As a child Brenda took a tumble on her bicycle and suffered a head injury. Why do you think you should deserve a second chance when the principal and the custodian had none? Now 30, Christy is a sunny preschool teacher who is reluctant to talk about the shooting, because she considers it just "part of my life," and has moved on. For Christmas 1978 her father, Wallace, had given her a .22 rifle as a present. Spencer told the reporter she had shot at the schoolchildren and adults because, "I don't like Mondays. And some believe that she helped inspire future school shootings in later years, such as the Columbine High School massacre, the Virginia Tech shooting, and the Parkland mass murder. Why no capital punishment? In junior high, a neighbor went around telling people, `There's Cam, he's shot,' and I'd deny it." She fired 36 rounds. During the later interrogation, she was asked why she did it and responded: I just dont like Mondays.. Suddenly all the kids were gone. Despite this gross gender imbalance among the worlds criminals, when it came time for Satan to kick off the ghastly phenomenon that is the modern school spree shooting it was a woman who first squeezed the trigger. Two of the worst before the Spencer shootings in 1966 at the University of Texas, where a gunman killed 17 people and wounded 31, and in 1976 at Cal State Fullerton, where seven were killed and two were wounded involved adult male shooters. It seems the woke western world cares more about the rights of criminals than the rights of victims and society. Christy Buell never left the old neighborhood, still living in her childhood home just a few blocks from the school, and from the ranch-style house where Brenda Spencer's father still lives. The stories that came out of there are epic. Robb was awarded a medal of valor for rushing forward to try to save those who had been shot. One quick note regarding comments. She was tried as an adult, and pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The rear sight folds flat when not needed. In fact many inmates attempted suicide to escape the situation. Wallace Spencer was previously married to Dot Spencer. Because there was no trial, few details about her family or her past ever came to public light. On the morning of January 29, 1979, children began to line up outside Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California. Add or change photo on IMDbPro Add to list More at IMDbPro Contact info Agent info Known for I Don't Like Mondays 5.8 TV Movie Self 2006 Credits Edit IMDbPro Self Previous 1 I Don't Like Mondays Self TV Movie 2006 Personal details Spouse Dot Spencer? On January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer killed two people and wounded nine when she fired on San Diego's Grover Cleveland Elementary School with a .22-caliber rifle from her family's house across the street. Especially California state prisons. I remember feeling weird, but no pain. However, in 2005, Brenda claimed her father was to blame, stating he had drunkenly kicked her in the head when she was fourteen and that she was forced to make up the 'bicycle story.' Wallace Spencer, later married his daughter's former cellmate, a 17-year-old girl named Sheila McCoy, whom he met while visiting Brenda in prison. When out of earshot we called him Poach Smith. Spencers deadly plot was far from the earliest attack on an American school, but it was one of the first modern school shootings that led to multiple deaths and injuries. Thanks for another well written, informative article. Though the name Brenda Ann Spencer may not ring any bells today, her story and the phrase that she became known for have lived on in infamy. He denied the allegations. She keeps a scrapbook of newspaper articles and photos, and still has the jacket she wore that day stashed away somewhere. That shooting probably affected every person on that campus, Ron Avi Astor, a professor of social work and education, said of the San Carlos shooting. Because the process (accountability, repentance, and restitution) requires it. Privacy PolicyTerms of ServiceSign Up For Our NewslettersSite Map, Copyright 2023, The San Diego Union-Tribune |, KB homes were built on the former site of Cleveland Elementary School in San Carlos. By the time Miller looked, he saw only her retreating back, a glimpse of her red hair. He said Suchar and the principal didnt get along all that well, but that day when Wragg was felled in the parking lot, Suchar didnt hesitate to run out and try to help. brenda spencer father, wallacetraffic signal warrant analysis example. Whenever I hear of school shootings, Im bothered because I know what those children are facing, Rintoul said. When another neighborhood is on the evening news, and Buell's father sees the stunned faces of parents in Jonesboro or Paducah or Littleton, he finds himself hungry for any scrap of information about the families of these children who kill, hoping, as he still does with Brenda Spencer these 20 long years later, to put all the pieces together and finally make sense of it. At least once a night, he remembers, he would wake his mother and have her walk him around the house, to the back where there was a wall of windows. The two victims were Principal Burton Wragg and custodian . To this day, Cam Miller hesitates before dressing in blue. She has thus far been before a parole board four times and has been denied each time. Her former defense attorney said the Patrick Henry High School student suffered from a broken home, an abusive father, drug use and hostility toward authorities and society in general. 6:15 p.m. Jan. 30, 2019: A previous version of this story failed to mention that custodian Michael Suchar, who was fatally shot, was survived by a son in addition to a wife, who was mentioned in the article. Why didn't you just pull the gun on yourself? According to History, they were waiting for their principal to open up the schools gates. She said she learned the gun wasnt the danger, but the person firing it. SWAT Officer Jim McGinley said he took up a sniper position on a neighbors roof, his rifle trained on the Spencer back door. brenda spencer father, wallaceristorante sardo santa teresa di gallura MANHALNET COMPANY cerco lavoro taranto lama passi e trafori delle alpi scuola primaria The Grover Cleveland Elementary School was demolished in 2018. Then, she put the rifle down, barricaded herself inside her home, and waited. "I saw the principal in the sticker bush, moaning," she flashes back. Like Cam Miller, she never sought professional help to cope with the trauma's aftermath. When queried concerning her motivations she said, I dont like Mondays. She was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison. The headmaster confiscated the gun and put it in his desk drawer, directing the kid to pick it up after school and not to bring it back again. Geldof said in the same interview, She wrote to me saying she was glad shed done it because I made her famous, which is not a good thing to live with., Related story from us:The 1972 Olympic Games were called The Peaceful Games until they turned into the Munich massacre. Stunned by the tragic shooting, Bob Geldof, the lead singer of the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, wrote a song titled I Dont Like Mondays. Released just months after the attack, the tune topped the U.K. charts for four weeks, and it also received extensive airtime in the U.S. And according to The Advertiser, the song did not go unnoticed by Spencer. I know there was a lot of turmoil in the family every time Brenda was up for parole, she said in a recent interview. Spencers former attorney, Michael McGlinn, who has represented juvenile offenders for decades, believes his former client didnt know what she was doing and no longer poses a threat to society. And although nine counts of attempted murder were ultimately dismissed from the case, Spencer was sentenced to concurrent terms of 25 years to life in prison for her crimes. Brenda Spencer (born April 3, 1962) lived in the San Carlos neighborhood of San Diego, California in a house across the street from Grover Cleveland Elementary School in the San Diego Unified School District. Like most true psychopaths Brendas origin story is sordid and broken. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Hi, Will. The community may eventually have a hard time remembering the 1979 shooting. Her statement inspired the musician Bob Geldof to compose the song I Dont Like Mondays for his band, Boomtown Rats. If I hear a loud bang or a car backfire, it gets my heart beating, but that's about it.". Head Custodian Mike Suchar. He felt cheated. The 10/22 has been offered in .22LR, .17HMR, and .22 Win Mag variants. She wrote him a letter in 2015, thanking him for his criminal defense work and noting, what I did was horrible so I dont really complain about the amount of time Ive done.. He died at age 87 in 2016. Brenda Ann Spencer was born in San Diego, California, on April 3, 1962. The report stated that she had clawed the words Pride and Courage into her flesh. Brenda is the youngest child and has one older brother and one older sister. When another school shooting is on the evening news, be it Jonesboro or Paducah or Pearl or Littleton, Cam Miller finds himself watching for the fearful faces of young survivors. See also Other Works | Publicity Listings | Official Sites View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro Contribute to This Page Edit page First introduced in 1964, the Ruger 10/22 is likely the most successful .22 rifle ever devised. The school custodian, a 56-year-old Navy veteran named Mike Suchar, also ran to the sounds of battle. A quick pain subsided as she was rushed into the cafeteria, to safety. Once there, Spencer decided to withdraw her bid for parole. Whenever she drives past the hospital, Buell automatically looks for the same window on the second floor. Brenda's attorney said that the mother "became like a stone . To this day, 60-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer remains locked up in prison at the California Institution for Women in Corona. I know you, or whomever moderates the comments, cant be available 24-7. His widow, Karen Barnes, said her husband always believed that the Lord had protected him from Spencer during the shooting. Bob Geldof in the Belvedere, Vienna -16 Sept. 2012. However, Spencers drug and alcohol tests were all negative. A University of Southern California professor who has studied school shootings agreed that, while they can no longer considered new, they tend to cast a wider, more significant effect on society through widespread news reporting and posts on social media sites. And despite her efforts to downplay her own crime, Spencer herself has admitted that her actions may have indeed led to other similar attacks. He died at age 87 in 2016. At the time, she lived in a house across the street from the school. The reason for her fate has less to do with her troubled life and more to do with her troubled genetics. He always remembered that day, Barnes said. He was particularly struck by Spencer's claim that she did it because she did not like Mondays, and began writing a song about it, called "I Don't Like Mondays". There are emotional scars, as well. As of 2022, Spencer has been unsuccessful at six parole board hearings. Thats right, 3 heavily armed gates you have to pass through to get to the prison. When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. What he found instead were children screaming, crying and bleeding on the ground as a teenage girl who lived across the street raked the schoolyard with bullets from her .22-caliber rifle. As the children lined up outside of the gates, Spencer took out the .22 semiautomatic rifle that shed received as a Christmas gift from her father. It took a few shots before students, parents, and school staff realized that someone on the opposite side of the road was using them as a target. Then, she aimed it out the window and began firing at the kids. Spencer eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, where California law forbids her to grant interviews. She resembled Brenda.. Charles Cam Miller sees the scar on his chest every day and remembers how, when he was 9, a bullet from Brenda Spencers .22 rifle pierced him from back to front. . Other children lay bleeding on the stage. junio 16, 2022 . . Her parents were separated, and she lived in squalor with her alcoholic father, Wallace Spencer. Cam is 29 now, a strapping, dark-eyed man with scant resemblance to the fourth-grader with a bowl haircut whose picture appeared in the newspapers above the word "victim" so long ago. Now 56 years old, she remains in the California Institution for Women in Corona. On that January day, she woke up, took the gun and, just as the school bell rang to signal the beginning of the classes, Brenda began shooting from her window at the young students who were standing outside the school. 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