Columbine wasn't the first
The incident at the American Columbine School was not the first joke in history. There had been violence and cruelty before this. For example, in 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer discharged 30 rounds of ammunition from a semi-automatic rifle inside Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. She killed the director and injured many people, including children. Cause? Brenda just didn't like Mondays.
Brenda Spencer
school student
Another case. In 1989, Patrick Edward Petrie armed himself with an AK-47 and came to a Cleveland school, but this time in the city of Stockton. There he shot more than a hundred times at children and teachers. As a result, five children died and 29 were injured. It is noted that the victims were predominantly from Southeast Asia. Having finished the reprisal, Petri fired a bullet at himself. Acquaintances of the killer noted that he had a psychiatric disorder, “hatred of everything,” as well as racist views regarding Vietnamese emigrants.
In general, before Columbine there were more than ten bloody shootings in American schools, but for some reason teenagers all over the world began to copy Harris and Klebold, and not Petrie or Spencer.
Bowling for Columbine
In April 1999, American society was split into “before” and “after.” The watershed was the same massacre that would later become the most famous shooting incident in history. Two teenagers entered the Columbine High School cafeteria, planted explosives, and then began pouring lead on everyone they saw. During the fatal incident, 13 people were killed and 24 were injured. Not the bloodiest numbers, but it was the April events that later formed the basis of many films, books and songs: from Roger Moore’s documentary to Eminem’s lines in I’M Back and Rap God.
Eric Harris
student of the school
Because the shootings of Harris and Klebold are not just the behavior of two teenagers who have lost their minds. There is a whole ideology built behind them. Judging by the diaries they both kept, the criminals differed in character. Harris dreamed of militarism, ideas of natural selection and rough sex with his classmates. Klebold drew flowers in his diary, sighed about unrequited love and thought a lot about death. In general, these guys personified the two main teenage psychology: all-consuming hatred and languid torment. It is not surprising that, after so many years, today's teenagers see murderers soul mates- the essence of youthful suffering never changes.
Dylan Klebold
student of the school
The imitators also liked the “cape mafia” aesthetic, which was ridiculed by the killers’ classmates. A long raincoat on a thin body, army boots, hard rock from the speakers, complete nihilism and a powerful interest in the ways of Nazi Germany. An explosive mixture of reference points that makes his admirer “not like everyone else” is perhaps the ideal recipe for a teenage outsider. Footage of cinematic - whatever - guys with guns in their hands destroying a cafeteria is even now circulating in the public pages of the social network VKontakte. When Gus Van Sant made his "Elephant", he didn't have to invent anything - he just dressed the teenagers in black clothes and it was an explosion.
The very idea that this world of popular and beautiful schoolchildren could be subject to the vengeance of an outsider dressed in a black robe will resonate at any time. As long as there are outsiders, there are black robes and there are weapons from which revenge can be carried out. The schoolchildren from Columbine could not help but have followers.
Shooting around the world
One of the bloodiest shootings in the United States happened in 2007 - eight years after Columbine. A Virginia Tech student named Cho Seung Hee walked onto campus with a gun drawn. There he killed 32 people and wounded 25 more. After this, the student committed suicide. Cho Seung Hee had a mental disorder - the killer was prone to outbursts of aggression.
Another bloody tragedy occurred five years ago at a school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Adam Lanza had passed adolescence - he was 20, but he carried out the entire “procedure” according to quite “Columbine” canons. First, Adam shot his mother, then looked into the elementary school - there Lanza killed 20 small children and six adults. The school director was also hit by bullets. Of course, it soon became clear that the killer had mental problems: at the age of 13, Adam was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.
It is a mistake to think that shootings only happen in the United States. Yes, there are all the conditions for mass shootings in schools - the free distribution of weapons, but a ban on carrying them on the territory of government institutions. However, the bloody fashion has long spread beyond the United States.
Back in 2002, a resident of the German town of Erfurt entered the building of the local gymnasium, where he had previously studied until he was expelled due to a false certificate of illness. The expulsion put an end to the guy's future career, so he decided to take revenge. The killer shot 16 people until he came across former teacher- after a conversation with a teacher, the teenager shot himself.
In Sweden there was a similar case, coupled with racial intolerance. 21-year-old Anton Lundin-Pettersson was fond of Nazism, hated immigrants and liked pictures about Adolf Hitler on Facebook. In October 2015, he opened the doors of the Krunan Municipal School. It was no coincidence that Anton chose the school: about 90% of the “newcomers” studied there, mainly from Somalia. Before entering the building, the killer put on a black cloak and mask (to resemble) and also armed himself with a sword. In total, he brought death to three people: a 20-year-old teacher's assistant, a 15-year-old schoolboy and a 42-year-old mathematician. Eyewitnesses noted that Anton was aiming at “people with dark skin color.”
School attacks also occurred in Finland, France and Estonia. In many cases, the aggressors knew about Columbine and deliberately imitated the style of the American killers.
Came to Russia
As you can understand, the cult did not bypass Russia either - the incident at the Perm school was not the first time when teenagers were inspired by Harris and Klebold. On the morning of September 5, 2017, 15-year-old Mikhail P from No. 1 Ivanteevka near Moscow brought an air gun and a kitchen hatchet to class. He was a computer science teacher with whom he had a conflict. The woman suffered a traumatic brain injury. Then the teenager headed to the auditorium, where the other half of his 9 "A" class was sitting, to deal with long-time offenders. The attacker wore a black cloak and dreamed of militarism, which caused ridicule from his classmates; Mikhail wanted revenge. Fortunately, most of the students managed to escape. As a result, only three people were injured: a teacher and two schoolchildren who jumped out of the windows.
Mikhail was not just a duo from Columbine in appearance - he completely shared their philosophy and even called himself Mike Klebold on the VKontakte social network. On the page, the attacker posted videos and photographs of his idols, and always told his friends that he wanted to repeat the path of the two killers.
The Columbine School murder holds a special place in modern history. The massacre carried out by two teenagers shocked the whole country. This event led to public controversy surrounding violent video games and the purchase of firearms.
Harris and Klebold
Columbine School in Colorado was no different from thousands of similar educational institutions across the country. Friends Eric and Dylan studied here in their last year. They also had strange habits. A few years before the Columbine High School massacre, schoolchildren found themselves in police custody for disorderly conduct and computer theft.
Young people were in conflict with their peers. Eric Harris was seeing a psychiatrist because he was diagnosed with depression. He was taking medications that could have a negative impact on his behavior. Friends kept a blog on the Internet where they posted amateur videos related to the production of explosives and weapons.
Shooters plan
On April 20, 1999, Eric and Dylan planned a bombing of their own school. To do this, they secretly produced various bombs for several months. According to their plan, they were supposed to plant explosives in the school cafeteria and go outside. After the detonator went off, the shooters were supposed to open fire on the students and staff who ran out in panic. In total, the friends were going to kill up to five hundred people.
If the bombs were produced by Eric and Dylan using a makeshift method, then in order to obtain the weapons, they had to resort to cunning. None of the shooters had reached adulthood yet, so they asked a friend who went to Denver to buy the guns. The girl had no idea about the plans of Hariss and Klebold.
Start of attack
On April 20, 1999, friends arrived at their school. They went to the cafeteria, where they quietly installed bombs with detonators, after which they quickly went outside. However, the explosion did not occur at the appointed time. At first, Harris and Klebold decided to wait a few more minutes to be on the safe side. However, when nothing happened after that, they moved to plan B.
It consisted in the fact that the shooters took weapons from their car and went to the classrooms to carry out a massacre. Thus began the Columbine High School massacre. As Harris took his gym bag with him, he was greeted by a schoolmate who asked him why he had missed class. Instead of a clear answer, Eric told his acquaintance: “I like you. Leave. Go home." Within a minute this guy heard the first shots.
First killed
The first victims of the shooters were a couple who were sitting on the lawn in front of the school. The girl died immediately from bullet wounds, and her friend later became disabled. After this, the shooters opened indiscriminate fire on the guys who were in sight. This is how three friends were seriously injured, who decided that the high school students were just pranking them.
Subsequently, the massacre at Columbine High School was moved inside it. The shooters entered the building from the emergency entrance. Once in the western wing, they began to shoot those who were in the corridor. The next targets were the students sitting in the classrooms nearby. One of the teachers went to the library, from where she called 911. The police soon learned about what had happened. The squad went to the school.
When officers arrived, Klebold and Hariss were already inside the building. Officers were able to spot the shooters through a window, and a shootout ensued. However, no one was hurt or injured.
Library Massacre
At this time, the friends were heading to the library. This is where they killed the most people. 10 students became their victims. They all hid under tables when Dylan Klebold and his comrade entered the room. However, this did not save them. Here the shooting at the US Columbine school was carried out to kill. The killers approached their victims closely and shot them in cold blood. The teenagers mocked their wounded and terrified peers, asking them tricky questions about the desire to die and faith in God. The shooters clearly enjoyed what was happening. According to the recollections of surviving eyewitnesses, Klebold and Harris constantly laughed and joked with each other.
In addition, the comrades took with them carbon bombs, which they decided to use directly in the library. One of them was thrown under the table where a school student was hiding. A dozen shots were fired at some of the victims. When the friends left the library twenty minutes later, 12 people had already been killed at the school. Another teacher was bleeding and died a short time later. Thus, Klebold and Harris took the lives of 13 people. The list of victims appeared just a few hours after the tragedy.
Friends return to the dining room
The shooters went down to the dining room, where the unexploded bombs were still stored. Eyewitnesses recalled that while still in the library, one of the friends said that they would blow up the school anyway. Apparently, they went to the dining room to finally detonate the explosives stored there. There were CCTV cameras in the room, which recorded the guys in the last minutes of their lives. The comrades puzzled over what they had with them, which was produced in the garage during preparations for the attack on the school.
Harris threw the bottle at the area where the bombs were stored. Friends hastily left the room, expecting an explosion. It happened, but its power was not nearly as deadly as the students had hoped. A surveillance camera recorded the moment a fire broke out in the dining room after a fireball erupted from a bomb.
Suicide of Harris and Klebold
Meanwhile, outside, the evacuation of students was organized, who were wounded even before the shooters entered the building. The police were developing an action plan. Special forces arrived at the scene. The situation was made worse by the fact that no one knew the exact number of attackers on the school. Initially, police believed they were dealing with an organized terrorist attack involving a dozen people.
When the friends left the cafeteria, they headed back to the top floor. From there, the final shootout began with the police officers who were on the street. The friends fired until they had almost no ammunition left. Then the shooting at the US Columbine school ended, Hariss and Klebold went into the next room, where they committed suicide.
The work of sappers and special forces
After the noise at the school died down, the police finally decided to storm the school. Special forces and sappers were sent there. The latter took over the library, where several undetonated bombs remained. They had to be neutralized first, as they made it difficult to evacuate the wounded and remove the corpses. Soon the bomb squad was informed that explosives were also stored in the teenagers' car. They got rid of them too, and no one else was hurt. It turned out that the shooters did not take all their ammunition with them. Explosives and ammunition were found in the car.
However, when SWAT was in the building, it became clear that the shooters were already finished. Their bodies were found nearby in a room on the top floor that caught fire. Apparently, Eric Harris left behind a Molotov cocktail, which crashed and started a fire. This was evidenced by a smoke detector signal that went off a minute after the teenagers died. The suicide bombers fired shots into the mouth and temple. Death came instantly for them.
The meaning of tragedy
Along with the names of the shooters, the list of dead includes 15 people. In memory of the victims, a memorial complex was built in the city. At the time the Columbine school shooting took place, it was the third-largest such incident in US history. We are talking about massacres in educational institutions. However, it was this case in Colorado that became world famous.
The reason for this was the work of the then media. Soon dozens of reporters from various television channels and newspapers were near the school. The tragedy also resonated in the international community. It was the journalists who drew the attention of every American to what happened in an ordinary provincial school. The society demanded the results of the investigation by the responsible authorities.
Since that April day, the whole world knew that Columbine School existed. The year 1999 remained in the public consciousness associated with this tragedy. The word "Columbine" became a catchword. Unfortunately, similar incidents of shootings in US educational institutions, including schools and universities, continue to recur.
In 2007, a similar tragedy occurred at Virginia Tech, killing 33 people. A few years later, shooting rang out in primary school Sandy Hook. 28 people died there.
Investigation of what happened
When the police learned the names of the shooters, investigators immediately went to their homes. They feared that important evidence would be destroyed. That did not happen. The investigation continued until January 2000, when the details of what happened were revealed to the public.
Until this moment, various conspiracy theories of what happened were popular in the United States. For example, teenagers were considered religious fanatics who carried out the Columbine High School massacre. In general, it was full of scandals associated with various totalitarian sects.
Public scandal
After the details of the lives of two shooters from Colorado became clear, several media scandals occurred. Investigators found Harris's diaries, where he described in detail his impressions of computer game Doom. In this shooter you need to shoot at numerous monsters. Many Americans accused the game of promoting violence.
In addition, the public criticized several groups that teenagers listened to. Rammstein musicians from Germany were especially persecuted. They were known for their provocative presence on stage. In addition, the lyrics of their songs often dealt with the theme of violence, hatred and intolerance. Members of the group denied all charges and condemned the shooters. A similar campaign was waged against Marilyn Manson. This American performer was noted for having prepared a special publication in the press, in which he discussed the causes of the tragedy. In addition, the musician wrote two songs dedicated to what happened at Columbine School.
The discussion about the sale of firearms has become heated. Following the tragedy, several states introduced laws prohibiting or restricting such trade. American legislation has a number of features. Are common federal regulations they do not act in such matters. Each subject of the state decides in its own way whether to allow or prohibit the sale of weapons. The same rules apply to the regulation of the death penalty, etc.
A month ago (May 18), another school shooting occurred in the city of Santa Fe (Texas). CNN stated that at least 12 people were injured, and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez could not give an exact number of victims (he said 8-10 dead).
The attacker was detained, and the police are interrogating a person who could be his accomplice. According to preliminary information, both of them are students of the school.
“School shooting” is a term that we hear more and more often, and if previously it was inextricably linked with the Western world, now last years attacks in schools have become not uncommon in Russia. It usually refers to an attack on an educational institution, such as a school or university, using a firearm. Incidents that result in four or more fatalities are classified as a mass shooting.
School shootings spark public debate over a range of gun restrictions and zero-tolerance policies (inevitable punishment for non-compliance, regardless of the circumstances). But while politicians argue, people continue to die.
Today we will try to figure out why, after more than 250 years, no clear means has been found to prevent school shootings.
18th-19th century
We'll take a look back at history, starting with the first documented incident of a school being attacked with a gun, before taking a few stops at some of the more famous incidents.
Greencastle, Pennsylvania
On July 26, 1764, (possibly) the very first shooting occurred. The teacher, Enoch Brown, and 9 students were killed and scalped by the Indians. Enoch begged not to touch the children, but was shot. Two students present during the massacre managed to survive.
The next time shots were fired within the walls of an educational institution was only on November 12, 1840 in Charlottesville, Virginia. A law professor at the university named John Anthony Gardner Davis was shot by a student and died 3 days later.
Conflicts with teaching staff became one of the main reasons for the shooting. Students took revenge on teachers for bad grades or physical punishment, teachers shot at students for disobedience. Victims and instigators were present on both sides in approximately equal proportions. In addition, cases of accidental shooting of brought pistols and various kinds of domestic conflicts that found their resolution within the walls of schools were recorded.
As a rule, these cases do not involve more than 1-2 victims, and more often they cost only the wounded.
Between 1764 and 1900, there were 38 shooting incidents with 41 deaths.
The largest incident of this period occurred on December 13, 1898, Charleston, West Virginia. During a school exhibition, a group of young people tried to destroy student work. When teacher Fisher intervened, a fight broke out and other students joined in. As a result, 6 people died: Harry Flusher - shot in the heart, Henry Carney - fatally shot in the back, Ralph Jones, George Gibson and two others - mortally wounded, Haz Harding - skull fractured. Several people received injuries of varying severity.
20th century
School shootings continue to be the result of various types of personal animosity between students, parents and teachers. For example, September 11, 1909, Gravette, Arkansas - a conflict arose between John Butram, a student at the school, who told his fellow students that classes were canceled. Teacher K. Kelly insisted the school day was not over. Butram lunged at him with a knife, but Kelly pulled out a pistol and shot him.
In the first 40 years of the 20th century, there were 53 gun incidents in US schools, costing the lives of 40 people. Almost as much has happened in the 150 years since the Indian attack on Greencastle.
Pasadena, California
On May 6, 1940, Verlin Spencer was fired from the school after numerous conflicts with other employees. The result of this dismissal was 5 dead and 2 wounded. During his arrest, Spencer attempted suicide, but did not die from his wounds and was convicted after treatment. Police discovered a suicide note that Spencer had written for his wife Polly. For his crime he received 5 life sentences.
To some extent, Verlin is the image of a new generation of shooters. This is a person who did not commit a crime under the influence of an impulse or a fit of anger, but carefully prepared and planned everything, including his suicide.
Austin, Texas
The incident shocked America; one of the largest cases of shootings on the territory of educational institutions occurred on August 1, 1966. Charles Joseph Whitman went to the University of Texas and began shooting at people with observation deck towers. Charles managed to kill 11 people and wound 31 before he was shot and killed by police. As it turned out later, before leaving for the student campus, he stabbed his mother and wife in the heart. He also shot several people while climbing the tower. In total, 16 people were killed that day, and the 17th victim died 35 years later from complications from injuries sustained in the attack.
In his suicide note, Whitman wrote:
“I brutally killed my loved ones […] If the insurance is still valid, pay my debts […] anonymously donate the rest to the fund mental health. Perhaps the research will help prevent further tragedies of this type […]"
Whitman also asked for an autopsy and examination of the body before its burial, which played a significant role. Charles' personality became the subject of research to discover triggers. It was revealed that his father was abusive, causing his parents to separate; Charles experienced stress associated with the court martial (for gambling and threats) and subsequent dismissal from the Marine Corps, and after an autopsy, a brain tumor was discovered, the influence of which on Charles’ actions has not been made to this day.
Kerch, Crimea, Russia
On October 17, 2018, this sad list was replenished with the tragedy at the Kerch Polytechnic College. Local student Vlad Roslyakov went around and systematically shot students of the institution with a 12-gauge hunting rifle, for which he had just received permission.
According to official data, 20 people became his victims. Judging by Vlad’s photograph, his image was clearly borrowed from one of the participants in the Columbine school shooting.
Research
The United States Secret Service (USSS) and the Department of Education began compiling and studying psychological portraits after the Columbine High School mass shooting (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 15 and injured 21) in 1999. In May 2002, a report was published that examined 37 school shootings in the United States (from 1974 to 2000) and came to the following conclusions:
- School violence incidents are rarely sudden, impulsive acts.
- In 80% of cases, at least one person knew that the attacker was planning the attack, and in almost 60%, two people knew about the attack before it happened.
- Most attackers did not threaten their targets immediately before the attack.
- Most attackers had difficulty coping with losses or personal setbacks. Moreover, many have thought about or attempted suicide (78%).
- The main motives for the attack were: bullying, harassment or threats - 75%; Revenge - 61%, 54% reported multiple reasons.
- Most of the attackers had access to and used weapons before the attack.
- Despite timely law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were ended by means other than police or SWAT intervention.
In a previous report based on 18 school shootings, experts tried to identify the type of attacker. The resulting profile described the shooters as "middle class, lonely or aloof, awkward, white male with access to guns."
A 2002 report cautioned against assuming that a criminal could be identified by a particular "type" or profile. The results of the study showed that the criminals came from different backgrounds, some were children from single-parent families, were adopted (5%) or from completely prosperous families. The majority never had learning problems (41% had good academic performance) and had a healthy social life.
The study also found that schools are making a false bet on safety when they should be paying more attention to student behavior. Zero-tolerance policies and metal detectors are “unlikely to be helpful,” USSS researchers found. Expelling or suspending students for minor infractions could provide the spark that pushes some to return to school with guns.
Possible reasons
- Family problems
A factor that is not often mentioned in the media, but is supported by social research, is family structure. The renowned Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson wrote: “The number of two-parent/single-parent families is the most important indicator influencing the crime rate in cities in the United States.”
Journalist, editor and scientist Michael Cook once opined that “we won't need more gun control if people can take better control of their marriages.”.
- Lack of contact between family members
Studies have shown that in families of criminals there was often low emotional intimacy. This parameter cannot be calculated, because even in the most prosperous families there are periods of difficult relationships.
School shooters also have another common parameter - a lack of empathy and an inability to restrain aggression. This behavior may be due to their psychotic symptoms (loss of sense of reality) and/or the consequences of violent traumatization, such as early physical abuse, which contributes to the development of dissociative states of mind (denial of reality, depersonalization).
- Adolescence
Immaturity is also one of the identified factors that increases the likelihood that a person will commit a crime. While the frontal lobes are developing, teens may rely more on another part of the brain: the amygdala. This type of thinking is more emotional and is accompanied by impulsiveness and aggression.
The consequence of this thinking is that teenagers are more likely to put their lives at risk than adults or children. A pattern has also been identified indicating a decrease in the level of risk from adolescence to adulthood and an increase in risk in actions from childhood to adolescence.
- Weapon Proficiency
Research shows that in some countries the number of deaths from firearms is directly related to the number of weapons owned by the population. However, some countries with large numbers of gun owners experience very few gun deaths (eg Iceland).
- Bullying
Bullying occurs in all schools and appears to play a significant role in the lives of many school shooters. To carry out bullying, 3 types of participants are needed: the bully, the victim and observers. This formula allows the bully to create not only personal, but also social pressure on the victim. Students who are bullied are likely to develop behavioral problems, depression, less self-control, and poorer social skills.
After humiliation, victims do not want a repetition and try to restore their image so as not to be rejected by their peers. As practice shows, their plan to restore justice many times led to violence. In 75% of cases, the shooters said or found evidence that they were victims of bullying at school.
- Cyberbullying and stalking
The Internet and social media have changed the concepts of “stalking” and “bullying.” The bullying went from physical to debilitatingly emotional. Cyberbullying is carried out much easier for the bully due to indirect interaction with the victim, and the effect is many times stronger, because the number of observers is not limited to one period of time and can constantly increase.
- Mark on history
Justin Nutt put forward a hypothesis in 2013, the essence of which boils down to the fact that people who feel lonely and forgotten try to leave a memory of themselves through acts of violence.
Research also shows a direct correlation between the desire for fame and school shootings. Forensic psychiatrists call this imitative behavior, which may be a consequence of exposure to the information environment. Sometimes future criminals see the school shooter as an idol, so they want to carry out an even more destructive action in the hope of taking his place and gaining recognition.
- "Gatherers of Injustice"
Most of us feel resentment from time to time, but we are unlikely to commit murder because of it.
In 2015, The New Republic published an article entitled “Injustice Collectors.” Author Dave Cullen drew on the work of retired FBI agent Mary Ellen O'Toole and the man who helped create and lead the FBI's negotiation unit (Gary Noesner). In his research, Cullen identified commonalities among many school shooters and mass murderers under the umbrella term “injustice collectors.”
Collectors tend to exaggerate and perceive failures as deliberate and purposeful. Over time, this form of perception of reality shapes the worldview of a constantly persecuted person, against whom acts of violence, discrimination and disrespect are committed.
For most of us, revenge is personal, but not for collectors, whose victims can be completely random people and even their own pets. Collectors remember cases of failures, minor troubles and the people who accompanied them for a long time and in great detail: this is the bus driver who suddenly braked three years ago; the woman at Starbucks who coughed too loudly in 1983, etc.
To a few more distinctive features can be attributed to absurdly disproportionate cruelty and the obligatory explanation of one’s actions; gatherers demand to be heard.
- Mental illness
A 2016 study found that 22% of mass shootings are committed by people with a serious mental illness, and the study also found that many people with mental illness do not engage in violence and that most aggressive behavior is due to other factors.
Shooters, as a rule, ignore their deviations and do not seek psychiatric help. Scientists have concluded that mass killers exhibit a common set of chronic angry or antisocial traits and a tendency to shift the causes of their problems from themselves to someone else. The report also notes that an attempt to “filter” school shooters using this set of characteristics will lead to many false positives.
- Video games
The idea of increased attacks on schools due to video games stems from the mistaken belief that violent video games increase a person's level of aggression, which in turn encourages teenagers to commit crimes. This myth began to be widely used by the media after Columbine.
Conclusion
While the media imposes myths and at the same time creates an information environment that nurtures school shooters, studies are carried out, politicians argue, metal detectors are installed, schoolchildren are required to wear transparent backpacks - nothing really changes. It is absolutely clear that it is impossible to assign a policeman to everyone and that you must decide the issue of personal safety yourself. As one of the most effective preventive measures, it is proposed not to ignore behavioral anomalies and to motivate people to report suspicious behavior of their friends.
It is also important for us to remember that a person coming to an educational institution with a weapon is a consequence, and it is already useless to fight him. It is necessary to carry out comprehensive measures to prevent causes that lie not in weapons or video games, but in our society, ourselves.
The tragic event that occurred on February 3 at Moscow school No. 263 makes you feel afraid when you let your child go to school. Next, I want to tell you about the most notorious murders in schools in the world that have occurred in the last 40 years.
February 3, 2014
School No. 263 in Otradny, Moscow, Russia
10th grade student Sergei came to school around noon with two rifles and forced the guard to let him inside. The law enforcement officer complied, but managed to call the police by pressing the alarm button.
The teenager proceeded to the classroom on the first floor, where Geography 10-A was being taught. There were more than 20 children in the office. The remaining students and school staff were urgently evacuated from the building.
A schoolboy shot geography teacher Andrei Kirillov in the stomach from the doorway. Then he asked, addressing an unknown person, whether the geographer was alive, and fired a control shot into the victim’s head.
When the police arrived at the building, the criminal opened fire on the Ministry of Internal Affairs officers. As a result, one law enforcement officer was fatally wounded, and another police officer was wounded.
Geography teacher Andrei Kirillov died.
Senior police sergeant Sergei Bushuev died from his wounds.
By one o'clock in the afternoon the criminal was detained and taken to a pre-trial detention center. The children who witnessed the bloody massacre were taken out of the building.
December 14, 2012
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, USA
On the morning of the fateful day, 20-year-old Adam Peter Lanza shot his mother with a Marlin 22 rifle, after which he got into her car and headed to Sandy Hook Elementary School.
At 9:30 a.m. local time, Lanza burst into the Sandy Hook school and silently began walking through classrooms, shooting children and their teachers.
A total of 27 people died at his hands, including 5 teachers, 20 children and the school principal.
At 9:36 a.m., police received a call about a shooting at the elementary school. The caller said he heard at least a hundred shots. Someone from the school staff, most likely a security guard, managed to warn of the danger over the loudspeaker. This may have saved the lives of hundreds of children. The teachers closed the doors to the classrooms, and some of the students hid in the closets.
At 9:38 a.m., police were told the shooting had ended. During this time, Adam Lanza shot children in two classrooms and killed the school principal in her office. Hearing the police approaching, he shot himself.
It is noteworthy that Adam's acquaintances give him very flattering characteristics. According to them, he was neat and hardworking.
It was known that the young man suffered from Asperger's syndrome, but this disease does not usually contribute to aggressive behavior.
Four days of mourning were declared in the United States.
April 7, 2011
Municipal School of Tasso da Silveira in Realengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On the morning of April 7 at about 8:00 local time, 23-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a former school student, dressed all in black, walked into Tasso da Silveira with a backpack over his shoulders. Leaving his sports bag on the first floor, he went up to the third floor and entered the eighth grade office, introducing himself as the new teacher.
Oliveira then took two revolvers from his backpack and began shooting randomly at the students. He aimed at his victims' heads. At the same time, the shooter mainly chose girls. The students immediately began to run out of the classroom. Many of them, once in a safe place, began filming the shooting with mobile phone cameras.
The shooting then moved into the hallway and into the adjacent classroom. After which, having received several wounds in a shootout with the police, the man committed suicide. A total of 12 people were killed, 10 of whom were girls. Another 12 were injured.
In the photo - Oliveira shot himself
Later, a suicide note was found in the criminal’s house, in which he spoke of his intention to commit suicide because he was infected with the AIDS virus.
In addition, during the search, texts were found that indicate that the man was obsessed with terrorist ideas.
April 16, 2007
Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
Around 6:45 a.m. on the morning of the tragedy, one of the institute's students, Seung Hee Cho, walked up to the entrance to the West Ambler dormitory, which at that time housed 895 students. He entered using his magnetic card and killed two students.
Then the Korean returned to his room, where he changed his bloody jeans and white T-shirt, deleted all the letters from his mailbox on the Internet, wrote a suicide note and a video letter. About two hours after the first shots were fired, the killer went to the post office and sent a note and video to NBC.
After this, the young man moved towards the educational building. Hanging over his shoulders was a backpack containing a Glock 19, a Walther P22, a hunting knife and a hammer, as well as 400 rounds of ammunition and 12 ten-round magazines. Around 9:40 a.m., Cho entered room 206, where he opened fire.
For several hours, the killer shot students and teachers in cold blood, until the police who arrived at the scene could not even determine how many criminals were in the building. After the massacre, Cho Sung Hu shot himself in the head...
The Virginia massacre was the largest massacre in US history...
September 13, 2006
Dawson College, Montreal, Canada
25-year-old Canadian Kimvir Gill opened fire on Dawson College students with a CX-4 Storm self-loading carbine. As a result of the shooting, one student was killed and 19 were injured. The attacker himself committed suicide when he saw that he was surrounded by police.
Gill managed to wound 20 people; The 18-year-old girl later died in hospital.
From the diaries, computer, and personal blog of the killer, the police learned that he was a fan of such games as Hitman and Super Columbine Massacre RPG. His computer was also filled with photographs, videos and texts regarding the Columbine High School massacre.
Eyewitnesses say that Gill, approaching the college, opened fire indiscriminately, shooting at the students without aiming. In total, the young man shot 65 times in the building. Also, 15 shots were fired on the street.
In the killer's diaries, the police found many entries indicating his aggressive attitude towards others, for example: “I hate this world.”
In his blog, Gill promised that he would be remembered as the Angel of Death. “Ready for action,” read the caption under one of his latest photographs. There was also an epitaph for himself: “He lived fast, died young...”
Two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, stormed Columbine High School with guns in their hands...
The terrible massacre lasted four and a half hours. During this time, the youths wounded dozens of students and killed twelve fellow students and one teacher, and then committed suicide - each of them shot himself in the head.
The whole country was horrified by the senselessness and monstrosity of the merciless massacre in an ordinary school, perpetrated by inconspicuous teenagers.
Eric and Dylan began preparing for the massacre at school almost a year before the events took place.
The killers were well prepared: on this page of the weekly, everything that needs to be taken to school is pedantically listed - “bring and place a bomb”, “leave the classroom at 11.17”, “wash your hands”.
These photographs were found in their albums.
The investigation was carried out by 80 investigators. They collected ten thousand physical evidence and interviewed one thousand four hundred witnesses.
And they came to the conclusion that in this way the killers achieved fame.
March 11, 2009
School Albertwil-Realschule in Winnenden, Germany
17-year-old teenager Tim Kretschmer carried out a bloodbath in his former school, and then on the streets of the cities of Winnenden and Wendlingen, during which 15 people were killed and 11 were injured. After that, Tim committed suicide while surrounded by police.
On March 11, Kretschmer took his father's pistol, a nine-millimeter Beretta, and a large amount of ammunition and left his home, wearing combat boots and black clothing. Once at the school, the criminal opened fire, moving from office to office. According to the BBC, Tim shot the victims in the head, indicating that the shots were not random.
In total, about 60 shots were fired at the school. After which the shooter, taking a random driver hostage, forced him, under threat of death, to drive him about a hundred kilometers in the direction of Wendlingen. After 2.5 hours, the car with Kretschmer drove up to one of the car dealerships 40 kilometers from the city. Tim entered the building and fired 13 shots into it.
The teenager fired another 28 random shots in the car dealership parking lot - including the last one, in his own head. As it turned out later, 3 days before the shooting, the girl whom Tim was courting refused to meet with him. Police reported that the girl was one of the first to be killed at the school.
Also, according to police and prosecutors, from April to September 2008, the young man was treated in a psychiatric and neurological hospital. However, Tim's parents deny this fact.
November 7, 2007
Jokela Lyceum in Tuusula, Finland
At 11:40 a.m., 18-year-old high school student Erik Auvinen walked into his high school with a .22-caliber Sig Sauer Mosquito pistol and fifteen 10-round magazines. Opening fire on the students, Auvinen fired 106 shots. 40 minutes after the attack began, he shot himself in the head in the men's restroom.
Eight people became victims of Auvinen: six students (5 boys and one girl), a school nurse and the director of the lyceum. The police never fired a single shot.
It is known that on the eve of the tragedy, the killer posted his manifesto on the YouTube portal entitled “Massacre at the Yokela School - November 7, 2007.” It is also worth noting that the teenager called himself Natural Selector (“tool of natural selection”) and Sturmgeist (“storm spirit”).
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro School, Arkansas, USA
As a result of the shooting, opened by school students, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Johnson Mitchell, 4 children and a teacher were killed. More than 10 people were injured of varying severity.
The teenagers who started the shooting were captured by police who quickly arrived at the scene. During the investigation, Mitchell and Golden admitted to committing the mass murder, but could not explain their motives. Both received sentences of imprisonment until adulthood - 8 and 10 years, respectively.
May 28, 1975
Centennial Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Michael Peter Slobodian, 16, one of the school's students, came to class with two self-loading rifles, 22 and 44 calibers, which he carried into the building, hidden in a guitar case.
Michael was angry with the physics teacher for giving a bad grade, which did not allow the young man to enter the medical academy, and wanted to take revenge on him. Due to circumstances, Slobodyan was unable to reach the physics classroom, located on the floors above, and began shooting in an English lesson.
Killing a classmate and teacher in English, and then wounding 13 more people, Michael went out into the corridor, where he committed suicide right at the entrance to the classroom.
The tragedy at the Kerch college has already been reclassified from a terrorist attack to a mass murder. Probably, 22-year-old fourth-year student Vladislav Roslyakov admired his peers who went down in history as mass murderers. In 1999, at Columbine High School in Colorado, two teenagers killed 12 classmates and a teacher before committing suicide. It later turned out that the schoolchildren were practicing the “virtual” execution of their comrades on their home computers. Since then, cases of shooting of classmates in schools have become more frequent, and the Columbine shooters themselves have become idols for dozens of teenagers with an unbalanced psyche and access to weapons around the world, including in Russia.
Lev Bijakov, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold. Left - Perm, right - Columbine
Then no one attached any importance to the fact that a 15-year-old schoolboy from Ivanteevka near Moscow, Mikhail Pivnev, used the pseudonym Mike Klebold on social networks - an American-style name, and the surname of the shooter from the Columbine school. The teenager came to school No. 1 with firecrackers, an air gun and a cleaver. He burst into the computer science classroom and hit teacher Lyudmila Kalmykova on the head with a cleaver. Then, with the words “I came here to die” and “I’ve been waiting for this for three years,” he shot several times into the ceiling and into the head of the teacher lying on the floor.
Many of his classmates jumped out of second-floor windows and were injured from the fall. The teacher survived, and the teenager himself tried to commit suicide, but he was detained. Earlier on my page in social network On VKontakte, he mentioned Columbine School - and on April 20, 2017, he even wrote a post saying that he was sorry that he was not there.
At Virginia Tech, too, no one paid attention to the quiet and modest student from South Korea, Cho Seung-hee. Meanwhile, this 23-year-old student had long and carefully hatched a plan of attack and did not hide his admiration for the Columbine shooters.
He began the implementation of his diabolical plan from the hostel, where he opened fire with two pistols. Cho then ran into a training building, where he killed 32 people and wounded 25 more. The shooter then committed suicide, recording a farewell video in which he mentioned “martyrs Eric and Dylan.”
The police worked effectively in this city. Two 17-year-olds were arrested before the school was attacked. Ten rifles and pistols, about 20 “crude” explosive devices, camouflage uniforms, gas masks, walkie-talkies and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were seized from them.
William Cornell and Sean Sturtz also wrote suicide notes in which they wrote that they were inspired by the experiences of the Columbine shooters. The court sentenced Cornell to 20 years in prison and Sturtz to 15 years in prison.
When Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold roamed the school with guns, they periodically caught students and asked them if they believed in God. 16-year-old Jeffrey Weese did the same thing when he opened fire at his school in Red Lake, Minnesota.
He killed seven and wounded five people, and then, after being wounded by police, committed suicide. Before the attack, the “goth boy” (as his classmates called him) shot and killed his grandfather and his girlfriend.
Cedar Park (USA), January 2004
In Texas, two teenagers were arrested for preparing to recreate the Columbine-style massacre at their own high school. Christopher Levins, 17, and Adam Sinclair, 19, were charged with terrorism.
To hide the weapons, the couple planned to wear long coats, just like the Columbine killers did. Both boys said they had access to weapons.
Lovejoy (USA), December 2003
The 14-year-old was planning to block fire exits, raise the alarm and shoot panicking people. But he was detained in time and this diabolical plan was not allowed to come true.
He later admitted that he wanted to become famous just like the Columbine shooters. He didn't have a weapon, but planned to take his father's gun.
15-year-old Charles Williams did not have time to kill himself, or perhaps he simply did not have the courage, but during interrogation he admitted that he wanted to repeat the experience of the Columbine shooters.
A student entered Santana High School with two revolvers. He managed to kill two students, 13 more received gunshot wounds, but survived. Williams was sentenced to 50 years in prison.