Unusual School Shooting: A Case Study of a 17-year-old Female Shooter and its Implications for a School Student Population

While school shootings are widespread in the U.S., this one is unusual because of the identity of the suspected perpetrator: Authorities have identified her as a 15-year-old girl.

Chief Barnes said investigators were looking for a possible motive and that there appeared to have been only one shooter. They had searched the suspect’s home in a north part of Madison and spoken to her family members, who were cooperating.

The Journal of Mass Violence Research was able to explore the demographic and motivation of female shooters between 1979 and the present day.

Rebekah Smith, 50, whose daughter was in physics class at Abundant Life, said that the staff were quick to put an end to the bad behavior of the students who had been bullied or struggled at other schools.

Ms. Smith said that members of the school community believed that the shooter was new to the private school this year and was among those who came in need of a life change. The school’s student population has grown dramatically since the pandemic, she said.

Chief Barnes said that a handgun was recovered at the scene, but that the police did not yet know the gun’s origin. The Madison police were working with federal investigators to identify where and when it had been purchased.

Men are more likely to kill women than men, and some of the perpetrators of many mass shootings do not belong to women, according to the Los Angeles Times

Two students with life-threatening injuries are in critical condition at a local hospital, said Chief Barnes. Three students and a teacher were taken to the hospital, but two of them have been released, he said.

Similar statistics bear out when it comes to mass shootings, which the FBI defines as any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun (so Monday’s does not meet that criteria).

“Many school shooters study Columbine, for example,” Peterson told NPR in 2021. “Other university shooters study the Virginia Tech shooting. And they really are kind of using those previous shootings as a blueprint for their own.”

Some experts say that men are more likely to place blame on others than women, which could translate into anger and hostility.

Studies show that some form of man’s entitlement or crisis of masculinity is often the reason for a mass shooting.

In 2006, a former U.S. Postal Service employee fatally shot six people at a postal facility in Goleta, Calif., before taking her own life. Authorities said writings later found at the home of the woman, who had struggled with mental illness, indicated she believed she was threatened by a conspiracy involving postal employees.

In 2018, a woman with an apparent grudge against YouTube opened fire at the company’s San Bruno, Calif., headquarters, wounding several people before fatally shooting herself.

The year before that, a temporary employee shot and killed three people at a distribution center. While authorities and some friends initially identified the perpetrator as female, some media outlets later reported they had started identifying as transgender in the years before the shooting.

The pair that carried out shootings like the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack and the Kosher supermarket shooting in Jersey City, N.J. were also composed of women.

A woman fired out of a window of her home at children walking to the elementary school across the street in 1979.

A journalist for the San Diego Evening Tribune randomly called homes near an elementary school to speak to people who may have seen it. After talking for a while, he got the idea that the shots came from Spencer’s house. She asked why she did it.

Source: Most U.S. shootings are done by men, but the Wisconsin school attack is an exception

Geldof’s 1991 Interview with a Radio Station News Story About the Boomtown Rats Incident and a Possible Lifetime in California

On the other side of the country, Bob Geldof, the lead singer of the Irish new wave band Boomtown Rats, was being interviewed at a radio station in Atlanta when he saw a news story about the incident come across the wires.

He went back to his room and wrote “I Don’t Like Mondays” after reading Spencer’s words. The song, released in July 1979, spent four weeks at the top of the singles chart in the United Kingdom.

Spencer, meanwhile, was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to life in prison.

She is one of the few inmates in California who will be eligible for parole in 25 years.