Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)
1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting | |
---|---|
Location | 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
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,"
Perpetrator
Brenda Spencer | |
---|---|
San Diego, California, U.S. | |
Status | Incarcerated; Next parole hearing in 2025 |
Imprisoned at | California Institution for Women |
Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) was born to Dorothy Nadine (
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.
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
Shooting
On the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, Spencer began shooting from her house
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,
Imprisonment
Spencer was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and
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
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
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
References
- ^ a b c "School Sniper Suspect Bragged Of 'Something Big To Get On TV'". Evening Independent. Associated Press. January 30, 1979 – via Google News.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b Clarke, Steve (October 18–31, 1979). The Fastest Lip on Vinyl. EMAP National Publications. pp. 6–7.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4614-5526-4.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Sniping suspect had a grim goal". The Milwaukee Journal. January 29, 1979. p. 4 – via Google News.[dead link]
- ^ a b c d e Böckler et al. 2013, p. 257.
- ^ a b Böckler et al. 2013, p. 248.
- ^ 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.
- ISBN 978-0-313-36239-2.
- ^ ISBN 978-1957288376.
- ^ Böckler et al. 2013, pp. 251–253.
- ^ "Classmates Say Alleged Sniper Seemed Lonely, Friendless Girl". The Washington Post. January 31, 1979. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
- ISBN 978-1957288376.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b "School Shooter Brenda Spencer Denied Parole". KFMB-TV. August 14, 2009. Archived from the original on September 1, 2010.
- ISBN 978-1957288376.
- ^ Böckler et al. 2013, p. 250; Böckler et al. 2013, p. 257.
- ^ "Brenda-Spencer". San Diego Police Museum Online. San Diego Police Historical Association.
- UPI. April 5, 1980. Retrieved June 25, 2018 – via Google News.
- ^ a b c Sanford, Jay Allen (March 10, 2005). "Brenda Spencer was 16". San Diego Reader. Archived from the original on January 4, 2014.
- ^ "Parole denied in school shooting". USA Today. Associated Press. June 19, 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2016.
- ^ "No parole granted for 'I don't like Mondays' school shooter". August 18, 2022.
- ^ "SPENCER, BRENDA – W14944". California Incarcerated Records & Information Search. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
- ^ "No parole granted for 'I don't like Mondays' school shooter". Fox 5 San Diego. August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- ^ Swain, Liz (March 26, 2015). "She didn't like Mondays, they don't want plaque moved". San Diego Reader. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ Clemetson, Jeff (December 18, 2015). "Tragic past, uncertain present, bright future of Cleveland Elementary". Mission Times Courier.
- ^ "Home page". Magnolia Science Academy. Archived from the original on February 18, 2012. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ Granberry, Michael (January 19, 1989). "Victims of San Diego School Shooting Are Forced to Cope Again 10 Years Later". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "I Don't Like Mondays". Official Charts Company. July 21, 1979.
- ^ 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.
- ISBN 978-1957288376.
- ^ "I Don't Like Mondays (TV Movie 2006)". IMDb. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "Killer Kids: Deadly Compulsion". TV.com. CBS Interactive. September 3, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ "Killer Kids - Season 3 Episode 19 Deadly Compulsion". Dailymotion. November 24, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ "Thrill Killers | Deadly Women". www.investigationdiscovery.com. Discovery Communications, LLC. October 8, 2008. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ "Deadly Women | Season 2 Episode 1 Thrill Kills". Dailymotion. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ "Deadly Women - Season 2 Episodes List". next-episode.net. October 9, 2008. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
Further reading
- Hunt, N Leigh (2022). I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS The True Story Behind America's First Modern School Shooting (1st ed.). ISBN 978-1957288376.
- Böckler, Nils; Seeger, Thorsten; Sitzer, Peter; Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (2013). School Shootings: International Research, Case Studies, and Concepts for Prevention (1st ed.). ISBN 978-1-461-45526-4.
Parole Hearing transcripts:
- "Brenda Spencer Parole Hearings". MurderHistorian.com. February 1, 2018.
Videos:
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "40 Years Ago, Brenda Spencer Took Lives At Elementary School". San Diego Union-Tribune. January 30, 2019.
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 1". CBS 8 San Diego. June 13, 2019.
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 2". CBS 8 San Diego. June 13, 2019.
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 3". CBS 8 San Diego. June 13, 2019.
- Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "1993: Convicted school shooter Brenda Spencer speaks with San Diego's News 8 - PART 4". CBS 8 San Diego. June 13, 2019.