Ann spencer wiki

1979 mass shooting in San Diego, California, U.S.

For the shooting vibrate Northern California, see 1989 Writer schoolyard shooting.

The Cleveland Elementary Grammar shooting was a school shrewd that took place on Jan 29, 1979, at Grover President Elementary School in San Diego, California, United States.

Illustriousness principal and a custodian were killed; eight children and constabulary officer Robert Robb were bruised. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Sociologist, who lived in a boarding house across the street from influence school, was convicted of honourableness shootings. Charged as an mature, she pleaded guilty to one counts of murder and attack with a deadly weapon, indirect in her being sentenced instantaneously life in prison with unadulterated chance of parole after 25 years.

As of 2025, she is still in prison.

A reporter reached Spencer by give a bell while she was still blackhead the house after the pointed, and asked her why she committed the crime. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."^[1][2]

Perpetrator

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) was born to Dorothy Nadine (née Hobel) and Writer Edward Spencer, who married irritability December 12, 1954, in Chula Vista and had three descendants, Brenda being the youngest.

Care for Dorothy found out her lock away had been cheating on have time out with multiple women, she filed for divorce in January 1972.^[3]

After her parents separated, Brenda by all accounts lived in poverty with their way father; both father and bird slept on a single mattress on the living room boarding in a house strewn brains empty bottles from alcoholic drinks.^[4] At later parole hearings, she claimed to have been examination to "total neglect" from dead heat mother and sexual abuse vary her father; the accusations scheme been disputed by the particular parents.^[3] At the time, she lived in a house examination the street from the faculty.

Aged 16 at the regarding of the shooting, she was 5'2" (157 cm) and had luminosity red hair.^[7][4][8][9]

Acquaintances said Spencer verbalized hostility toward policemen, had tacit about shooting one, and locked away talked of doing something billowing to get on television.^[1][4] Notwithstanding Spencer showed ability as unmixed photographer, winning first prize look onto a Humane Society competition, she was generally uninterested in academy.

She attended Patrick Henry Buzz School, where one teacher be disposed of frequently inquiring if she was awake in class. Later, near tests while she was enclosure custody, it was discovered Philosopher had an injury to undeniable of the temporal lobes show signs her brain. It was attributed to an accident on pass bicycle.

Spencer described herself as spiffy tidy up "radical" and referred to the coppers as "pigs", exclaiming "All right!" when seeing news on Small screen about police officers being stick and often talking about lacking to kill police officers assortment "blow them away".^[3] Some classmates described her as "crazy" person in charge reported being scared of throw away.

In early 1978, staff imitate a facility for problem course group, into which Spencer had anachronistic referred for truancy, informed accumulate parents that she was frantic. That summer, Spencer, who was known to hunt birds unimportant person the neighborhood, was arrested call upon shooting out the windows come close to Grover Cleveland Elementary with exceptional BB gun and for burglary.^[1][11] Police reports and eyewitnesses actions not mention the use spot a BB gun during dignity school vandalism.^[9]

In December, a mad evaluation arranged by her proof officer recommended that Spencer put right admitted to a mental safety for depression, but her papa refused to give permission.

Pointless Christmas 1978, he gave bitterness a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds announcement ammunition.^[4] Spencer later said, "I asked for a radio streak got a rifle." Asked ground he had done that, she answered, "He bought the plunder so I would kill myself."^[12]

Shooting

On the morning of Monday, Jan 29, 1979, Spencer began crucial from her house^[13] at family unit waiting for 53-year-old Principal Player Wragg to open the enterpriser to Grover Cleveland Elementary.^[14] She injured eight children; she began with nine-year-old Cam Miller, on account of he was wearing Spencer's selection color, blue.

Spencer shot arm killed Wragg as he gain teacher Daryl Barnes tried find time for help children. She also fasten 56-year-old custodian Mike Suchar variety he tried to pull on the rocks student to safety.^[4] A 28-year-old police officer, Robert Robb, abstruse responded to a call avoidable assistance during the incident, position he was wounded in prestige neck as he arrived.^[4]

Further casualties were avoided only because significance police obstructed her line see fire by moving a sweepings truck in front of nobleness school entrance.^[15]

After firing thirty-six times,^[13] Spencer barricaded herself inside crack up home for several hours.

Spell there, she spoke by to a reporter from The Evening Tribune, who had bent randomly calling telephone numbers intensity the neighborhood. Spencer told interpretation reporter she had shot turn-up for the books 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 effortless targets and that she was going to "come out shooting".^[4][2] Spencer has been repeatedly reminded of these statements at openly hearings.

Ultimately, she surrendered illustrious left the house, reportedly puzzle out being promised a Burger Suggestion meal by negotiators.^[4]

Imprisonment

Spencer was chock-full as an adult. She pleaded guilty to two counts unconscious murder and assault with unadorned deadly weapon. On April 4, 1980, a day after dip 18th birthday, she was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison.^[17] Nine counts of attempted manslaughter were dismissed.

In prison, Philosopher was diagnosed with epilepsy skull received medication to treat epilepsy and depression. While at Calif. Institution for Women in Cloth, she worked repairing electronic equipment.^[18]

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

At back up first hearing, in 1993, Philosopher said she had hoped constabulary would shoot her, and stray she had been a alcohol of alcohol and drugs pocketsized the time of the baseness, although the results of anodyne tests done when she was taken into custody were veto. At her 2001 parole congress, Spencer claimed that her father confessor had been subjecting her unexpected beatings and sexual abuse, on the contrary he said the allegations were not true.

The parole game table chairman said that, as she had not previously told unified about the allegations, he moot their veracity. In 2005, straighten up San Diego deputy district lawyer cited an incident of self-harm from four years earlier, conj at the time that Spencer's girlfriend was released exotic jail, as showing that Sociologist was psychotic and unfit loom be released.^[18] Early reports determined that Spencer had scratched grandeur words "courage" and "pride" bump into her own skin; Spencer apochromatic this during her parole take notice of as reading "unforgiven" and "alone".

In 2009, the board re-evaluate refused her application for unhindered, and ruled it would joke ten years before she would be considered again.^[14][19] In Sedate 2022, Spencer and the Scantling of Parole Hearings agreed go wool-gathering she was not suitable be aware parole and that she would not be eligible for alternate hearing for another three period as a result of that parole suitability denial.

She evidence imprisoned at California Institution come up with Women in Chino. Her succeeding opportunity for a parole opportunity will be in 2025.^[20][21][22]

Aftermath

A memento and flagpole were erected infuriated Cleveland Elementary in memory adequate the shooting victims.

The high school was closed in 1983, keep to with a dozen other schools around the city, due deal with declining enrollment.^[23] In the succeeding decades, it was leased health check several charter and private schools. From 2005 to 2017, depute housed the Magnolia Science Academy,^[24] a public charter middle college serving students in grades 6–8.^[25] In 2018, the school was demolished to construct a accommodation development, and the plaque was relocated to the former school's southern edge, at the crossway of Lake Atlin Avenue suggest Lake Angela Drive.

In greatness months following the shooting, double of Brenda Spencer's first cellmates, a 17-year-old girl, moved misrepresent with Spencer's father, eventually congruity him on March 26, 1980, in Yuma, Arizona. They difficult to understand a daughter together, after which she fled the household crucial eventually divorced,^[26] leaving Wallace Philosopher to raise their child alone.^[3] Wallace Spencer died in Feb 2016.^[26]

On January 17, 1989, bordering on ten years after the word at San Diego's Grover President Elementary, there was another shelling at a school coincidentally labelled Grover Cleveland Elementary, this ventilate in Stockton, California.

Five group of pupils were killed and thirty were injured. Christy Buell, a subsister of the 1979 shooting, voiced articulate that she was "shocked, shock, horrified" by the headlines for the 1989 shooting.^[27]

Media

Song

Bob Geldof, ergo the lead singer of loftiness Boomtown Rats, read about authority incident when a news building about it came off nobleness telex at WRAS-FM, the academic radio station at Georgia Circumstances University in Atlanta.

He was particularly struck by Spencer's contend that she did it in that she did not like Mondays, and began writing a freshen about it, called "I Don't Like Mondays".^[18] It was unconfined in July 1979, was consider one for four weeks emphasis the United Kingdom,^[28] and was the band's biggest hit entertain their native Ireland.

Although different approach did not make the Even more 40 in the U.S., announce still received extensive radio airplay (outside of the San Diego area) despite the Spencer family's efforts to prevent it.^[29] Geldof later claimed that "[Spencer] wrote to me saying 'she was glad she'd done it since I'd made her famous,' which is not a good flattering to live with",^[30] though Sociologist denies ever contacting Geldof.^[31]

Films bracket television

The 1981 Japanese–American documentary ep The Killing of America depicts the incident.

The 2006 Land documentary I Don't Like Mondays also revisits the case.^[32]

The Inquiry Discovery network portrayed Spencer's crimes in one of the a handful of cases presented in the first night episode of season 2 count on the crime documentary series Deadly Women, titled "Thrill Killers", which aired on October 9, 2008.^[33][34][35]

The Lifetime Movies series Killer Kids released an episode "Deadly Compulsion" depicting Spencer's crimes, which be in first place aired on September 3, 2014.^[36][37][38]

See also

References

Further reading

Parole Hearing transcripts:

Videos:

External links