School Shootings That Broke The Mold

While the large majority of school attacks have occurred by people entering the school to attack victims, that's not always been the case. Here are two incidents where "the rules" were broken and the shooters weren't predictable.

Joshua Borelli

March 15, 2016

2 min read

In this article we will look at two school shootings; both of them unique from what we consider “normal circumstances” for a school shooting. The first incident was aimed to target the school but did not take place inside the school. Instead, the attack came from the perpetrator’s home located across the street from the school itself. The second incident took place inside a school but instead of students or faculty being the target, the school was merely used as the gunman’s shooting spot.

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The first shooting took place on Monday January 29th, 1979 in San Diego, California. The shooter was sixteen year old Brenda Spencer who was widely known as a problem child and a drug abuser with a violent streak. She reportedly, on multiple occasions, used her BB gun to shoot out the windows at Grover Cleveland Elementary school which was across the street from where she lived. Despite this behavior, her father purchased her a .22 rifle and ammunition for Christmas at the end of 1978.

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The remainder of this article is part of the book "Active Killers and the Crimes They Perpetrated," available in print or ebook via Amazon.

About the Author

Joshua Borelli

Joshua Borelli has been studying active shooter and mass attack events over the course of the past several years, commensurate with receiving training on response and recovery to natural disasters and civil disturbances. Joshua started to outline this series of articles in an attempt to identify commonalities and logistical needs patterns for response.