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 Stockton schoolyard shooting Jan 17, 1989

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 Stockton schoolyard shooting Jan 17, 1989

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On January 17th, 1989 in California a young male dressed as a military member went to a school and opened fire upon children. The children were playing on the playground during the time of the shooting. He ended up killing 5 students ages 6-9 years old.  30 children and 1 teacher were wounded while 15 children were in critical condition. The shooter was Patrick West he was 24 years old. He had a long criminal history. The gun he used was an AK-47 it was a Russian design. He ended up committing suicide after he was done shooting.

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Overlooked History is a Teen Vogue series about the undersung figures and events that shaped the world.

For the students of Cleveland Elementary School, January 17, 1989, started out like any other Tuesday. Then, around lunchtime, the children flocked outside for recess. Sinath "Mike" Vann, who was in second grade at the time, remembers being on the playground when he heard the gunshots. "I was confused because I didn't know what was happening, but I remember also being excited," the Stockton, California native told Teen Vogue. "I thought the gunshots were fireworks."

As kids played, 24-year-old Patrick Purdy parked his car behind the school, approached the playground, and spent the next several minutes firing 105 shots into the crowd of children with a semiautomatic assault rifle, killing five and injuring 30 others, including a teacher, before killing himself.

All of the victims - Sokhim An (six), Ram Chun (eight), Oeun Lim (eight), Rathanar Or (nine), and Thuy Tran (six) - were Southeast Asian: four Cambodian, one Vietnamese, and all children of refugees who had escaped violence in their homelands only to experience unthinkable tragedy in the United States. The last words Purdy reportedly uttered were exchanged with another guest at the motel he was staying in, just an hour before the shooting: "The damn Hindus and boat people own everything."

The Stockton schoolyard shooting, as it's often referred to, was considered one of the nation's worst school shootings at the time. While it initially drew national attention, inspiring TIME's "Armed America" cover story and a school visit from Michael Jackson, as well as helping to pave the way for the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, not many Americans outside of Stockton are familiar with the shooting today. Even fewer know the shooting was a racially motivated attack against Asians.

Patrick Blanchfield, an academic and journalist whose forthcoming book Gunpower: The Structure of American Violence covers the Stockton shooting in its first chapter, remarked on how relevant the shooting feels today: "I think what makes reading about the shooting so strange is its uncanny familiarity," Blanchfield told Teen Vogue. "It happened in '89, but it could be something that happened yesterday. You've heard this story before."

Teen Vogue's interview with Blanchfield took place just weeks before the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two adults were killed.

In 1989, Stockton had one of the largest populations of Southeast Asians of any California city; about 1 in 6 current residents was born in Southeast Asia, according to the report. The communities consisted mainly of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees who had fled the violence of the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

"I wasn't born in the United States, but the strange thing is that I only remember Stockton," said Vann, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand before immigrating with his family. "We grew up in a rough area, low-income, with the majority of the neighborhood being Asian people just like us coming from similar backgrounds, all refugees from war-torn countries."

Because of the large population of immigrants, the school district designated three schools to provide bilingual services to students, one of which was Cleveland Elementary School. At the time of the shooting, 70% of the school's population was Southeast Asian.

Years earlier, Purdy had attended the same school. Purdy, a white man who grew up in Stockton and lived there for much of his adult life, had a troubled childhood. His father was absent early in his life, his mother neglected him, and he had told coworkers she was an alcoholic. As he got older, he built an extensive rap sheet that included arrests for drug possession, prostitution, and vandalism, along with other crimes.

When Purdy set foot onto the Cleveland Elementary School playground, he was dressed head to toe in paramilitary garb: camouflage shirt, green flak jacket, blue jeans, and black boots. Authorities searched his motel room afterwards and found, among other things, several dozen plastic toy soldiers standing guard, including one on the TV stand, another on the bathroom curtain rod, and one waiting inside the motel's fridge-freezer.

"At the time there were analysts saying Purdy wasn't any more racist than other white people living in post-Vietnam War Stockton," Blanchfield said. "But we can read it. It's legible. There is no excuse for Purdy's actions. He's clearly part of a seething undercurrent of anti-Asian racism. But he's also a victim of white male patriarchy and of war."

Blanchfield says the police call for gun control in the aftermath of the Stockton shooting, with a special emphasis on banning Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles like the one Purdy used, took precedence in the media over highlighting Purdy's anti-Asian racism and violence. "Instead of talking about the actual dead Asian refugee children killed by an actual white supremacist, almost immediately the police and then the media and politicians start talking about hypothetical victims and cops that could be killed by this powerful weapon," Blanchfield said. "When these events happen, instead of talking structurally about the factors that led to this event, there are other issues relevant to powerful groups they bring up, like, 'let's find ways to assert more police forces.'"

In October 1989, nine months after the shooting, the office of California attorney general John K. Van de Kamp released a 99-page investigative report that seemed to confirm what many community members and advocates already knew: Purdy's actions were motivated by racial hatred against Southeast Asians. According to the detailed report, in 1988, "Purdy expressed to coworkers that he did not like competing against the Southeast Asians for jobs" and that the United States "was letting all the Vietnamese and communists into the country."

Just six years earlier, similar language was reportedly used by two white men just before they beat Vincent Chin, a Chinese American celebrating his bachelor party, to death. In that case, the perpetrators' racism was also exacerbated by economic competition, as the two Chrysler workers mistakenly associated Chin with the booming Japanese auto industry.

The Van de Kamp report also noted that weeks before the shooting, Purdy visited a bar and complained about the Vietnamese receiving compensation from the government before saying, as he left, "You're going to read about me in the papers."

The report concluded with recommendations pulled from the Final Report of the Attorney General's Asian and Pacific Islander Advisory Committee, a 129-page document published in response to the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes just weeks before the Stockton school shooting. The Van de Kamp report echoed the recommendation that the California State Board of Education should encourage schools to adopt ethnic studies curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade. California became the first state to require ethnic studies in high school only last year, in 2021.

But by the time the report came out, much of the American public had moved on from Stockton. Those who lived in the city, however, did not - could not. Vann remembers growing up "with a lot of hate and darkness in my heart" and internalizing his feelings. "Even though I went through a shooting at a young age, I'd look at [my parents] and think, How can I say I'm struggling when my parents have been through worse?" Vann said. "And I think that's what happened to a lot of people at my school. A lot of us have the same background, have parents who walked through landmines and saw family members blown up and killed. There's nothing that can compare to that."

But after volunteering at the local YMCA as an adult and discovering his passion for working with at-risk youth, he began opening up and sharing his story. Vann was offered a job at the YMCA and began his nonprofit career, moving up to become the senior director of community development. He's now a community service officer with the Stockton Police Department, where he specializes in training new recruits to build relationships with the community. "Over time, building connections with others has taught me that racism doesn't have a place anywhere, and just because one person does something to you doesn't mean everyone is the same," Vann said.

Today, there are some in Stockton who are committed to honoring the memories of the five children who were killed. Six teachers who survived the shooting officially formed Cleveland School Remembers after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 and hold memorials to honor the lives lost.

Vann says some of his classmates moved away over the years and never returned home. And while he understands the sentiment, he's told his own kids about the shooting as a way to impart an important life lesson. "Patrick Purdy was a racist, but I know he wasn't born that way," Vann said. "There's imperialism there; there are things in this country that are set up for people to become that way. And if they're in the right type of setting, it can become reality. But I tell my kids the biggest thing we can do is talk to people. Maybe if someone approached Patrick Purdy and spent more time with him, he wouldn't have come to my playground with an AK-47."

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Overlooked History is a Teen Vogue series about the undersung figures and events that shaped the world. For the students of Cleveland Elementary School, January 17, 1989, started out like any other Tuesday. Then, around lunchtime, the children flocked outside for recess.

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The act was introduced to the senate February 8th 1989. The act makes an Amends the Federal criminal code to make it illegal to transfer, import, convey, export, receive, or possess: (1) any assault weapon; and (2) a large-capacity detachable magazine or ammunition belt that can be used with a semiautomatic firearm. Excludes transfers to and possession by a Federal, State, or local government body, as well as lawful possessions prior to specified periods.

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On the morning of May 21, 1998, Kep Kinkel put on a trench coat and armed himself with 3 guns, a filled backpack of ammo, and a hunting knife. 2 students were killed and 25 others were injured. After he was arrested the detectives went to his home and found both of his parents shot and dead. He shot them the night prior to the school shooting.

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Kip Kinkel, now 38, spoke to the HuffPost about the murder of his parents and the subsequent school shooting where he killed 2 students and injured 25 more.

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - Kip Kinkel, who shot and killed his parents before going to Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon in 1998, and killing two classmates and injuring 25 more, has given his first news interview.

He told HuffPost he feels "tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt." Kinkel, now 38, is serving a de facto life sentence.

He said he felt guilty not just for what he did as a 15-year-old suffering from then-undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, but the effect his crime has had on other juvenile offenders sentenced to life terms: His case has been held up by some of his victims and by others to oppose juvenile justice reform in the state.

HuffPost points out that detractors of Senate Bill 1008, which was passed in 2019 and changed the way juveniles were prosecuted in Oregon, making it difficult to prosecute children as adults and offered early release options for those who showed signs of rehabilitation, used Kinkel's case as an example of those who should not be able to benefit from the bill.

An amendment was made to the bill to exclude anyone who had been sentenced before SB 1008 had been passed. Kinkel told HuffPost that when the amendment went through and he saw potential second chances at life slip away for his friends, other people who had been tried as adults when they were children, he knew he was being used as an example. He thought his silence may be doing more harm than good.

"I've never done this. I've never done an interview," Kinkel told HuffPost. "Partly because I feel tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt for what I did. And there's an element of society that glorifies violence, and I hate the violence that I'm guilty of. I've never wanted to do anything that's going to bring more attention."

He was described as making a great effort over the years to stay out of the public eye, for fear of causing further trauma to the victims of his crimes and their families.

"I have responsibility for the harm that I caused when I was 15. But I also have responsibility for the harm that I am causing now as I'm 38 because of what I did at 15," he said.

Kinkel described to HuffPost the voices he heard and the mounting paranoia that made him feel he had no choice but to commit the crimes that he did.

The HuffPost piece goes on to detail Kinkel's childhood, the arrival of the voices later to be diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia, and details of the killing of his parents and his account of what happened when he walked into Thurston High that day in 1998.

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Thurston High School shooter speaks out for first time, expresses 'tremendous shame and guilt'

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Kip Kinkel, now 38, spoke to the HuffPost about the murder of his parents and the subsequent school shooting where he killed 2 students and injured 25 more. SPRINGFIELD, Ore. - Kip Kinkel, who shot and killed his parents before going to Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon in 1998, and killing two classmates and injuring 25 more, has given his first news interview.

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Heritage High School shooting May 20, 1999

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Heritage High School shooting May 20, 1999

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15 year old TJ Solomon walked into school on May 20, 1999 with a 22 caliber rifle. He ended up wounding 6 students one was critically injured. This shooting took place one month after the Columbine school shooting they suspected that Solomon might have been a copy cat of the Columbine shooter. He was originally sentenced to 40 years then 20 years in the end he only served 17 years.

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CNN WEB SITES:

Injured students are airlifted from the school

RELATED VIDEO

CNN's Sean Callebs describes the shooting (May 20)

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Are schools safe?

Student in custody; motive unknown
May 20, 1999
Web posted at: 2:38 p.m. EDT (1838 GMT)

CONYERS, Georgia (CNN) -- Six students were injured, one critically, on Thursday when a gunman opened fire at Heritage High School in suburban Atlanta before being disarmed by an assistant principal.

One student, a 15-year-old girl, was hospitalized in critical condition. The other injuries are said to be non-life-threatening.

The gunman, identified only as a sophomore at the school, was taken into custody and at least one weapon, a .22-caliber rifle, was recovered, said Rockdale County Sheriff Jeff Wigington.

There was no immediate word on a motive for the shootings, which came just before the start of classes on the last day of school for seniors at Heritage.

The school, which has about 1,300 students, is in Conyers, Georgia, about 30 miles east of Atlanta.

Students gathered outside the school on a track after the shooting, then began boarding buses to head home. School Superintendent Don Peccia said the school's graduation ceremony will go on as scheduled May 28.

The school was closed and swept for bombs as a precaution, although there was no evidence that explosives were inside.

Motive?

Students gather outside Heritage High School as emergency personnel rush injured students to Atlanta-area hospitals

Chris Dunn, a sophomore who said he knows the gunman, said he had seen guns at the student's home but that the gunman never said he was thinking about shooting anyone at school.

But Katie Bir, a freshman and a friend of the gunman's girlfriend, said, "People have been saying he's been wanting to do this all year long."

Dunn said the gunman's grades had fallen recently. "He wasn't even trying anymore, which I was kind of concerned about."

Diarmed by assistant principal

The shootings started at 8:03 a.m. in the School Commons, a break area where hundreds of students usually gather before class, and ended 12 minutes later, said Rockdale County Commission Chairman Norman Wheeler.

A witness, senior William Britt, told CNN affiliate WSB-TV the gunman had both a rifle and a revolver and acted as if he would shoot himself, too. "He put the revolver in his mouth, but he didn't shoot himself," Britt said.

But Wigington said police recovered only a .22-caliber rifle.

Student William Britt says he heard gun shots in the school halls
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Bill Price, a sophomore at Heritage, also witnessed some of the gunfire, but said he was too far away to see who was shooting. "Some guy was in front of the girls' bathroom in the common area, just firing off shots," he told WSB-TV. "He was going to take off running... but they stopped him before he did."

Wigington said an assistant principal disarmed the gunman.

Heritage High has no metal detectors but does employ a campus policeman, and some areas of the school are equipped with surveillance cameras.

Columbine 'copycat'?

The shooting comes one month to the day after the massacre at Columbine High School in the Denver suburb of Littleton in which two high school students murdered 13 people in a shooting rampage.

President Bill Clinton was to visit Littleton on Thursday to console students and families of victims.

Before leaving Washington, he called the Georgia shootings "deeply troubling."

Student Bill Price says officials stopped the shooter when he tried to run

"This incident again should underscore how profoundly important it is that all Americans come together in the face of these events to protect all of our children from violence," the president said.

Attorney General Janet Reno referred to the Conyers shooting as a "copycat" shooting.

"When we see some of these copycat events, it is because people want attention and they want to have a focus on them. I think this is indicative of again the need to reach out to young people and to try to address what causes this," Reno said at a Washington news conference.

"Our thoughts and prayers go to the victims, to their families, and our hearts go out with wishes for quick recovery," she said.

The shooting occurred during a week in which the Senate has been debating laws that would strengthen requirements for background checks for gun buyers. "We have got to do this," Clinton said.

CNN affiliate WSB-TV contributed to this report

RELATED STORIES:
6 injured in Georgia high school shooting
May 20, 1999
Senate juvenile crime bill in trouble
May 17, 1999
The truth about gun shows
May 14, 1999
Industry -- but not NRA -- backs some restrictions on guns
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First lady urges parents to keep kids away from guns
May 10, 1999
Gun industry caught in image bind after school massacre
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Report: Harris and friends tried to buy machine gun
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RELATED SITES:
Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno
Heritage High School Home Page
Rockdale County Public Schools
Conyers Online
WSBTV

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CNN WEB SITES: Injured students are airlifted from the school RELATED VIDEO CNN's Sean Callebs describes the shooting (May 20) Windows Media 28K 80K SPECIAL SECTION: Are schools safe? Student in custody; motive unknown May 20, 1999 Web posted at: 2:38 p.m.

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Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act

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Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act

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In 2005, Congress enacted the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA),1 a federal law that gives manufacturers,2 sellers, and importers 3 of "qualified goods," which include firearms, ammunition, or component components of a firearm or ammunition, wide immunity from many lawsuits. 4 PLCAA grants broad immunity from lawsuits to nationally licensed manufacturers, federally licensed firearm dealers and importers, and entities involved in the wholesale or retail sale of ammunition. 5 (This immunity also applies to certain firearm and ammunition business trade associations) (This immunity also extends to certain firearm and ammunition industry trade associations). 6

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Giffords Law Center Annual Gun Law Scorecard

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Giffords Law Center Annual Gun Law Scorecard. Supported by evidence which shows that states with stronger gun laws have lower gun death rates, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence advocates for stronger gun safety laws in all fifty states....

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On October 1 while a country music festival was being held a gunman was in a hotel room with multiple firearms. Then the gunman decided to open fire upon the Las Vegas strip the shooting lastest 10 minutes but he fired more than 1,000 rounds of bullets. There were 58 killed and over 800 people injured. The shooter was Stephan Paddock who was 64 years old at the time. He had 23 guns in the hotel room. When a security guard went to check on an open door alert he found the entrance was barracked so he found an alternative way. When he arrived at Paddock's door he was shot in the leg. When the authorities breached his room they found him dead with a gunshot wound to his head.

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On this day in 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd attending the final night of a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800. Although the shooting only lasted 10 minutes, the death and injury tolls made this massacre the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time of the attack.

Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired man who lived in Mesquite, Nevada, targeted the crowd of concert-goers on the Las Vegas strip from the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. He had checked into the hotel several days before the massacre.

Paddock began firing at the crowd at 10:05 p.m. using an arsenal of 23 guns, 12 of which were upgraded with bump stocks - a tool used to fire semi-automatic guns in rapid succession. Within the 10-minute period, he was able to fire more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition.

An open-door alert sent hotel security guard Jesus Campos to investigate the 32 floor at the start of the shooting. After arriving on the floor via the stairs, Campos couldn't get past a barricade blocking the entrance so he used the elevator instead. While walking through the hall, he heard a drilling sound coming from Paddock's room and was shot in the leg, through the door.

Once authorities were alerted, they arrived at Paddock's suite at 10:17 p.m. and didn't breach for nearly another hour at 11:20 p.m. Paddock was found dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His motives remain unknown.

In addition to the arsenal of weaponry found in Paddock's hotel room, a note calculating how to attack the crowd based on trajectory and distance was also found. Authorities concluded that Paddock had no connections with terrorist groups such as ISIS and that his planned attack was carried out without accomplices.

The deadly shooting horrified the country and sparked debate over gun control legislation once again, with gun-control advocates claiming that Paddock's use of bump stocks led to increased causalities. In response, President Trump said that he was open to banning the product, but would want to learn more about them first. One year following the shooting, 11 states had banned bump stocks and more than a dozen additional states and cities were considering bans.

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On this day in 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd attending the final night of a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800. Although the shooting only lasted 10 minutes, the death and injury tolls made this massacre the deadliest mass shooting in U.S.

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The shooting was reported a little before 1 p.m. Around 20 minutes after the shooting the police had 3 suspects in custody. The shooting stemmed from what was said an "ongoing gang dispute" There were 2 people killed and 1 seriously injured during the shooting. The shooter is Preston Walls 18 years of age has been charged with 2 accounts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and gang participation. The motive is unknown.

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Michigan Senate introduces new gun bills 

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Michigan Senate introduces new gun bills 

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In February of 2023, Michigan Senate introduced new bills. Called the eleven-bill package it would require a criminal background check whenever a person would like to purchase a firearm. It would also make people safely store firearms along with people who don't safely store firearms will be charged and punished. This is to try and keep people from harming themselves or others with firearms.

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Michigan Senate Democrats filed a host of gun-related bills Thursday in the wake of a mass shooting at Michigan State University.

The eleven-bill package spanning from SB 76 through SB 86 would require criminal background checks when purchasing a firearm. It would also incentivize people to store their guns safely and punish those who don't if their firearms fall into the wrong hands.

A third part of the package details so-called "red-flag law" provisions that aim to keep guns out of the hands of anyone deemed a threat to themselves or others.

Senator Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) said students at Michigan State have been demanding action.

"Those students are grieving. They want you to know that they want to be seen. They want to be heard. They don't want to be lectured, they don't want to be told what can be done, what can't be done," Singh told the state Senate.

Some Republican lawmakers also stepped up to the podium to deliver remarks on Monday's shooting during session Thursday.

Senator Mike Webber (R-Rochester Hills) offered words of solidarity.

"I share your grief, I share your pain, and I share your anger," Webber said. "We must resolve to work together in a bipartisan fashion to offer solutions to help resolve this problem. We must take a holistic approach."

Democratic senators called on Republicans to join in and co-sponsor their bills ahead of filing and introduction.

Many said lawmakers failed the victims of this week's violence by not acting sooner.

Last legislative session, Senator Rosemary Bayer (D-West Bloomfield) helped introduce a similar bill package after a shooting at Oxford High School in her district.

"It is upon us, specifically us here in this room, she said. "Us, to address this horrible problem. And I'm not talking about thoughts and prayers."

"Not that thoughts and prayers are bad - never hurts - but we need action now," Bayer said.

In previous sessions, similar legislation has failed to advance under Republican control of the Legislature.

No GOP members signed onto Thursday's package as a co-sponsor.

In his floor speech, Senator Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) said he'd also like to see the violence end. But he didn't touch upon the Democratic proposal.

"Our great collective challenge of course is to determine how to stop it. I do believe and hope that a starting point for common ground here in the chamber can be stronger enforcement of our existing laws," Runestad said.

It's not clear whether stronger enforcement would have averted Monday's shooting. Police said Thursday that when they found the suspected MSU shooter, he was carrying two guns. They said he bought them legally, despite pleading guilty to a previous weapons crime.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has introduced its own school safety package.

Those bills run from HB 4088 through HB 4100 and mainly deal with school mental health support and meeting other recommendations outlined in last year's School Safety Task Force Final Report.

House Democrats have pledged their own gun legislation, which could come as early as Wednesday.

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Michigan Senate introduces gun bills following MSU shooting

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Michigan Senate Democrats filed a host of gun-related bills Thursday in the wake of a mass shooting at Michigan State University. The eleven-bill package spanning from SB 76 through SB 86 would require criminal background checks when purchasing a firearm.