A History Of Violence

I turned off my TV yesterday when Wolf Blitzer asked one of the Virginia Tech survivors, "What's the mood on campus right now?"

Instead, I decided to wait for actual news of the tragedy. This morning, a few more facts have been reported, but it will take time for authorities to determine exactly what happened.

Hey, Wolf! How's the mood at CNN this morning? Is everyone giddy? How do you think the survivors of these school tragedies felt?

Primary and Elementary school killings

May 18, 1927 Bath, Michigan, USA School board member Andrew Kehoe, upset by a property tax for a new school building which caused the foreclosure of his farm, set up a series of explosions in the Bath elementary school. That morning he killed his wife and set his farm building on fire. While fire fighters were arriving at the farm, an explosion destroyed the north wing of the school. As people gathered outside the school, Kehoe drove up and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle. During the rescue efforts, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol planted throughout the basement of the school's south wing. The bombings constituted the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history, claiming more than three times as many victims as the Columbine High School massacre.
January 29, 1979 San Diego, California, USA Armed with a .22 rifle she had been given for Christmas, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire at Cleveland Elementary School. She wounded eight children and one police officer and killed two adults. When the six-hour incident ended, she was asked of her motive for the killing, to which she shrugged and replied "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." Soon after, the Dublin punk band Boomtown Rats wrote the song "I Don't Like Mondays" which was based on the incident.
May 20, 1988 Winnetka, Illinois, USA 30-year-old Laurie Dann walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods Elementary School carrying three pistols and began shooting children, killing eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself.
September 26, 1988 Greenwood, South Carolina, USA 19 year old James Wilson opened fire at Oakland Elementary School, killing two eight year old girls and wounding nine others, seven of whom were children. He had been taking several psychiatric drugs at the time, including Valium, Halcion, and Xanax.
March 13, 1996 Dunblane, Scotland, United Kingdom Unemployed former shopkeeper and Scout leader Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School armed with two 9 mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith and Wesson .357 revolvers. He was carrying 743 cartridges. The subsequent police investigation revealed that Hamilton had loaded the magazines for his Browning with an alternating combination of fully metal jacketed and hollow point ammunition. This event is known as the Dunblane Massacre, and led to the banning of handguns in the UK with the Firearms Act 1997.
February 29, 2000 Mount Morris Township, Michigan, USA Armed with a .32 pistol he had stolen from his uncle's house, 6 year old Dedrick Owens fatally shot Kayla Rolland in the neck. This story is featured in the 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine.
June 1, 2004 Sasebo, Japan An 11-year-old girl fatally slashed classmate Satomi Mitarai at Okubo Elementary School. This led to the creation of the Nevada-tan Internet phenomenon.
Dec 1, 2006 Hoogerheide, The Netherlands A 22-year-old male fatally stabbed a 8-year-old boy in the neck at a primary school. There is no family relationship between the victim and his killer.

Secondary and Post-secondary school killings

August 1, 1966 Austin, Texas, USA Charles Whitman pointed a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin's Tower and began shooting in a homicidal rampage that went on for 96 minutes. Sixteen people were killed, 31 wounded.
December 30, 1974 Olean, New York, USA 18-year-old honor student Anthony Barbaro blockaded himself into a third story classroom at his high school and opened fire on those below, killing three people and wounding eleven. He later hanged himself while awaiting trial. A drama was written about the incident entitled Sniper.
May 28, 1975 Brampton, Ontario, Canada Centennial Secondary School massacre. Michael Slobodian, 16, killed a teacher and student and wounded 13 others at Brampton Centennial Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., before shooting himself.
October 27, 1975 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada St. Pius X High School massacre. 18-year-old Robert Poulin opened fire on his class at St. Pius X High School, killing one and wounding five before turning the gun on himself. Poulin had raped and stabbed his 17-year-old friend Kim Rabot to death prior to the incident. A book was written on the incident called Rape Of A Normal Mind
April 5, 1982 Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA Kelvin Love, a student at Garland County Community College, killed an instructor and another student.
January 21, 1985 Kansas, USA Armed with an M-1A Semi-Automatic Rifle and a .357 Pistol, 14 year old James Kearbey fatally shot his principal and wounded 3 other teachers and a student at Goddard Junior High School.
March 2, 1987 Missouri, USA After constant teasing and humiliation about his weight, Nathan Ferris armed himself with a pistol and killed a fellow student after he bullied him in class. He then turned the gun on himself.
December 6, 1989 Montreal, Canada Marc Lépine took a hunting rifle into École Polytechnique de Montréal, killed 14 women, wounded four men and ten women before committing suicide.
November 1, 1991 Iowa City, Iowa, USA After his dissertation did not win a certain academic award, Ph.D. physics student Gang Lu shot six people before committing suicide. Five were killed, including three professors. A student employee was paralyzed.
May 1, 1992 Olivehurst, California, USA Armed with a pistol, 20-year-old Eric Houston took hostages at his former high school, killing four people and wounding 10. His motive was his inability to find a good job due to the fact that he had failed a grade at school. He was given the death penalty for the shooting. The 1994 Hostage High is directly based on the shooting.
August 24, 1992 Montreal, Quebec, Canada Former professor Dr. Valery Fabrikant went on a shooting rampage at Montreal's Concordia University killing four.
December 14, 1992 Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA Armed with a SKS carbine, 18-year-old Simon's Rock College of Bard student Wayne Lo killed a professor and a student and wounded several others. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
January 18, 1993 Grayson, Kentucky, USA 17-year-old East Carter High School student Scott Pennington fatally shot his English teacher and a school janitor with a pistol.
March 28, 1994 Middlesbrough, Teesside, UK Stephen Wilkinson walked into Middlesbrough’s Hall Garth School and stabbed 12 year old Nikki Conroy to death.
September 21, 1995 Rochester, New York, USA 13-year-old Stephne Givens was fatally stabbed at Jefferson Middle School by a fellow student.
November 15, 1995 Giles County, Tennessee, USA Armed with a .22 Remington Viper, 17-year-old Jamie Rouse walked into the Richland School and shot two teachers in the head, killing one. He then fired at the football coach, but hit a 14-year-old freshman in the neck, wounding her.
February 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Washington, USA Armed with a high-powered hunting rifle and two handguns, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis killed his algebra teacher and two students before taking hostages. He also shot a girl in the arm, who he released during the hostage situation. The incident ended when a teacher burst into the room and tackled him. Loukaitis is now serving life in prison.
February 2, 1996 Atlanta, Georgia, USA 12-year-old David Dubose killed a teacher in the hallway of his school with a pistol.
September 17, 1996 University Park, Pennsylvania, USA In the Hetzel Union Building shooting at The Pennsylvania State University, 19 year old Jillian Robbins opened fire on students walking to classes, killing one student and wounding another.
January 27, 1997 West Palm Beach, Florida, USA 13-year-old Tronneal Magnum shot and killed another student in front of his school.
February 19, 1997 Bethel, Alaska, USA Armed with a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun, Evan Ramsey killed a student and the principal of Bethel High School, and wounded two others. He is now serving a 210 year sentence.
October 1, 1997 Pearl, Mississippi, USA 16 year old Luke Woodham stabbed and beat his mother to death, then took a lever-action rifle to Pearl High School where he shot into a crowd of students, killing his ex-girlfriend Christina Menefee and her friend Lydia Kay Dew and wounded seven other students. Woodham later claimed that he did not remember killing his mother.
December 2, 1997 West Paducah, Kentucky, USA A 14-year old high school freshman opened fire on a prayer circle at his school killing three students and injuring five.
April 24, 1998 Edinboro, Pennsylvania, USA 14-year-old Andrew J. Wurst went to the school graduation dance where he shot and killed a popular science teacher. He subsequently opened fire on more students, wounding another teacher and two classmates before he ran out of ammunition.
May 19, 1998 Fayetteville, Tennessee, USA Three days before graduation, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis fatally shot 18-year-old Nick Creson with a bolt action rifle. He then discarded the rifle and calmly watched Creson die.
May 21, 1998 Springfield, Oregon, USA Kip Kinkel opened fire with a .22 rifle at Thurston Senior High School, killing 2 students and wounding 25 before being tackled by a wounded student. His parents were later found at home, murdered by Kinkel. He is now serving 111 years in prison without parole.
April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colorado, USA Columbine High School Massacre. Two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, carried out a shooting rampage, killing 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 24 others, before committing suicide.
April 28, 1999 Taber, Alberta, Canada W. R. Myers High School shooting. In both the first school shooting since Columbine and the first Canadian school shooting in over 10 years, Todd Cameron Smith brought a sawn-off .22 rifle to W.R Myers High School and shot two students, killing one.
October 20, 1999 Houston, Texas, USA During a fight between 14-year-old Estanislao Balderas and 13-year-old Samuel Avila at Deady Middle School, Baldera produced a screwdriver and fatally stabbed Avila with it.
November 9, 1999 Meissen, Germany A 15-year-old student stabbed his teacher to death after taking bets from classmates that he would not dare to commit the crime. He was later jailed for seven years.
November 20, 1999 Deming, New Mexico, USA A boy shot 13-year-old Aralecy Tena in the back of the head with a handgun at Deming Middle School. Tena died after being taken off of life support.
March, 2000 Brannenburg, Bavaria, Germany A 16 year old student fatally shot a teacher and then turned the handgun on himself but survived, and has been in a coma ever since.
May 26, 2000 Lake Worth, Florida, USA 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill shot his English teacher, 35-year-old Barry Grunow at Lake Worth Middle School, in the face on the last day of school.
March 5, 2001 Santee, California, USA Armed with .22 revolver, 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams opened fire in a boy's bathroom at Santana High School, killing two students. He then exited the bathroom and shot at nearby students, wounding 13. Shortly afterwards he retreated back into the toilets where he surrendered to police.
January 16, 2002 Grundy, Virginia, USA Appalachian School of Law shooting. 43-year-old Appalachian School of Law student Peter Odighizuwa shot and killed the Dean and another student. He was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison.
April 26, 2002 Erfurt, Germany A 19 year old expelled student opened fire at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, After killing 13 teachers, two students and a police officer, he committed suicide.
April 29, 2002 Vlasenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina Armed with a 7.65mm pistol, 17-year-old Dragoslav Petkovic killed his history teacher because he was sure that the teacher did not like him and would give him a failing grade. He then shot another teacher in front of the whole classroom, wounding her lightly, before committing suicide.
October 21, 2002 Melbourne, Australia Monash University shooting. Huan Xiang, a commerce student at the university, armed with five loaded handguns, opened fire in a tutorial room. Two students, William Wu and Steven Chan, were killed and others seriously wounded. Xiang was found not guilty of murder due to mental illness, and was ordered to be sent to a psychiatric hospital.
April 14, 2003 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA At 10:30 AM, several men armed with an AK-47 entered the school gymnasium of John McDonogh High School and executed Jonathan "Caveman" Williams, a football player. The killers fired at least 18 times, shattering Williams' face and injuring three neighboring girls. A stampede of students trampled a pregannt girl.
April 24, 2003 Red Lion, Pennsylvania, USA Red Lion Area Junior High School Murder/Suicide. 14-year-old James Sheets fatally shot his school principal in the cafeteria of his middle school before committing suicide.
May 9, 2003 Cleveland, Ohio, USA Biswanath Halder, a 62-year-old man, opened fire with an automatic weapon on his former school, Case Western Reserve University. He killed one student, seriously wounded two others, and kept over 90 people hiding for their lives for seven hours. After vigorous and bullet-ridden gun battles with school police and SWAT officers, Halder surrendered and was sentenced to life in prison.
September 24, 2003 Cold Spring, Minnesota, USA Rocori High School shooting. 15-year-old Jason McLaughlin shot Aaron Rollins and Seth Bartell at Rocori High School with a .22 pistol. Rollins died the same day; Bartell died October 10 of injuries sustained in the attack.
January 13, 2004 Den Haag, The Netherlands Murat D. killed Hans van Wieren, a 49-year-old teacher at Terra College.
February 2, 2004 Washington, D.C., USA 19 year old Thomas J. Boykin fatally shot 17 year old James Richardson at Ballou Senior High School. Boykin was later acquitted on the charge of murder.
February 3, 2004 Palmetto Bay, Florida, USA 14-year old Michael Hernandez stabbed and slit the throat of 14-year-old classmate, Jaime Rodrigo Gough, while in a restroom at Southwood Middle School. Hernandez was tried as an adult, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A search of his home revealed he had concocted plans to murder several classmates and even his older sister. His journal revealed he was obsessed with perfection, and admired Hitler and the Nazis.
March 30, 2004 Gary, Indiana, USA Neal Boyd IV was fatally shot in the parking lot of Wallace High School by a fellow student.
August 4, 2004 Beijing, China Xu Heping, a 51-year-old doorman with a history of mental illness, stabbed several students and teachers in Beijing University's Number One Hospital, killing a child and wounding 17 others, 14 of whom were children.
September 28, 2004 Carmen de Patagones,
Buenos Aires Province, Argentina Armed with his father's 9mm pistol, a 15-year-old boy opened fire on his classmates during a flag-hoisting, killing 3 students and wounding 5 others.
November 26, 2004 Ruzhou, China With no apparent motive, an intruder stabbed eight students to death and injured four others at Ruzhou's Number Two High School in the sixth such incident in China in the past four months.
January 4, 2005 Denver, Colorado, USA A 17-year old student, Contrell Townsend, was stabbed to death by his classmate after engaging in a heated argument with him.
November 8, 2005 Jacksboro, Tennessee, USA After reports that a freshman had a handgun, the principal and two assistant principals confronted student Kenneth Bartley Jr., who opened fire on them, killing one of the assistant principals and wounding the two others.
June 25, 2006 Los Angeles, California, USA Augustine Contreras, an 11th grader at Venice High School, died outside of the school. Contreras intervened in a fight between his brother, Alejo Contreras, and some unidentified men when he fatally took a bullet. The victim lived in Culver City.
September 13, 2006 Montreal, Quebec, Canada The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the main floor. One victim died at the scene, while another 19 were injured, eight of whom were listed in critical condition with six requiring surgery. The gunman later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, after being shot in the arm by police.
September 29, 2006 Cazenovia, Wisconsin, USA Weston High School shooting. 15-year-old Eric Hainstock shoots his high school principal, who then managed to wrestle Hainstock to the ground. The principal died later in hospital from multiple gunshot wounds.
October 19, 2006 Orlando, Florida USA 17-year-old Kelvin De La Cruz stabs 15-year-old Michael Nieves in the chest with a pocket knife at a school bus stop of the Main Campus at University High School. After he stabbed him, Cruz hid under the bus and attempted to change his clothes, but was apprehended and charged with first-degree murder. Nieves died two hours later after being stabbed.
December 12, 2006 Springfield, Pennsylvania USA Early Tuesday morning at Springfield High School, 16-year-old Shane Halligan fatally shoots self with a rifle in a school hallway. No one else was hurt.
January 3, 2007 Tacoma, Washington USA A student identified as Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot 17-year-old Samnang Kok just before classes began at Henry Foss High School. Kok died at a local hospital. Chanthabouly fled the scene and was apprehended in a nearby neighborhood two hours later.
January 26, 2007 Uninc. Los Angeles County, California USA Gang members entered Drew Middle School and opened fire. A 23-year old visitor named Demetrius Perry died.
March 7, 2007 Outside Dow High School in Midland, Michigan USA 17-year old David Turner shot 17-year old Jessica Forsyth four times before killing himself in the parking lot.
March 7, 2007 Greenville, Texas USA A 16-year-old student fatally shot himself inside the band hall at Greenville High School.
March 18, 2007 Sabayoi, Thailand A number of attackers threw explosives and fired numerous bullets at an Islamic school killing 3 teens and injured 7 others who were sleeping.
April 16, 2007 Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The Virginia Tech massacre was single most deadly civilian gunfire incident in United States history. It occurred at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Thirty-three people were killed including the gunman in two separate locations: the West Ambler Johnston Hall where two were shot dead and Norris Hall where the remaining 31, including the gunman, were shot. Over 20 others were injured in the violence that lasted over 2 hours.

Note: this list does not include non-fatal school shootings and attacks, foiled and exposed plots, or other gun-related school incidents.

Truly heavy sigh.

Best bar bet in the world: Delilah didn't do it.
Judges 16:19-- And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.