This is a list of attacks related to primary schools. These are attacks that have occurred on school property or related primarily to school issues or events. A broad definition of the word attacks is used for this list so as to include public attacks or one's self (suicide).
Contents |
| Date | Location | Attacker(s) | Casualties[lower-alpha 1] | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 26, 1764 | Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States | Four Lenape warriors | 10–11 dead, 2 injured | Enoch Brown school massacre. On July 26, 1764, four Lenape American Indian warriors entered a log schoolhouse of white settlers in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania, near present-day Greencastle. Inside were the schoolmaster, Enoch Brown, and twelve young students. Brown pleaded with the warriors to spare the children before being shot and scalped. The warriors then began to tomahawk and scalp the children, killing nine or ten of them (reports vary). Two children who had been scalped survived.[1] |
| June 22, 1871 | LaGrange County, Indiana, United States | Chauncey Barnes | 2 dead | Anna Dwight, the schoolmistress of Stone Lake Schoolhouse, is shot to death outside her schoolhouse by Chauncey Barnes, a rejected suitor. Barnes then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head several times.[2] |
| August 26, 1884 | Markdale, Ontario, Canada | Mr.Norris | 1 dead, 1 injured | A 28-year-old teacher named Mr. Norris shot and wounded his assistant, a young woman named Miss Ford, in his schoolhouse after she rejected his marriage proposal. Norris then committed suicide.[3] |
| May 17, 1889 | Washington, District of Columbia, United States | Oswald C. Allen | 2 dead | Sarah E. Allen, a third grade teacher at the Jefferson school, is shot to death in front of her class by her estranged husband Oswald C. Allen, who then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.[4] |
| April 9, 1891 | Newburgh, New York, United States | James Foster, 70 | 5 injured | 70-year-old James Foster fired a shotgun at a group of male students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, causing minor injuries to several of the students.[5] |
| December 21, 1898 | New York City, New York, United States | Samuel Jacobson, 8 | 1 injured | Samuel Jacobson, student at Grammar School 85, stabbed his 8-year-old classmate Hans Pietze with a pocketknife after he fell over the latters foot. Both students were said to have quarrelled often before.[6] |
| February 26, 1902 | Camargo, Illinois, United States | Fletcher R. Barnett | 2 dead | Teacher Fletcher R. Barnett shot and killed another teacher, Eva C. Wiseman, in front of her class at a school near Camargo, Illinois. After shooting at a pupil who came to help Miss Wiseman and wounding himself in a failed suicide attempt he waited in the classroom until a group of farmers came to lynch him. He then ran out of the school building, grabbed a shotgun from one of the farmers and shot himself, before running away and leaping into a well where he finally drowned. The incident was likely sparked by Wiseman's refusal to marry Barnett.[7] |
| October 6, 1902 | Droyssig, Austria-Hungary | ..., 40 | 4 dead, 3 injured | A schoolmaster killed three children and injured another three, when he suddenly drew a revolver from his desk and shot at his pupils, before he himself was lynched by infuriated villagers.[8] |
| October 9, 1902 | Altona, Manitoba, Canada | Henry I. Toews, 33 | 2 dead, 5 injured | After meeting with the board of trustees for showing extreme malice towards some of his pupils, school teacher Henry Toews shot the three school trustees and three of their children, one of them fatally, before fleeing from the school ground and shooting himself in the head. He died of this wound on January 19, 1903.[9][10] |
| October 10, 1906 | Cleveland, Ohio, United States | Harry Smith, 25 | 2 dead | Harry Smith shot and killed 22-year-old teacher Mary Shepard at South Euclid School after she had rejected him. Smith escaped and committed suicide in a barn near his home two hours later.[11] |
| March 23, 1907 | Carmi, Illinois, United States | George Nicholson | 1 dead | George Nicholson shot and killed John Kurd at a schoolhouse outside of Carmi, Illinois during a school rehearsal. The motive for the shooting was Kurd making a disparaging remark about Nicholson's daughter during her recital.[12] |
| February 12, 1909 | San Francisco, California, United States | Demetri Tereaschinko, 49 | 1 dead, 1 injured | 10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. Tereaschinko then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt. Tereaschinko was reportedly upset that Malakanoff refused to elope with him.[13] |
| January 10, 1912 | Warrenville, Illinois, United States | Sylvester E. Adams | 2 dead | Sylvester E. Adams shot and killed teacher Edith Smith after she rejected his advances. Adams then shot and killed himself. The incident took place in a schoolhouse about a mile outside of Warrenville after the students had been dismissed for the day.[14] |
| June 20, 1913 | Bremen, Germany | Heinz Schmidt, 30 | 5 dead, 23 injured | Bremen school shooting. 30-year-old unemployed teacher Heinz Schmidt entered St.-Marien-Schule and indiscriminately shot at students and teachers, killing four students and injuring 23 other people. Another student died from injuries she sustained while falling down a flight of stairs while trying to escape the shooting. A furious crowd outside the school eventually subdued Schmidt and he was arrested by police.[15] |
| March 27, 1919 | Lodi Township, Michigan, United States | Robert Warner | 1 dead | 19-year-old teacher Irma Casler was shot and killed in her classroom at Rentschler school in Lodi Township, Michigan by Robert Warner, apparently because she had rejected his advances.[16][17] |
| October 19, 1923 | Waikino, New Zealand | John Christopher Higgins | 2 dead,
8 injured |
John Higgins, a middle-aged firewood dealer originating from Canada, seeking revenge for the alleged killing of three of his horses by other Waikino residents, entered the local public school armed with a revolver, a knife and explosives. After shooting headmaster Robert Reid, who had tried to persuade him to spare the children, Higgins went to the classroom, where he fatally shot two boys, aged 9 and 13 years, and wounded four other pupils by gunshots. Additionally two children received injuries while attempting to escape. Higgins was arrested after a shoot-out with police in which he wounded a policeman, and sentenced to death four months later, which was then commuted to life imprisonment, as it was found that he had been insane at the time of the shooting.[18][19] |
| May 18, 1927 | Bath, Michigan,
United States |
Andrew Kehoe, 55 | 45 dead,
58 injured |
Bath School disaster. School board member Andrew Kehoe set up a series of explosions in the Bath elementary school. That morning he killed his wife and detonated a bomb inside the school. As people amassed outside, Kehoe detonated his shrapnel-filled vehicle outside the school, in which he took his own life. The bombings constituted the deadliest act of mass murder in any type of school setting in U.S. history. |
| February 15, 1933 | Downey, California, United States | Vernon Blythe, 35 | 3 dead | Dr. Vernon Blythe shot and killed his wife Eleanor, as well as his 8-year old son Robert at Gallatin grammar school and committed suicide after firing three more shots at his other son Vernon. His wife, who had been a teacher at the school, had filed for divorce the week before.[20] |
| September 12, 1940 | Uniontown, Pennsylvania, United States | William Kuhns, 35 | 1 dead, 1 injured | 29-year-old teacher Carolyn Dellamea is shot to death inside her third grade classroom by 35-year-old William Kuhns. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. Kuhns had reportedly been courting Dellamea for over a year but the relationship was ended when Dellamea discovered that Kuhns was already married.[21] |
| October 25, 1940 | Cincinnati, Ohio, United States | Guy Willie Ponder, 27 | 1 dead | 10-year-old Clarence Stevens, a third grade pupil at Holy Name School, was stabbed to death inside a storeroom at the school by 27-year-old Guy Willie Ponder.[22] |
| May 9, 1944 | New York City, New York, United States | Madeline Kirkland, 11
Eileen Foster, 13 |
1 dead | Nine-year-old Margaret Patton was attacked and killed at PS 119 in Harlem by two fellow students. One student held Patton's arms while the other stabbed her to death. Police later arrested 11-year-old Madeline Kirkland, who was charged with murder, and 13-year-old Eileen Foster, who was charged with juvenile delinquency.[23] |
| October 10, 1956 | Terrazzano, Italy | Arturo Santato, 23
Egidio Santato, 21 |
1 dead,
4 injured |
Arturo Santato, a former inmate of an asylum in Aversa, and his brother Egidio went into a school in Terrazzano, near Milan, carrying guns, dynamite and acid and took 96 children and three teachers hostage for about six hours. They demanded 200 millon lire for the release of their hostages or they would kill them. Using the children as shields they fired shots at people outside the school, killing one person and injuring another three. The hostage crisis ended when one teacher tackled Egidio, grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the head. The attack distracted the brothers long enough to give police time to storm the classroom without endangering the children's lives.[24][25] |
| September 15, 1959 | Houston, Texas,
United States |
Paul Harold Orgeron, 49 | 6 dead,
19 injured |
Poe Elementary School attack. The morning that Paul Orgeron's second-grade son is denied enrollment, he detonates an explosive on the school playground during recess, killing himself; his son, Dusty; a teacher; a custodian and two seven-year-old boys. The school principal and 18 students aged six to ten are injured, many seriously. |
| February 2, 1960 | Hartford City, Indiana, United States | Leonard O. Redden, 44 | 3 dead | Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School in Hartford City, Indiana, before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide.[26][27] |
| June 7, 1960 | Blaine, Minnesota, United States | Lester Betts, 40 | 1 dead | Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun.[28] |
| April 20, 1961 | Chicago, Illinois, United States | Lee Arthur Hester, 14 | 1 dead | Teacher Josephine Keane, 45, is sexually assaulted and stabbed to death inside a storeroom at Lewis-Champlin elementary school in Chicago. Lee Arthur Hester, a 14-year-old student, is later convicted of the murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison.[29] |
| June 11, 1964 | Cologne, Germany | Walter Seifert, 42 | 11 dead,
22 injured |
Cologne school massacre. Armed with an insecticide sprayer converted into a flamethrower, a lance, and a homemade mace, 42-year-old Walter Seifert entered the Katholische Volksschule in Cologne, Germany, and opened fire on female students playing in the courtyard. He then knocked in classroom windows with his mace and fired inside. Eight children and two teachers died, and twenty children and two teachers suffered injuries of severe burns. After swallowing poisonous insecticide E605, Seifert died the following day, while in custody. |
| April 8, 1970 | Bahr el-Baqar, Sharqiyya, Egypt | Israeli Air Force | 46 dead, 50+ injured | Bahr el-Baqar massacre. A bombing occurred during the War of Attrition, where the Israeli airforce carried out a raid on the Egyptian village of Bahr el-Baqar, in the eastern province of Sharqiyya, the raid resulted in the destruction of a primary school full of school children. Of the 130 school children who attended the school, 46 were killed, and over 50 wounded. The Israelis claimed that they believed the target was a military installation. |
| May 8, 1970 | Avivim, Israel | Palestinian militants | 12 dead, 25 injured | Avivim school bus massacre. Palestinian terrorists belonging to the PFLP-GC attacked the community school bus of Avivim, killing nine children and three adults and wounding 25 other people, by firing two bazooka shells at the bus.[30] |
| November 1971 | Grove, Oklahoma, United States | James Underwood | 1 dead | Principal T.J. Melton is shot to death by James Underwood, a school custodian.[31] |
| January 17, 1974 | Chicago, Illinois, United States | Steven Guy, 14 | 1 dead, 3 injured | 14-year-old Steven Guy, apparently angry about being transferred to a social adjustment center, entered Clara W. Barton Elementary School in Chicago with a revolver and a pistol and killed the principal and wounded three others before he was seized by a teacher when both his guns jammed. |
| May 15, 1974 | Ma'alot, Israel | DFLP, PLO | 26 children killed, 60+ wounded, 3 hostage takers killed | Ma'alot massacre. A group of DFLP militants took around 90 school children hostage on the 15. May, 1974, at "Netiv Meir", an elementary school in Ma'alot, a community in northern Israel. Before the deadline at 6:00 p.m., the school was stormed by Israeli special forces, who killed all the hostage-takers. 26 hostages had been killed. |
| November 10, 1976 | Detroit, Michigan, United States | Al J. Lewis, 46 | 1 dead | English teacher Betty McCaster, 46, was shot to death by her estranged husband in front of her first grade class at Burt Elementary School in northwest Detroit.[32] |
| October 10, 1977 | San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago | 5 dead | A man running through the halls of El Socorro public school killed four children with a machete, as well as a woman outside the school when trying to escape. He was later arrested by police.[33] | |
| January 29, 1979 | San Diego, California,
United States |
Brenda Ann Spencer, 16 | 2 dead,
9 injured |
Armed with a .22-rifle, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire at Cleveland Elementary School, killing two adults and wounding eight children and one police officer. Spencer was later apprehended after a six-hour stand-off, and she was asked of her motive for the killing, to which she shrugged and infamously replied "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." |
| June 3, 1982 | Shamshuipo, Hong Kong | Li Chihang, 28 | 5 dead, 43 injured | After stabbing his mother and sister to death and injuring two bystanders, 28-year-old Li Chihang entered Anne Anne Kindergarten and started stabbing people. Three children died and 40 other people were injured in the attack. Li was arrested after being shot by a police officer.[34] |
| August 13, 1983 | Chiang Rai Province, Thailand | Suthat Wannasarn, 43 | 3 dead, 3 injured | 3 children were hacked to death and two others wounded in a nursery in Chiang Rai Province, when 43-year-old Suthat Wannasarn attacked them with a sword and a large stick. Wannasarn was later arrested by police after being shot in the abdomen.[35] |
| February 24, 1984 | Los Angeles, California, United States | Tyrone Mitchell, 28 | 2 dead, 13 injured | At 2:23 p.m. 28-year-old Tyrone Mitchell began shooting at students leaving 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles with a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle from a second-floor window of a building across the street. He killed a 10-year-old girl and wounded 11 other children, as well as a schoolyard supervisor and a passer-by. When police finally stormed the building they found Mitchell's body, who had killed himself with the shotgun. Mitchell had lost his parents, grandmother, brother and four sisters in the Jonestown massacre.[36][37][38] |
| May 16, 1986 | Cokeville, Wyoming,
United States |
David Young Doris Young |
2 dead, 79 injured | Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis. David Young, and his wife Doris Young, took 167 children and adults hostage at Cokeville Elementary School. After a two-and-a-half hour standoff, a gasoline bomb the couple was carrying went off prematurely, injuring Doris Young while David Young was out of the room. Returning to the scene, David Young shot his wife, and then himself. All the hostages escaped, though 79 were later hospitalized with burns and injuries. |
| May 20, 1988 | Winnetka, Illinois, United States | Laurie Dann, 30 | 2 dead,
6 injured |
Laurie Dann walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods Elementary School carrying a pistol and two revolvers and began shooting children, killing eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she had shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself. |
| August 31, 1988 | Anderson, South Carolina, United States | Kevin Dean Young, William Bell, John Glenn, Arthur Ray Jones |
1 dead | Principal Dennis Ray Hepler, 35, was accosted by three young men on the grounds of West Franklin Elementary School. They robbed him of $67 before shooting him to death. Two of the perpetrators were sentenced to death. The third was sentenced to 35 years in prison. A fourth man was convicted as an accessory for driving the three assailants away from the crime scene.[39] |
| September 23, 1988 | Chicago, Illinois, United States | Clemmie Henderson, 40 | 5 dead,
2 injured |
Armed with a .38 caliber pistol, 40-year-old Clemmie Henderson shot two people dead at an auto parts store and wounded a garbage man before entering Montefiore Special Elementary School where he killed a school custodian and a police officer. He wounded another police officer before he was shot and killed.[40] |
| September 26, 1988 | Greenwood, South Carolina, United States | James William Wilson, 19 | 2 dead,
9 injured |
James Wilson, 19, took a .22-caliber pistol to Oakland Elementary School where he shot and killed two students and injured seven other students and two teachers.[41][42][43] Wilson was sentenced to death by electric chair. |
| January 17, 1989 | Stockton, California, United States | Patrick Purdy, 24 | 6 dead,
30 injured |
Patrick Purdy shot and killed five schoolchildren, and wounded 29 other schoolchildren and one teacher on the playground of Cleveland Elementary School. The shooting ended with Purdy committing suicide. |
| August 13, 1992 | Dorum, Germany | Wilfried Schulte, 47 | 1 killed | Wilfried Schulte shot his wife Eva Lerp in front of her class at an elementary school in Dorum near Cuxhaven. Lerp who had been a teacher at the school died a few hours later in hospital.[44] |
| January 10, 1994 | Maradi, Niger | 5 dead, 1 injured | A former psychiatric patient, armed with a club, beat four children to death in a quran school in Maradi, and also killed a woman who wanted to stop him. When trying to escape, the man was captured and severely beaten by an angry crowd.[45][46] | |
| June 7, 1994 | Waku-Kungo, Angola | Angolan military | 89 dead | At least 89 children were killed when an Angolan MiG-21-pilot accidentally bombed a school near Waku-Kungo. The pilot lost track of his intended target, rebel troops located 30 miles (48 km) from Waku-Kungo, due to failing navigation equipment and bad weather. According to the rebels the airstrike killed at least 150 people and left 250 wounded.[47] |
| November 5, 1994 | San Leandro, California, United States | 1 dead | 15-year-old Evelyna LeBlanc was shot in the head and raped on the playground of an elementary school by an unknown assailant, she died from her gunshot wound the next day.[48] In 2007 DNA tests identified a suspect in the case.[49] | |
| July 10, 1995 | Meihekou, China | Dong Chi | 2 dead, 16 injured | An assailant armed with a double-barreled shotgun and garden shears attacked staff and students at a kindergarten in Meihekou, killing a six-year-old girl and wounding 15 other students and a teacher. The assailant, identified as Dong Chi, was shot and killed by police.[50] |
| March 13, 1996 | Dunblane, Scotland,
United Kingdom |
Thomas Hamilton, 44 | 18 dead, 15 injured | Dunblane massacre. Unemployed former shopkeeper and Scout leader Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School armed with two 9 mm pistols and two .357 Magnum revolvers. He killed sixteen children and a teacher, and wounded 15 others before committing suicide. The subsequent police investigation revealed that Hamilton had loaded the magazines for his Browning with an alternating combination of fully metal jacketed and hollow point ammunition. This event led to the banning of handguns in the UK with the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997. |
| July 8, 1996 | Blakenhall, Wolverhampton, England,
United Kingdom |
Horrett Campbell, 33 | 7 injured | Horrett Campbell, a 33-year-old man with paranoid schizophrenia, invaded a Teddy Bears' Picnic being held at St Luke's Primary School and slashed three young children and four adults with a machete. Lisa Potts, a 20-year-old nursery nurse, was awarded the George Medal for saving children's lives despite suffering severe injuries. |
| October 10, 1996 | Cairns, Queensland, Australia | Paul Streeton, 26 | 1 injured | Paul Streeton set six year old Tjandamurra O'Shane on fire in the playground of his school, burning over 70% of his body. The motive was apparently racism due to the boy's aboriginal background. |
| August 1998 | Henan, China | 2 dead, 15 injured | A teacher stabbed two children to death and wounded 15 others.[51] | |
| September 3, 1998 | Hajdúhadház, Hungary | ..., 31 | 11 injured | A 31-year-old female teacher stabbed eight children and three teachers in the canteen of a primary school in Hajdúhadház.[52][53] |
| September 14, 1998 | Hejiang County, China | Lin Peiqing | 23 injured | Lin Peiqing stabbed 23 elementary school children during a morning flag-raising ceremony.[51] |
| February 22, 1999 | Gulbene, Latvia | Alexander Koryakov, 19 | 4 dead, 1 injured | 19-year-old Alexander Koryakov entered a kindergarten in Gulbene where he chopped three girls to death with a meat cleaver. He also killed a teacher and wounded a nurse, before trying to escape. After his arrest he told police that he wanted to become as famous as Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. Koryakov was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 1999.[54][55][56] |
| May 3, 1999 | Costa Mesa, California, United States | Steven Allen Abrams, 39 | 2 dead, 5 injured | Steven Allen Abrams purposefully drove his car onto the playground of Southcoast Early Childhood Learning Center. He killed two children and injured four other children and an adult. Abrams later stated that he thought the deaths of the children would silence the voices that he thought the US government was beaming into his brain.[57][58] |
| February 29, 2000 | Mount Morris Township, Michigan, United States | Dedrick Owens, 6 | 1 dead | Dedrick Owens took a .32 caliber pistol to Buell Elementary School from his uncle's home and used it to kill 6-year-old Kayla Rolland. |
| September 5, 2000 | Bidwell, Ohio, United States | Frank Shoemaker, 66 | 2 dead | Frank Shoemaker shot and killed his estranged wife, 52-year-old Linda Shoemaker, in the parking lot of Bidwell Porter Elementary School where she worked as a cook. Frank Shoemaker then returned home and committed suicide.[59] |
| February 2, 2001 | Red Lion, Pennsylvania,
United States |
William Stankewicz, 55 | 13 injured | William Stankewicz entered North Hopewell Winterstown Elementary School and brutally slashed two teachers and a principal with a machete. He then subsequently wounded several children in a kindergarten classroom before being subdued by a faculty member.[60] |
| May 7, 2001 | Anchorage, Alaska, United States | Jason Pritchard, 33 | 4 injured | Four students were stabbed in the neck by 33-year-old Jason Pritchard at Mountain View Elementary School.[61] |
| June 8, 2001 | Ikeda, Osaka,
Japan |
Mamoru Takuma, 37 | 8 dead,
15 injured |
Osaka school massacre. Armed with a kitchen knife, a 37-year-old former janitor Mamoru Takuma trespassed into Ikeda Elementary School attached to Osaka-Kyoiku University and stabbed school children and teachers. 8 children were killed and 15 wounded, among those were 13 children and two teachers. |
| September 4, 2002 | Seoul, South Korea | Hwang Bom-nae, 53 | 10 injured | 10 children were injured at Neung Dong Church Elementary School in Seoul, when Hwang Bom-nae attacked them with kitchen knives. Hwang told police he heard the voice of Kim Il-Sung that commanded him to kill many people or he himself would be killed.[62][63] |
| November 26, 2002 | Huaiji county, China | Shi Ruoqiu | 5 dead, 2 injured | Shi Ruoqiu stabbed seven children at Shilong Elementary School with a kitchen knife before being arrested. One child died at the scene, while four more succumbed to their wounds in hospital.[64][65] |
| March 7, 2003 | Beihai, China | Xie Zhongcai, 24 | 8 injured | 24-year-old Xie Zhongcai stabbed four teachers and four children in a kindergarten in Beihai, after one of the teachers, with whom he had been in love, had arranged for him to be beaten up. Xie was finally overpowered by staff members and the father of one of the kindergarten children.[66][67] |
| June 1, 2004 | Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan | Unidentified girl, 11 | 1 dead | Sasebo slashing. An 11-year-old student, identified only as "Girl A", killed a 12-year-old classmate, Satomi Mitarai, by slitting her throat at Okubo Elementary School. |
| September 1, 2004 | Beslan, North Ossetia, | Separatist militants | At least 386 dead, including 31 hostage takers. Over 700 injured. | Beslan school hostage crisis. A group of pro-Chechen armed rebels took more than 1,100 school children and adults hostage on September 1, 2004 in Beslan, the republic of North Ossetia. On the third day of the standoff, the school was stormed by Russian forces. |
| September 11, 2004 | Suzhou, | Yang Guozhu, 41 | 28 injured | A man armed with a knife and homemade explosives attacked 28 children at a kindergarten.[68] |
| September 20, 2004 | Ying County, China | Jia Qingyou, 36 | 25 injured | 36-year-old Jia Qingyou, a bus driver, injured 25 children with a kitchen knife at No. 1 Experimental Primary School in Ying county. He was later sentenced to death and executed.[69][70] |
| September 30, 2004 | Chenzhou, China | Liu Hongwen, 28 | 4 dead, 12 injured | Liu Hongwen, a 28-year-old primary school teacher, killed four children with a knife in a grade one class at a school in Chenzhou and wounded nine other children and three teachers, before taking 65 students hostage. After negotiations with a county government official he surrendered to police. He was later found not guilty by reason of insanity due to schizophrenia.[71][72] |
| December 4, 2004 | Mingcheng Town, China | Liu Zhigang, 30 | 12 injured | 12 students were stabbed by Liu Zhigang, a man suffering from schozophrenia, at the Central Primary School of Mingcheng Town, Panshi City. Liu was found not guilty by reason of insanity.[73] |
| February 14, 2005 | Neyagawa, Japan | ..., 17 | 1 dead, 2 injured | A 17-year-old boy stabbed two teachers and a school nutritionist with a kitchen knife at his former elementary school, killing one of the teachers.[74] |
| October 12, 2005 | Guangde County, China | Liu Shibing, 33 | 18 injured | 18 people, among them 16 children, were injured when Liu Shibing shot them with six home-made guns at Niutoushan Primary School in Guangde.[75] |
| December 10, 2005 | Uji, Japan | Yu Hagino, 23 | 1 dead | 23-year-old teacher Yu Hagino stabbed 12-year-old Sayano Horimoto to death at a cram school in Uji, following a verbal dispute. Yu was sentenced to 18 years in prison in March 2007.[76] |
| May 8, 2006 | Shiguan, China | Bai Ningyang, 19 | 12 dead, 5 injured | Shiguan kindergarten attack. Armed with two knives and petrol 19-year-old Bai Ningyang entered a classroom on the second floor of a kindergarten in Shiguan, a village near Gongyi. He forced the 21 children and the teacher to the back of the room, sprayed the floor with gasoline, and, before setting it on fire, let one child go, because he knew their parents. Bai then locked the door and escaped. 12 of the children died and four others and the teacher were wounded. Bai was arrested the next day and sentenced to death in December 2007.[77][78] |
| May 24, 2006 | Luoying, China | Yang Xinlong, 35 | 2 dead, 2 injured | 35-year-old farmer Yang Xinlong hacked his aunt to death, set her house on fire and injured another person after an argument before entering Luoying Primary School where he stabbed a child to death in a third grade classroom and took 18 others hostage for several hours. When Yang refused to let the children go he was shot and arrested by police.[79][80] |
| August 30, 2006 | Essex, Vermont,
United States |
Christopher A. Williams, 27 | 2 dead, 3 injured | Searching for his ex-girlfriend, Christopher A. Williams entered his ex-girlfriend's house and shot her mother dead. Williams then travelled to Essex Elementary School, his ex-girlfriend's workplace, and shot two teachers, killing one. Williams then travelled to a friend's house where he shot and wounded his friend before wounding himself. Williams was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. His ex-girlfriend was not wounded in the attack.[81][82] |
| October 2, 2006 | Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
United States |
Charles Carl Roberts, 32 | 6 dead, 5 injured | Amish school shooting. Charles Carl Roberts, a 32-year-old milk-tank truck driver, took hostages and eventually shot ten girls, killing five (aged 7–13), before killing himself at West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish schoolhouse. |
| March 18, 2007 | Sabayoi, Songkhla, | Insurgents, 3 dead, several injured | 3 dead | Insurgents attacked Bamrungsart Pondok School with firearms. Three children were killed. It was reported that it was Muslim insurgents who had attacked this Muslim school. |
| June 13, 2007 | Chiling, China | Su Qianxiao, 42 | 1 dead, 3 injured | A nine-year-old boy was killed when Su Qianxiao, a 42-year-old villager from Chiling, stabbed four children with a kitchen knife at Chiling Primary School. He was caught by locals before he could commit suicide by jumping off the school's roof.[83] |
| August 4, 2007 | Newark, New Jersey,
United States |
José Carranza, 28, and two 15-year old unidentified boys | 3 dead, 1 wounded | Known as the Newark Schoolyard Killings, three Delaware State University students were forced to kneel against an elementary school wall and were shot execution-style by 28-year old Jose Carranza and two 15-year old juveniles. A fourth student was found with gunshot wounds to her head.[84] |
| September 13, 2007 | Hengyang, China | Kuang Xi, 28 | 1 dead, 5 injured | 28-year-old Kuang Xi, an allegedly mentally disturbed man, hurled five girls and one boy out of a window on the third floor of Hongqiao Primary School, killing a nine-year-old girl. He was subdued by four men, before he could throw out a seventh child.[85][86] |
| February 7, 2008 | Portsmouth, Ohio,
United States |
William Michael Layne, 46 | 1 dead, 2 injured | Layne, the estranged husband of a teacher at Notre Dame Elementary School, stabbed a bystander on the street prior to entering the school. He then walked into his wife's fifth grade classroom where he shot and stabbed her. Layne later shot and killed himself after a stand-off with police at his home. |
| November 12, 2008 | Kandahar, Afghanistan | Ten Afghan militants | 15 injured | Militants in Afghanistan attacked three separate groups of students and teachers by squirting acid on them while they were walking to the Mirwais Mena Girls' School in Kandahar. Fifteen people were injured in the acid attack.[87] Ten people were later arrested in connection to the attack, several of which confessed.[88] |
| January 7, 2009 | Budapest, Hungary | Unknown | 2 dead, 1 injured | A principal and a teacher were killed by a security guard and an administrator at a private elementary school in the 21 district of Budapest at 6:40 pm. The guard afterwards shot himself in the hand to support claims the deed was the act of an unknown masked gunman. The perpetrators had been fired by the principal on suspicion of embezzling.[89] |
| January 23, 2009 | Tromsø, Norway | 2 dead | A man shot and killed a female trainee teacher and then fatally shot himself in the car park of a kindergarten. The shooting occurred just as children were arriving for school.[90] | |
| January 23, 2009 | Sint-Gillis-bij-Dendermonde, Dendermonde, Belgium | Kim De Gelder, 20 | 4 dead, 12 injured | Kim De Gelder entered a kindergarten in Belgium and started stabbing people. Two babies and a 54-year-old woman were stabbed to death and twelve other people were injured in the attack. De Gelder also stabbed a 73-year-old woman to death in her apartment days earlier. |
| March 3, 2009 | Mazhan, China | Xu Ximei, 40 | 2 dead, 4 injured | 40-year-old Xu Ximei, an allegedly mentally disabled woman, stabbed two boys, aged 4 and 6, to death with a kitchen knife and injured another three children, as well as the 76-year-old grandmother of one of her victims at the primary school of Mazhan village in Guangdong province. She was later found lying in a classroom and arrested.[91] |
| February 26, 2010 | Tacoma, Washington, United States | Jed Waits, 30 | 2 dead | Jennifer Paulson, a 30-year-old special education teacher, is shot to death outside of Birney Elementary School by a man who was reportedly infatuated with her. The gunman, identified as 30-year-old Jed Waits, fled the scene but was later shot and killed by police in a day-cay center parking lot.[92][93] |
| March 23, 2010 | Nanping, China | Zheng Minsheng, 41 | 8 dead, 5 injured | Nanping school stabbings. Eight children were hacked to death with a machete and five others were injured outside an elementary school in Nanping. The assailant, identified as 41-year-old Zheng Minsheng, was restrained by school security guards and then arrested by police.[94][95] |
| April 13, 2010 | Xichang, China | Yang Jiaqin, 40 | 2 dead, 5 injured | An assailant armed with a meat cleaver attacked students and bystanders outside an elementary school, killing a schoolboy and an elderly woman and wounding three other children and two adults before being arrested by police. The assailant, identified as 40-year-old Yang Jiaqin, was reported to be mentally ill.[96][97] |
| April 28, 2010 | Leizhou, China | Chen Kangbing, 33 | 17 injured | Chen Kangbing stabbed and injured 16 students and one teacher at Leicheng First Primary School in Leizhou before being restrained by teachers and arrested by police.[98] |
| April 29, 2010 | Taixing, China | Xu Yuyuan, 47 | 32 injured | Xu Yuyuan stabbed 29 children, two teachers and a security guard at the Zhongxin Kindergarten in Taixing. It was reported that five of the injured children were in critical condition.[99] |
| April 30, 2010 | Weifang, China | Wang Yonglai, 45 | 1 dead, 6 injured | Wang Yonglai, a 45-year-old farmer, used a motorcycle to break through a gate at Shangzhuang Primary School in Weifang and then assaulted several children with a hammer, wounding five of them. A teacher also injured her foot, while trying to stop Wang, who ended his attack by grabbing two children and pouring gasoline over himself. Teachers managed to pull the children to safety, before Wang committed suicide by setting himself on fire.[100][101] |
| May 12, 2010 | Hanzhong, China | Wu Huanming, 48 | 10 dead, 11 injured | An assailant killed seven children and two adults and wounded 11 other children at the Shengshui Temple Kindergarten in Hanzhong when he attacked them with a cleaver. The assailant, identified as 48-year-old Wu Huanming, fled from the school and committed suicide when he returned to his house.[102] |
| August 3, 2010 | Zibo, China | Fang Jiantang, 26 | 3 dead, 7 injured | A knife-wielding man attacked children and staff at a kindergarten in Zibo. Three children were killed and three other children and four teachers were injured in the attack. It was reported that two of the injured teachers were in critical condition. The assailant, identified as 26-year-old Fang Jiantang, was arrested by police after the attack.[103][104] |
| October 8, 2010 | Carlsbad, California, United States | Brendan Liam O’Rourke, 41 | 2 injured | A middle aged man holding a jack-o-lantern stormed the campus at Kelly Elementary School, his bullets grazing the shoulders of two students, six and seven year olds. The assailant, identified as 41-year-old Brendan Liam O’Rourke, was apprehended by police.[105][106] |
| October 22, 2010 | Zamboanga City, Philippines | Felin Mateo, 51 | 4 dead, 6 injured | A 12-year-old girl, a teacher, and a 64-year-old man were stabbed to death by ex-convict Felin Mateo at Talisayan Elementary School in Talisayan village. He also wounded four other children and two teachers, some of them seriously, before he could be subdued by irate villagers, who then killed him with his own knife.[107] |
| February 2, 2011 | Placerville, California, United States | John Luebbers, 44 | 1 dead | Principal Sam Lacara, 50, was fatally shot in his office at Louisiana Schnell Elementary School in Placerville. He later died at a hospital. John Luebbers, a 44-year-old school custodian, was arrested after the shooting.[108][109][110] |
| April 7, 2011 | Realengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 23 | 13 dead, 12 injured | Rio de Janeiro school shooting. A gunman armed with two handguns began shooting at children and school personnel at Escola Municipal Tasso da Silveira, an elementary school in the Realengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. 13 people were killed, including the shooter, a former student. Police shot the suspect in the leg, causing him to fall down a staircase, then the gunman shot himself in the head. The shooter is reported to have left a suicide note.[111][112][113] |
| August 29, 2011 | Shanghai, China | ..., 30 | 8 injured | A 30-year-old woman slashed eight children with a box cutter at a child-care centre in Shanghai, leaving one of the wounded in serious condition. The attacker, a day care worker at the kindergarten, who was said to have suffered from psychiatric problems, was arrested.[114] |
| September 22, 2011 | São Caetano do Sul, Brazil | David Mota Nogueira, 10 | 1 dead, 1 injured | David Mota Nogueira, a fourth-grade student at Escola Municipal Alcina Dantas Feijão in São Caetano do Sul, shot and wounded his teacher, 38-year-old Rosileide Queiros de Oliveira, with his father's .38-caliber revolver. He then ran out of the classroom and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.[115] |
| November 15, 2011 | Ga-Mmasehlong, South Africa | Happy Shapo, 40 | 1 dead | Gilford Shapo, teacher at Mmasehlong Primary School in Ga-Mmasehlong village, was hacked to death with a machete in front of his class by his brother Happy. The attacker was arrested by police.[116][117] |
