“11 deadliest school shootings in the United States” is another dark video which will show how evil human beings can be. School shooting has been an ongoing problem dating back to the 1700s. Although not in all cases but, there seems to be a pattern that the incidents often occur in the morning and the gunmen are teenagers or in their 20s. The shooters tend to be troubled teenagers and individuals that suffer from anger problems or mental illness.
You may find that the number of fatalities or injured differ slightly for various reasons such as some statistics did not count the gunman’s death, some counted murders that led to the school murders and some counted deaths that occurred sometime after the shootings even if it was a few years down the road.
In this article, you will learn about 11 deadliest school shootings in the United States.
- Amish School Shooting Lancaster, PA – 5
On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred in an Amish schoolhouse called West Nickel Mines school. This was a one room schoolhouse in an older Amish community in Lancaster County located about 12 miles from Lancaster City. Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV shot 10 girls and killed 5 of them from ages 6-13 execution style. There were a few people that escaped and Roberts let a few people go including a pregnant woman.
- California State University Fullerton Massacre – 7
The gunman of the California State University Fullerton Massacre was a custodian by the name of Charles Edward Allaway who was working at the school. On July 12, 1976 Allaway killed 7 people and injured two others. He had a long history of mental illness before going on this shooting spree in the library at Cal State Fullerton. These shootings are known as the Fullerton Massacre.
- Oikos University Killings Oakland CA -7
Around 10:30 am on April 2, 2012 a 43-year-old former nursing student name One L Goh opened fire at the religious college he previously attended called Oikos University in Oakland CA. Goh wounded three people and murdered 7 others. Goh was targeting a school director he was angry with but that person was no longer there. He entered a classroom with clutching the receptionist and a gun once he shot her, everyone started running because he kept firing the gun. Goh turned himself in to a Safeway employee and died in prison March 20, 2019 after only serving a few years.
- Red Lake Massacre MN – 7
Jeff Weise was a 16-year-old former student of Red Lake Senior High School just months before he did the unthinkable. On March 21, 2005 he killed his grandfather (a tribal police sergeant), the grandfather’s girlfriend, took weapons and a bullet proof vest and drove his grandfather’s police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School. Wise shot and killed seven people and wounded five others. Unlike a lot of school shootings, this massacre occurred in the afternoon between 2:45-3:00 pm. The victims included five students, a teacher, and an unarmed security guard at the entrance of the school. Wise engaged in a shootout with the police and after being wounded he killed himself in a classroom.
- Umpqua Community College Roseburg OR – 10
Christopher Harper-Mercer was a 26-year-old student that attended Umpqua Community College pawned a shot gun and got a handgun just two days prior to his killing spree however, he owned at least 9 other guns and that one was not used for the murders at Umpqua College. The shooter told the police that he did not shoot the people he liked so he could have his story told. The mother of the shooter said her son was born angry and had Asperger’s syndrome which can lead to behavioral meltdowns and limit social development. He, like many others stopped taking his medication because of the side effects. On the morning of October, 2015 Harper-Mercer took the lives of 10 people and wounded 9 more.
- Santa Fe High School TX – 10
17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis plotted to kill people at Santa Fe High School in Texas and then commit suicide but was too much of a coward to take his own life. Pipe bombs and molotov cocktails were found at the school and thought to be brought in by Pagourtzis. In the early morning of May 18, 2018, Dimitrios took the lives of 8 students, two teachers, physically injured 13 other individuals and changed the lives of all involved.
- Columbine – 15
The Columbine massacre was a horrible event in the United states history however, most are not aware that we could have had hundreds of fatalities that day. On the morning of April 20, 1999 Dylan Klebold 18 and Eric Harris 17 placed two duffel bags containing a 20-pound propane bomb in the school cafeteria and returned to their cars waiting to blow up hundreds of people which they had been planning for a year. Klebold and Harris went on a shooting spree only after the bomb failed to detonate. It might not seem like it but, this was a blessing in disguise because a bomb would have more than likely left far more fatalities. The two teens killed 13 people before killing themselves.
- University of Texas-Austin – 15
University of Texas student Charles Whitman also a 25-year-old former marine armed himself with guns and ammunition on August 1st 1966. He went to the tower of the observation deck of the University of Texas and right before noon he began to hold the campus in a state of terror for 96 minutes. That day Whitman killed 14 people then wounded 31 people of which 2 died at later times due to injuries sustained at the shooting. Two police officers made their way to the top of the tower and were able to corner Whitman and then shot and killed him. Whitman had murdered his wife and mother earlier prior to his rampage at the University of Texas.
- Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Parkland, FL – 17
Nikolas Cruz was a 19-year-old former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland FL who had been expelled due to his behavior. On the afternoon of February 14, 2018 Cruz exited his Uber wearing a backpack, a shirt with the school logo and carrying a black duffel bag packed with and a R-15 semi-automatic rifle which they say was purchased legally. The school staff had been warned that Cruz was a risk to student safety so when a staff member saw him outside they initiated a school lockdown however, it was too late. Cruz began to fire a stream of bullets the door of the freshmen building and in under 2 minutes he injured 13 people and murdered 11. In the final 45 seconds of the attack on the third floor he killed his last 6 victims and injured four more. The entire attack lasted four minutes and Cruz ditched the weapon escaped the school but was later apprehended after running to Walmart, getting a drink at Subway and then heading to McDonalds.
- Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre – 27
The morning of December 14th, 2012 was a sad day for our country when 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire in Newtown Connecticut at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He killed 20 first grade students, 6 school employees and injured two additional employees before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide. The perpetrator Lanza shot through a glass window in order to gain access to the locked school. The first two victims were the principal and a school psychologist that went to investigate the noise. Next Lanza went to two different classrooms where he gunned down two teachers and five students in one room and two teachers and 15 students in another room. The police learned that lance’s mother owned the weapons he used during the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre. Lanza shot and killed his mother before going on his rampage that awful day in 2012.
- Virginia Tech Massacre – 33
On the morning of April 16th, 2007, a 23-year-old male name Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree at Virginia Polytechnic institute and State University in Blacksburg VA. Cho first shot two people in a campus dormitory which was a male resident assistant and a female freshmen then he fled the building. The school did not issue a campus wide warning of the first two shootings and perhaps if they had, the number of fatalities could have been greatly reduced. The police were not aware of Cho’s identity and assumed it was an isolated domestic violence incident between the freshmen victim and her boyfriend so the boyfriend was the initial suspect. After Cho fled the dormitory he went to a classroom building where he locked and chained several of the main doors then proceeded on a rampage going room to room shooting people with two different handguns. Cho shot himself approximately 10 minutes after the rampage began. However, before his suicide he left 23 people wounded, 5 faculty members and 27 students dead. There was a total of 33 deaths at the Virginia Tech Massacre.
