Deadliest school massacres in history

Deadliest school massacres in history

Dark spots in history are the incidents when innocent children and young people died in school killings.

WORLD MAY 6. 2023 15:27

Massacre in Serbia shocks the world

The tragedy of the school shooting in Belgrade has shocked the world in recent days. The mass shooting left eight students dead, along with a security guard. The suspect, a seventh-grade student, opened fire on his peers and teachers with a handgun. Most of the victims were children only 13 to15 years old.

Police found out that the boy chose the day because they had a history lesson held in the classroom near the entrance. He removed a 9 mm handgun and a smaller-caliber pistol from his father’s safe, and also took four Molotov cocktails with him. After arriving at the school, he first shot the security guard and then two girls. The assailant then entered the classroom where he shot at the teacher before turning the firearm on his peers. The attacker called the police himself after the shooting was over.

The young killer had been planning the attack for a long time and he had prepared a “kill list”.

Bath Township, Michigan

However, the world has seen school massacres with more bloodshed then in Belgrade, with the majority of incidents having taken place in the United States. In 1927, an assailant blew up a school building in Bath Township, Michigan, killing forty-four and injuring fifty-eight schoolchildren and adults. Frustrated with his life, 55-year-old Andrew Kehoe wanted to die by suicide, killing others. As he worked in the school as an electrician, he had a way to place explosives in the building secretly. He killed his seriously ill wife, set fire to his farm, and then placed timed explosives under both the north and south wings of the school building. Half an hour later, he returned to the school driving a truck loaded with explosives and blew himself up.

Austin, Texas

On 1 August 1 1966, 25-year-old Charles Whitman took the lift to the top floor of the 27-storey main building at the University of Texas and proceeded to shoot at people indiscriminately with several guns for 90 minutes before police officers shot and killed him. 15 people died and 32 people were injured in the shooting. Charles Whitman was a former marine, who attended the university from 1961 to 1963, but lost his scholarship. As later established, Whitman sought professional help for his mental health problems because he was aware that he couldn’t control his violent impulses. The autopsy discovered that he had a brain tumour, but experts are divided whether this had anything to do with his mental breakdown.

Newtown, Connecticut

On 14 December 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza arrived at his former elementary school, where he targeted six- and seven-year-old children. Lanza had previously been treated for mental health issues, but he never showed a tendency for violent behaviour, and the motive for the massacre remains unknown. He murdered 15 people in cold blood and seriously injured dozens of others, many of whom will bear the wounds for a lifetime. His 52-year-old mother was a gun enthusiast and regularly took her son to the shooting range. Adam Lanza killed his sleeping mother with four shots and then went to the school armed with guns. He killed his victims in a matter of minutes: the first-grade children hid under their desks in fear, but this did not offer much safety. When Adam Lanza no longer perceived any movement in one classroom, he proceeded to the other, where he shot dead the teacher who was protecting her pupils with her body, and then killed himself.

Roseburg, Oregon

On 1 October 2015, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer walked into a classroom holding two handguns. He himself studied at the college and knew very well the people he opened fire on, killing a total of 9 people and injuring dozens more. The authorities were alerted from the next classroom when the first gunshots were heard. Police officers arriving within minutes at the scene returned fire in the hallway, seriously injuring the deadly shooter. The wounded gunman retreated into a classroom and killed himself with a single shot in his head. Harper-Mercer lived with his mother. The two of them kept a total of 14 firearms at home and regularly visited the nearby shooting range. The young man struggled with adjustment and learning problems at college, and had suspiciously keen interest in mass killings.

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elementary school, killer, shooting