The Cleveland Elementary School shooting took place on January 29, 1979, at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, United States. This is considered the first mass shooting at an elementary school in United States history.

The principal and a custodian were killed; eight children and a police officer were wounded. Brenda Spencer, <!-- NOTE: Although she is often referred to in the press as Brenda Ann Spencer, authoritative sources such as the state of California and her defense attorneys call her Brenda Spencer without the middle name. See talk page. --> a 16-year-old girl who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. Charged as an adult, she pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years. , she is still in prison.

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A reporter spoke to her 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." at children across the street who were waiting for 53-year-old Principal Burton Wragg to open the gates to Grover Cleveland Elementary.

After firing thirty-six times, She surrendered and left the house after being promised a Burger King meal by negotiators.

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 of alcohol.

Acquaintances said Spencer expressed hostility toward police officers, had spoken about shooting one, and had talked of doing something big to get on television. Police reports and eyewitnesses do not mention the use of a BB gun during the school vandalism.

Analysis

Several 21st century accounts identify the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego as the earliest recorded elementary school shooting in the United States. The perpetrator, Brenda Spencer, has been described as the first modern high-profile school shooter. According to a 2013 article in the New York Daily News, her actions marked a significant turning point in American history. Given later history of violent acts, Spencer has been referred to as "the mother" of subsequent school shootings, including those at Columbine, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, both committed by teenage males. The number of school shootings has increased markedly since 1979. Nine counts of attempted murder were dismissed. In prison, Spencer was diagnosed with epilepsy and received medication to treat epilepsy and depression. While at California Institution for Women in Chino, she worked repairing electronic equipment. 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 a further three years. In February 2025, she was again denied parole. She remains imprisoned at California Institution for Women in Chino. Her next opportunity for a parole hearing will be in 2028.

Aftermath

A plaque and flagpole were erected at Cleveland Elementary in memory of the shooting victims. Due to declining enrollment, the school was closed in 1983, along with a dozen other public schools around the city. In the ensuing decades, it was leased to several charter and private schools. From 2005 to 2017, it housed the Magnolia Science Academy, a public charter middle school serving students in grades 6–8.

The school board decided to sell the school because of budget issues. In 2018, the building was demolished by the new owner and the site was redeveloped for housing. The memorial plaque was relocated to the southern edge of the former school site, at the corner of Lake Atlin Avenue and Lake Angela Drive.

Spencer and her family

In the months following the shooting, one of Brenda Spencer's first cellmates at the juvenile facility was released. The 17-year-old girl moved in with Spencer's father, whom she'd met through his visits to Brenda. They later married on March 26, 1980, in Yuma, Arizona. They had a daughter together, after which she fled the household and eventually divorced her estranged husband. She left Wallace Spencer to raise the girl alone.

Media

Song

Bob Geldof, the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, read about the incident when a news story about it came off the telex at WRAS-FM, the campus radio station at Georgia State University in Atlanta. 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". It was released in July 1979, was number one for four weeks in the United Kingdom, and was the band's biggest hit in their native Ireland.

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

Films and television

The 1981 Japanese–American documentary film The Killing of America includes the incident. The 2006 British documentary I Don't Like Mondays is about the case.

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 in October 2008.

The Lifetime Movies series Killer Kids released an episode "Deadly Compulsion" depicting Spencer's crimes, which first aired in September 2014.

See also

  • List of homicides in California
  • List of school shootings in the United States
  • List of school shootings in the United States by death toll

References

Further reading

Parole Hearing transcripts:

Videos:

  • Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
  • Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
  • Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
  • Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
  • Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
  • San Diego Police Museum - Brenda-Spencer
  • School Shooters.info - Brenda Spencer
  • Murder Historian - I Don't Like Mondays Blog