleeing the scene, Earnest phoned 9-1-1 and reported the shooting. He was apprehended in his car approximately two miles (3.2 km) from the synagogue by a San Diego police officer. A month before the shooting, Earnest had attempted to burn down a mosque in Escondido.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "School Sniper Suspect Bragged Of 'Something Big To Get On TV'". Evening Independent . Associated Press. January 30, 1979 – via Google News.
  2. 1 2 Jones, Tamara (November 1, 1998). "Look back in sorrow: in 1979, a teenage girl opened fire on a suburban San Diego elementary school; today, as the nation reels from a rash of similar tragedies, the survivors still struggle to understand why it happened". Good Housekeeping. Archived from the original on May 16, 2011.
  3. 1 2 Clarke, Steve (October 18–31, 1979). The Fastest Lip on Vinyl. EMAP National Publications. pp. 6–7.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Böckler, Nils; Seeger, Thorsten; Sitzer, Peter; Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (December 13, 2012). School Shootings: International Research, Case Studies, and Concepts for Prevention. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 249–251. ISBN   978-1-4614-5526-4.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Sniping suspect had a grim goal". The Milwaukee Journal . January 29, 1979. p. 4 – via Google News.[ dead link ]
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Böckler et al. 2013, p. 257.
  7. 1 2 Böckler et al. 2013, p. 248.
  8. ↑ Jacobs, Paul; Skelton, Nancy (January 30, 1979). "Girl Sniper Kills 2, Wounds 9 at San Diego School". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on March 27, 2016.
  9. ↑ Finley, Laura (2011). Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence (1st ed.). ABC-CLIO. p. 454. ISBN   978-0-313-36239-2.
  10. 1 2 3 Hunt, N Leigh (2022). I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS (1st ed.). United States: Wild Blue Press. pp. 343–344. ISBN   978-1957288376.
  11. ↑ Böckler et al. 2013, pp. 251–253.
  12. ↑ "Classmates Say Alleged Sniper Seemed Lonely, Friendless Girl". The Washington Post . January 31, 1979. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  13. ↑ Hunt, N Leigh (2022). I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS (1st ed.). United States: Wild Blue Press. p. 332. ISBN   978-1957288376.
  14. 1 2 Repard, Pauline (January 29, 2019). "40 years ago, Brenda Spencer took lives, changed lives in a mass shooting at a San Diego elementary school". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved July 27, 2022.
  15. 1 2 "School Shooter Brenda Spencer Denied Parole". KFMB-TV . August 14, 2009. Archived from the original on September 1, 2010.
  16. ↑ Hunt, N Leigh (2022). I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS (1st ed.). United States: Wild Blue Press. p. 30. ISBN   978-1957288376.
  17. ↑ Böckler et al. 2013, p. 250; Böckler et al. 2013, p. 257.
  18. ↑ "Brenda-Spencer". San Diego Police Museum Online. San Diego Police Historical Association.
  19. ↑ "School rifle attack nets 25 years to life". Edmonton Journal . UPI. April 5, 1980. Retrieved June 25, 2018– via Google News.
  20. 1 2 3 Sanford, Jay Allen (March 10, 2005). "Brenda Spencer was 16". San Diego Reader . Archived from the original on January 4, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Parole denied in school shooting". USA Today . Associated Press. June 19, 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2016.
  22. ↑ "No parole granted for 'I don't like Mondays' school shooter". August 18, 2022.
  23. ↑ "SPENCER, BRENDA – W14944". California Incarcerated Records & Information Search. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
  24. ↑ "No parole granted for 'I don't like Mondays' school shooter". Fox 5 San Diego. August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  25. ↑ Swain, Liz (March 26, 2015). "She didn't like Mondays, they don't want plaque moved". San Diego Reader. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  26. ↑ Clemetson, Jeff (December 18, 2015). "Tragic past, uncertain present, bright future of Cleveland Elementary". Mission Times Courier .
  27. ↑ "Home page". Magnolia Science Academy. Archived from the original on February 18, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  28. 1 2 Repard, Pauline (January 29, 2019). "40 years ago, Brenda Spencer took lives, changed lives in a mass shooting at a San Diego elementary school". San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved February 4, 2024.
  29. ↑ Granberry, Michael (January 19, 1989). "Victims of San Diego School Shooting Are Forced to Cope Again 10 Years Later". Los Angeles Times .
  30. ↑ "I Don't Like Mondays". Official Charts Company . July 21, 1979.
  31. ↑ Bob Geldof reveals the truth of "I Don't Like Mondays"!. Event occurs at 2:08. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  32. ↑ Hunt, N Leigh (2022). I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS (1st ed.). United States: Wild Blue Press. p. 255. ISBN   978-1957288376.
  33. ↑ "I Don't Like Mondays (TV Movie 2006)". IMDb . Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  34. ↑ "Watch Deadly Compulsion Full Episode - Killer Kids | Lifetime". Lifetime. A&E Television Networks. September 3, 2014. Archived from the original on September 19, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  35. ↑ "Killer Kids: Deadly Compulsion". TV.com. CBS Interactive. September 3, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  36. ↑ "Killer Kids - Season 3 Episode 19 Deadly Compulsion". Dailymotion. November 24, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  37. ↑ "Thrill Killers | Deadly Women". www.investigationdiscovery.com. Discovery Communications, LLC. October 8, 2008. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  38. ↑ "Deadly Women | Season 2 Episode 1 Thrill Kills". Dailymotion. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  39. ↑ "Deadly Women - Season 2 Episodes List". next-episode.net. October 9, 2008. Retrieved November 2, 2017.

Further reading

Parole Hearing transcripts:

Videos:

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.