With a little more than a year of articles about active shooter events now published, and knowing the particular event I’ll be writing about next, I wanted to take a quick look back at the events we’ve already reviewed and one particular term we all too often apply (or used to). This will take two articles to cover but bear with me as I believe you’ll see the value when we get into March and our even with that oh-so-common term.
Our look back at – and attempt to learn lessons from – active shooter events reached to 1764 when a small group of Indians attacked a school house in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. While there were other shootings across the decades, the next one of note occurred in March of 1891 in Liberty, Mississippi where fourteen people were injured during an attack at a school concert. Also in 1981 – in April – James Ferguson attacked children on the playground of a parochial school in Newburgh, New York. In today’s world, we’d wonder if he was “empowered” by the events that occurred in Mississippi just a month earlier, but in 1891 it’s unlikely that he’d even heard about the Mississippi attack when he attacked children in New York.
The Bath (MI) School Attack 1927: While we know that active shooter events often contain a component of improvised explosives in today’s world, in 1927 when Andrew Kehoe used ONLY explosives to attack the Bath Consolidated School in Bath Township, Michigan it was unheard of. Kehoe – in a typical behavior pattern of mass casualty attackers – killed a family member first (his wife) at home before going to attack the school. With the use of explosives and armed with a rifle, Kehoe killed a total of 44 people that day and wounded another 58. The biggest lesson learned from the Bath attack is that there are often indicators of violent behavior well before the attack is carried out. In the case of Kehoe, people had taken notice of his build up in stock of explosives and his angry behavior toward many of the townspeople due to his loss of an election.
The Texas Tower Incident 1966: From 1927 and Bath, MI we jumped to 1966 in Austin, Texas. In that three part series, we took a look at Charles Whitman’s barricaded attack at the University of Texas – from the top of the tower. Like Kehoe before him, Whitman killed his wife and mother at home before going to the campus to carry out his attack. He had planned and prepared across a small span of time and barricaded himself into the top of the tower with a good supply of weapons, ammunition, food and some minor health supplies. Whitman engaged targets as far as 1,500 feet away (roughly a third of a mile) and continued his attack for approximately an hour and a half before three officers breached his barricaded area, killed him and ended the siege. Perhaps the biggest lessons learned from this incident were proper use of cover (Whitman shot one officer through a six inch gap in a concrete wall) and that sometimes special circumstances call for special capabilities. It is of value to note that this incident, along with others around the nation, are credited for inspiring the creation of SWAT teams nationwide.
Olean High School Shootings 1974: Perhaps using The Texas Tower incident as somewhat of a model, in December of 1974, Anthony Barbaro didn’t attack the Olean High School population within the school directly, but instead barricaded himself into a room on the third floor of the school and attacked those outside. Part of the response – which society might reject and ridicule today – was the use of a National Guard TANK to remove wounded from the scene. Just like the use of Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) by SWAT teams today, they had to use something to get to the wounded and they need that something to be armored against the weapon(s) Barbaro had. After killing three and wounding eleven more, Barbaro was arrested. He committed suicide after a preliminary hearing resulted in charges that would likely keep him in jail for the rest of his life OR give him the death penalty.
Grover Cleveland School Attack 1979: In this active shooter event we saw 16 yr old Brenda Spencer attack a school – but not from within the school. Instead, she shot AT people entering the school property from the security of her own home across the street. Using a .22 rifle, she shot eleven people, killing two of them and went into the history books as the first active shooter to attack a school from a different location. The biggest lesson to be learned (obviously) is that if you get called to an active shooter event where the location of the shooter is unknown, it’s dangerous – and perhaps fatal – to assume the shooter is in the school. Act on intelligence gathered while you’re on the way and what you learn during close approach.
Cokeville Elementary School Siege 1986: In an apparent attempt to gain nothing more than money and notoriety, David and Doris Young took over 150 hostages at the Cokeville (WY) Elementary School in May of 1986. As the students and teachers were, no doubt, looking forward to the end of the school year, instead they found themselves held hostage by the armed pair who had set up a gasoline bomb with a triggering mechanism that the Youngs kept tied to themselves. The device was triggered unintentionally by Doris resulting in severe injuries to her and minor injuries to approximately 76 of the hostages. David shot and killed his wife (a mercy killing?), one teacher who was helping students to escape out the windows and then himself after leaving the classroom. Evidence acquired after the event led investigators to believe that David’s motivations included not only the money and notoriety, but control over a “new world” where intelligent children carried a lot of power.
The Stockton Schoolyard Shooting 1989: In January of 1989, Patrick Purdy opened fire on children while they played in the schoolyard playground and the faculty members watching over them. The attack reportedly lasted only three minutes within which Purdy fired 106 rounds killing five children and wounding thirty-two more. Prior to the attack Purdy had frequently stated his hatred for Asians so it was no surprise to those who knew him when it when the investigation revealed that most of the victims were of Asian ancestry. As active shooter events go – looking back at the others that had occurred prior – this was fairly straight forward. Purdy did use fireworks and gasoline to set his van on fire nearby before attacking the school’s playground. He committed suicide before being engaged by responding officials.
Thurston High School Attack 1998: After having been suspended from Thurston High School on May 20th, Kipland Kinkel murdered his parents and then returned to the school the next day (May 21st) with a rifle and two handguns and over 1,100 rounds of ammo. After Kinkel entered the school and began shooting students, he was tackled and then subdued by a group of students who held him until the police arrived. Reportedly seven students were involved in detaining Kinkel (proof that fighting back can work). Kinkel had fired 51 shots wounding 37 students and killing two others. It should be noted (sadly) that 39 casualties out of 51 shots is a high “hit ratio” percentage.
The next event we examined was that of the attack at Columbine High School in 1999. We’ll pick up with that in the next article.
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.
