Talk:Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Removed statement

Deleted sentence: "She is one of the few known female mass murderers in United States history." --Fred 19:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Copyvio?

This page, particularly the third paragraph, reads too much like a direct paste of the snopes page (as another editor has noted above). Should it be tagged as potential copyvio until rewritten? DWaterson 00:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Song

Should the song actually be redirected here? I mean it's different. WestJet —Preceding undated comment added 22:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with WestJet. Like many big musical hits on wikipedia, the song should have its own page. Admittedly, they should be tightly interlinked. Frevidar

I agree as well. There is no reason why older songs like I Don't Like Mondays get reduced to subsections of existing articles while individual Britney Spears songs merit their own articles. The articles on I Don't Like Mondays and Brenda Ann Spencer should be separate, but interlinked. 66.17.105.226 19:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the song should be re-relised in the uk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.7.56.3 (talk) 09:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the song should have its own article --Melly42 09:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Have done so; I Don't Like Mondays. (Yorkshiresky 12:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC))

Student ?

was Brenda Spencer a student at the time of the shootings? Thanks Hmains 03:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Brenda Spencer was a 10th grade student a Patrick Henry High School at the time of the shootings.70.181.238.100 07:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Removed link for school

I removed the red link for Cleveland Elementary School. It no longer exists [1] and thus is unlikely to generate a Wikipedia article. --GentlemanGhost 12:48, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability

Is there a Wikipedia guideline for notability for murderers and/or school shootings? It's a sad fact that murder is not an uncommon event and not every murder is notable, so I can understand why we wouldn't try to list them all. But surely, this one is more notable than many. As the San Diego Union-Tribune article I just added as a reference says, this event occurred at a time when school shootings were unknown. Also, its impact is reflected in the fact that it influenced an artist in another part of the world to write a song about it. --GentlemanGhost 21:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The regular notability for people guidelines would apply to them as well. Specifically "A person is presumed to be notable enough for a standalone article if they have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." So far, only one reliable secondary source seems to have been found which mostly mentions her in passing (which would not be significant coverage). AnmaFinotera 21:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

At the time, it received plenty of news coverage, but it happened so long ago that the sources are primarily offline. I'd probably have to go digging through microfiche archives at the library to find them. The current reference is not the ideal source, but it seemed a reasonable placeholder until a better source can be identified. --GentlemanGhost 21:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

True. Some newspapers have their archives online, but charge, while the microfiche archives are still free (I have fond memories of researching like that). Another option is some of the big online databases of articles, which are often accessible for free on college campuses (if you live near one). I have access to those as I work for a university, but unfortunately I have no time for much researching right now. AnmaFinotera 21:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Good Housekeeping published a retrospective article on the tragedy called "Look back in sorrow" that I found in its entriety on the online database called 'Infotrac'. It states that:

That wasn't the case on January 29, 1979, when Grover Cleveland Elementary became the target in the country's first high-profile school shooting, ground zero in an undeclared war in which children shoot children. The morning school bell had just rung in the quiet San Diego suburb, and children were trickling into their classrooms when a 16-year-old girl named Brenda Spencer took aim through the telescopic sight of her .22-caliber rifle from her house across the street.

Principal Burton Wragg was in the front office having a last cup of coffee with sixth-grade teacher Daryl Barnes when they heard what sounded like firecrackers going off outside. "Pop, pop, pop" is how Barnes remembers it. Wragg charged out the front door while Barnes headed for a side door to investigate. As Barnes looked toward the front of the school, he saw Wragg stooping over a crying child on the ground. Suddenly, the principal spun around and fell backwards into some bushes, a red stain spreading across his chest. Barnes grabbed a couple of children and herded them into the office, shouting at the secretary to call the police. He rushed back outside to pick up another fallen child and heard three more shots ring out, realizing as he scrambled back to safety that he was now in the sniper's sights. As Barnes tried to calm the panicky children, he spotted custodian Mike Suchar with a blanket in his hand, running toward Wragg. "Before I could scream a warning, he spun. I heard him say, `My God, I've been hit,' before he fell. Then a whole carload of children came up, and I was screaming, Get the car out of here, get out!" The car screeched away.

Several miles away, in the intensive care unit of Alvarado Hospital, the young charge nurse, Joyce Warren, heard the alarm go off for a "Code Blue"--an external disaster. She called dispatch and was stunned to hear the news: There had been a shooting at an elementary school, and casualties were expected. As police barricaded the neighborhood and deployed the SWAT team, reporters from the local newspaper began calling residences nearby. By chance, they reached Brenda Spencer, who readily admitted she was the one firing at the school; the rifle, they would later learn, had been a Christmas gift from her father. When asked why she was doing it, Brenda replied matter-of-factly: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." By the time it was all over, Wragg and Suchar were dead, and a policeman and eight children were wounded. Revolutionaryluddite 23:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It also reported:

Brenda pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, eight counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of assault on a peace officer. She was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Because there was no trial, few details about her family or her past came to light. The Spencers were divorced; Brenda and her older brother lived with their father. Kids in the neighborhood would later say Brenda had a reputation for torturing cats and had dug a series of tunnels in her backyard; adults would describe her as quiet and a loner. The year before the shooting, Brenda and a friend were caught vandalizing Cleveland Elementary--throwing paint in classrooms, overturning desks--but the incident was treated as a typical juvenile prank.

The San Diego County district attorney's (DA) office, whose investigation of Brenda Spencer eventually filled dozens of boxes, privately concluded that she was a sociopath. "We interviewed a friend of hers who admitted the two of them had been planning to kill someone for some time," says Andrea Crisanti, the deputy DA currently assigned to monitor the case in the event Brenda requests parole. "They decided they wanted to kill a cop, to see what that would feel like. Their first plan was to go up to a policeman sitting in a patrol car, and Brenda would go to the passenger window and distract him, and the friend would take Brenda's .22 and shoot him from the driver's side. Then they thought maybe they'd handcuff him to the steering wheel and shoot him with his own service revolver. Then they decided they would lure him into a public rest room--throw eggs at the car or something--and swing an ax and kill him there. This is the mind-set of Brenda Spencer."

After police arrived at the school, Brenda Spencer barricaded herself inside the house for more than six hours; when she finally surrendered, police found more than 200 rounds of ammunition in the house, which investigators described as filthy. During the siege, police commandeered a garbage truck and parked it in front of the Spencer house, trying to block the school from Brenda's line of fire.

Not long after Brenda Spencer went to jail, Wallace Spencer, her father, married her 17-year-old cellmate. They had a child together, and the little girl attended Christy's preschool. She resembled Brenda

It bothers her that Brenda Spencer never has accepted responsibility; she has at various times alleged that police SWAT team members actually shot the children, or that she was on hallucinogenic drags at the time and prosecutors faked a clean toxicology report, or that she didn't understand the guilty plea when she signed it.

For almost 20 years now, Wallace Spencer has maintained a public silence about his daughter's crime. He and his ex-wife have attended Brenda's parole hearings, and prison authorities say Brenda receives occasional visits from members of her family.

Revolutionaryluddite 23:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

(back indent) I agree that most school shooters would not be notable, but this incident-- like the sniper in the tower-- is notable because it was one of the first attempted mass murders in modern American History and probably the first widely-reported school shooting.[2] [3] [4] [5]. Revolutionaryluddite 23:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Caution

Brenda's gait and manner, visible in a video on Youtube, suggest that she was sober at the time. In general, all attempts to minimise or excuse her behaviour should be treated with caution. The alcohol and PCP were probably non-existent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 09:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Mistake

There is a mistake in this article. It says that "I Don't Like Mondays" reached #1 on the UK charts in July of 1979. The album wasn't released until October of that year. I'm not sure if anyone wants to fix that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.208.134.63 (talk) 00:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Not a mistake. The song was released prior to the album. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.16.190 (talk) 04:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Pick of the pops on BBC radio 2 for Sat 21st August 2010 played the chart from the corrosponding date in 1979. The song was number 1 on their charts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.222.82 (talk) 22:02, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits

I have reverted all of the recent edits to this article. Please make sure any sources used are Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which does not include Snopes, IMDB trivia, Song Facts, opinion pieces, or self-published personal views (the SDCDA PDF). In particular, because this is an article about a living person, the requirements for sources are much stricter, and must come from high quality neutral sources. Make sure to thoroughly read (and understand) the Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons policy before editing this article. AnmaFinotera 20:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you undid my recent edit. From the Union-Trib article:

"In the 28 years since that tragedy, violence has plagued schools from St. Louis to Stockton, from Littleton, Colo., to Santee. But when 16-year-old Brenda Spencer used a .22-caliber rifle to kill Wragg and custodian Michael Suchar and wound nine others, the term “schoolyard shooting” was almost unknown."

and

"A SWAT team captured Spencer after a six-hour standoff. Today, she's in the California Institution for Women in Corona, serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life."

While this doesn't support everything currently in the article, it does establish some basics. --GentlemanGhost 21:20, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not see the line confirming where she is. I had to undo your revision again, though because you are also changed the category tags. However, I let the reference stay until a better one is found and fixed it to be properly formatted and cited. AnmaFinotera 21:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. The formatting looks good. I don't know if it matters, but the source is technically from the Oct. 6 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune. However, I thought the link to the web version of the article would be more useful to people.

As far as the categories go, I thought that defaultsort pretty much put everything in the right order, so I was trying to clean up the extraneous text. Sorry if it screwed something up. Thanks, GentlemanGhost 21:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I clarified the reference to note that SignOn is the online version of the San Diego Union-Tribune. :) I think the Default Sort is okay, except one of the cats was using something different from it so it needed to stay :) AnmaFinotera 21:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• To AnmaFinotera: Please explain which sources in particular are disputed and why you do not think each source qualifies as a reliable source. Revolutionaryluddite 22:44, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

In particular, why don't you think Time magazine is a reliable source? Revolutionaryluddite 22:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I explained it above. None of these are valid: Snopes, IMDB trivia, Song Facts, opinion pieces, or self-published personal views (the SDCDA PDF), especially for an article on a living person. Time wasn't in the last version, unless its the one that is messed up (showing as Cite has no text). Also, the reverts were explained and then clarified here. If you have further questions about why those sources are not valid for this article, please read the policies noted above or ask.

Again, why don't you think these are valid? Please comment below as to why each source specifically is not valid.Revolutionaryluddite 06:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I already have told you, twice now, which links are invalid and why. They do NOT meet the WP:Reliable sources guidelines. To help clarify further, I have struck through those below which do not meet the requirements for use as a source. The rest are fine, if properly cited where they are used and are used appropriately. A revert was done because there were multiple bad sources (and one broken one) and in an article about a living person the revert was the more appropriate option. With living person biographies and articles, such things are handled much more strictly than on a regular article (if it had been a regular article, a note would have been left and a chance to correct given first). If only the good ones are added back, then it is fine. AnmaFinotera 07:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Revolutionaryluddite 16:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Would the Good Housekeeping that I found later qualify as a reliable source? I didn't know the magazine published news pieces about current events until I found that one article. Revolutionaryluddite 16:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

That's actually a good question. Good Housekeeping isn't generally considered a news source since I don't think they tend to do the same level of verification and sourcing that a newspaper or even more academic publication might. If it is well sourced, it might be usable, but if a better alternative can be found that would be better. AnmaFinotera 21:26, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ten sources were added, all of which were removed for not being reliable sources:

• ""I Don't Like Mondays". Urban Legends Reference Pages.
• Crime Library. "School Killers" by Katherine Ramsland
• Crime Library. "Wicked Intent".
• A Statement by the district attorney.
• "20 Years Ago In TIME". Time Magazine.
• "Survivors Remember '79 Cleveland Elementary Shooting" San Diego Channel 10 news report.
• San Diego Union Tribune. "Brenda Spencer up for parole 25 years after school shooting" Published September 27, 2005.
• The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder By Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg
• http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=698
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/trivia

The only possible problems I can see are:

The use of Snopes as a secondary source for most of the information. With its removal, everything else in the article would be the same.

The use of imbd for The Breakfast Club reference. This is such an obscure minor trivia point that the sentence should be removed entirely.

The use of songfacts for the bit about the 'Mondays' song doing well in the charts. This is forgetable, and the sentence should be removed as well.

Otherwise, I don't understand what's being objected to. Revolutionaryluddite 23:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The minor factoid that exactly 36 shots were fired is of arguable notablity. Since there's only the WP:SPS supporting it, I can see why it should be removed. Revolutionaryluddite 06:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see why four minor sources out of the ten might be objected to, but I still do not understand the objection to the six other sources. Revolutionaryluddite 06:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

What was reverted without explanation with later explanation read:

On Monday, January 29, 1979, sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer used a rifle to wound eight children and one police officer at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and to kill school principal Burton Wragg and custodian Mike Suchar. The two men used their bodies to successfully shield the children. She fired off a full thirty-six shots before she gave up.

+ The school was just across the street from her house. She used the rifle that she had recently been given for Christmas by her father as he shot out from inside her house. Police officers sorrounded it, and Spencer kept them away for six hours.

+ Time reported that "..."Why did she do it?" asked an eight-year-old boy. Unfortunately, no one in authority could answer that question." When asked why she had committed the crime, Spencer replied, "I don't like Mondays; this livens up the day." She also said that "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun", "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond", and "[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings."

Wikipedia uses Snopes/Urband Legends to verify something is true? Well no kidding! Then someone takes Urband Legends out for NOT being reliable? Isn't that like the wolf asking the sheepdog to guard the flock? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.236.143.130 (talk) 16:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Aftermath + Psychatric examinations of Spencer revealed her history of substance abuse and obsession with violent films. Later evaluations pointed to her parent's divorce and her jealousy twoard other students from nuclear families as a major motive. She pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Corona." She has been eligible for parole four times and has been turned down each time, most recently in 2005. She will be eligible for parole again in 2009. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said in 2005 that "Brenda Spencer remains an unquestionable risk of harm to society if released. She shattered the lives of many innocent people and they are still healing more than 25 years later."

+ In 2005, she claimed that she was drunk and under the influence of PCP during the incident. She also stated that her father, Wallace Spencer, had sexually abused her as a child-- something she never said during the earlier years of her incarceration-- and that the goverment and her own attorney conspired to hide her drug test results. In her last parole hearing, she stated that "I'm very deeply sorry for what I have done to my victims and their families and friends. Not a day goes by that I don't think about what I did."

Media responses

Spencer's crime, her inital lack of remorse, and her inability to provide a serious explanation for her actions when captured inspired the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats, written by musician Bob Geldof. Spencer's parents tried in vain to prevent the song's release; it became a #1 hit in 32 different countries. The quote "I don't like Mondays" also appears written on a wall in the 1985 film The Breakfast Club.

References

Copied here just for convienience sake. Revolutionaryluddite 23:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Aside from the lack of sources, the current article also needs clean-up. Revolutionaryluddite 23:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

More reliable source issues

Query whether the Boomtown Rats site is a reliable source for the details of this incident. Also, the Mudcats forum by virtue of being a forum would not seem to be a reliable source. The original link was: "www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=35478#484334 The "official" story]; Mudcat.com, June 15, 2001". There was a link on that page titled "The 'official' story", but it now leads to a dead link (404). And snopes is still listed. There seemed to have been much objection noted above to the use of snopes, and I don't know what the latest party line is with respect to its reliability.Tkotc (talk) 04:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Snopes

This page seems to be blatantly taken from the snopes page on the same topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.54.57.105 (talk) 17:25, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

So what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.201.53 (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Snopes' reputation is vastly inflated, it is apparently written by two volunteers from their home; moreover isn't Snopes mainly concerned with debunking urban legends? It amazes me given some of the sources that aren't allowed around here, that Snopes is even considered a "reputable source." Given its importance as a seminal event I think it deserves greater rigor than the Snopes treatment. Is that "so what?" enough for you? 24.215.247.232 (talk) 00:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Dude, you're replying to a comment posted more than 5 years ago, when the article was very different from its present content. Nothing to see here any more. TJRC (talk) 00:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability

Her notabilty is not really that she is a ' murderer' (that word gives the lede an unencyclopedic tone in my opinion), because she has been convicted of two murders. Her noteabilty derives from her crimes and alleged ' Mondays' comment. WP:PERPETRATOR "The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role.[10] ". Overagainst (talk) 11:14, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Move request incoming

I am going to request a title move for this article in a couple of days (in conjunction with another page move and the creation of a disambiguation page). The change I propose for this article is far more extensive, however, as I feel the article needs to be refocused on the event, not the perpetrator, IAW Wikipedia's guideline on notability for criminal acts. None of the victims were independently notable, and Spencer herself has no notability beyond this one act. The incident itself may be notable, which is why I am suggesting a move and a refocus. My suggestion is to move this article to [[Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego]], to differentiate it from Cleveland School massacre, another shooting which occurred at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California. I am proposing moving that article to [[Cleveland Elementary School shooting (Stockton)]] to conform to NPOV guidelines and to clarify where the shooting occurred. I also propose creating a disambiguation page at [[Cleveland Elementary School shooting]], with links to both shooting articles, at whatever titles they are ultimately assigned.

As this is likely to be a contentious move/rewrite, I decided to start a discussion before proceeding with a unilateral change, but I suspect that there is some support for my interpretation of the guidelines and policies here; the section immediately preceding this one makes largely the same argument, and the notability section above that one (which dates back over five years), raises similar questions, although it pertains primarily to the notability of the person or the event; the rebuttals do much to establish notability for the event, but less so for Spencer herself. I'll wait a few days before before actually requesting a name change, though, because of the nature of the request and the resultant changes which will need to occur.

I have started a related discussion at Talk:Cleveland School massacre. Horologium (talk) 18:51, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I am against moving this page, since Brenda Spencer is one of the few school shooters who is probably more notable and well known than the shooting itself. (Lord Gøn (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2013 (UTC))

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego), other suggestions created as redirects. I should add that there's no prejudice against a follow-up RM provided it focuses solely on variations of the now-current title because, although there was a clear consensus the article should not be titled "Brenda Ann Spencer", what the new title should be was not exactly clear-cut. Jenks24 (talk) 12:14, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

---

Brenda Ann Spencer → 1979 Grover Cleveland Elementary School murders – WP:BLP1E, this is a biography article on a 1E notable person, notable only for the association with the crime perpetrated. Much as how other 1E-biography articles about criminals or victims have been renamed to become articles about the crimes that their notability derives from. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support a move and refocus, but oppose the suggested title. I completely agree that the article should be refocused and named for the crime rather than for her (of course, with a redirect from her name). That would be more in line with the recommendations at WP:CRIME. However, I don't like the proposed title "1979 Grover Cleveland Elementary School murders". I prefer the title suggested last month, "Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego)". (It can't be just "Cleveland Elementary School shooting" because there was (horribly) another shooting, ten years later, at another Cleveland Elementary School; that article is currently titled Cleveland School massacre and a retitling discussion is underway here.) Here's my analysis of the proposed title: 1) We don't need to say "Grover". The school was generally referred to as Cleveland Elementary.[6] 2) I don't like using the year as the disambiguator. The cities are far more helpful as disambiguators. 3) Other famous shooting incidents do not include the year. See Virginia Tech massacre, Columbine High School massacre, Amish school shooting, Northern Illinois University shooting, University of Iowa shooting, etc. 4) Other famous school shooting incidents are titled as "shooting" rather than as "murders". Bottom line, I agree that the article should be renamed and refocused (and I will help with the refocusing after the move is complete), but I prefer the titles Cleveland Elementary School shooting (San Diego) and Cleveland Elementary School shooting (Stockton). Also, I think hatlinks would be sufficient for the two articles and a disambiguation page is not needed. Changing my opinion based on the additional information from Horologium below; since there are four articles that could reasonably be called "Cleveland school shooting," I agree with the recent creation of that page as a DAB. --MelanieN (talk) 16:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article is primarily about the person, not just the event. --B2C 14:45, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The article should be rewritten to cover the event, rather than the person. Read the section above this one for my rationale on that. MelanieN (immediately above) also agrees that the article needs to be rewritten. Horologium (talk) 16:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If there is enough material for an article about the shooting then that article should be written. Once it exists, a merger can be proposed, but I think the current state of this article shows that it deserves its own article. --B2C 22:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support move and refocus, as I outlined in the previous section, but oppose the currently suggested title. My rationale (which has been reiterated by MelanieN) is to clarify between the multiple incidents at different schools of the same name. This morning, I discovered Cleveland school shooting, which (until last week) was a redirect to SuccessTech Academy shooting, a 2007 incident at a school in Cleveland, Ohio, which had been a stable link for five and a half years (it was created as a redirect to that incident on the same day as the shooting). On March 10, 2013, the same IP editor who initiated this move request changed that redirect to a disambiguation link with no fewer than four separate incidents, two of which were school shooting incidents in the city in Ohio, and the two shooting incidents in California which are the subjects of the current move requests. Contra Born2cycle's statement above, while there may be sufficient information to justify retention of this article at the current location (it meets the general threshold of Wikipedia's guideline on biographies of living persons, albeit weakly), it manifestly fails the subsection of that guideline which deals with perpetrators of criminal acts, which is why I suggested both a rename and a refocus. The IP editor took on board the need to refocus the article, but didn't consider the naming conventions of other incidents of a similar nature. I don't think that calling this a "murder" is NPOV, as there was more than one victim, and they were random targets. My suggestion — Cleveland Elementary School Shooting (San Diego) — addresses all of these concerns, and provides a consistent and neutral disambiguation for the two incidents of relatively equal prominence. I don't think that either article (for the two California schools) qualifies as a primary topic, which is why I suggested the disambiguation scheme. As for the two incidents in Ohio, neither of them occurred at an elementary school of any type, so a triple-barreled hatnote would allow for disambiguation of all four incidents without the separate page, but I think that having a single disambiguation page (and a redirect) would be preferable to having a wall of text in a hatnote. Horologium (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

  Re: the applicability of WP:PERP here, I suggest the following exception applies:

  "The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role."

  For example, she gets coverage in books like this one on Bullying from 2012. That's "sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role". --B2C 18:50, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know that a single paragraph of a book qualifies as "devot[ing] significant attention to the individual's role". While it is a bit more in-depth than the nine people whose deeds are mentioned immediately after her paragraph, it is no more than the author's coverage of the Columbine case, or the Virginia Tech case, or the Andrew Kehoe case (immediately prior to the discussion of Spencer) or any of the other cases throughout that chapter (which is not fully viewable in page preview). In fact, the cursory discussion of the unquestionably notable Columbine and Virginia Tech cases indicates that the focus is on neither the incidents nor the perpetrators, but rather the underlying connection between all of the cases (bullying, as the title of the book indicates). YMMV, of course, which is why we have discussions before renaming articles. Horologium (talk) 21:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The one reference is just one example demonstrating the coverage about her is sustained. I get almost 300 results in Google Books searching for her name in quotes[7]. I suggest just about any topic - person or otherwise - that gets that many hits in Google Books is clearly a notable topic that should have its own article in WP. --B2C 17:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

You cannot simply do a search of a name in Google Books and determine that the subject is notable because there are X number of hits. You might want to go through that list a little more carefully. First you need to discard anything from Hephaestus Books; Books, LLC; and General Books, LLC, which are nothing more than Wikipedia scrapes published on demand. Then start looking at the other sources, and see how many times Brenda Ann Spencer is mentioned. In a handful of cases, there might be more than a passing mention of her (simply mentioning her name, as some of these references do, is not enough). Then check to see if she is actually in the book (a lot of these books, such as family trees of notable families, have nothing to do with her at all, and need to be discarded). Finally, you need to click all of the way through the results; when I did the same search, I got 320 results, but after clicking through the first eight pages, that was all there was (80 hits). Of those 80, 16 are English language results from those three publishers, five are foreign-language results from the same publishers, five more are foreign-language tomes of various sorts, three are works of fiction which were published in 1972 and 1973, at least three are new printings of older books (from the 1860s to 1977), and more half don't seem to have any mention of her name at all. Of the results on the first page (the first 10), five are Wikipedia scrapes, one is a 4-page "art" book written by someone at the University of Tulsa who apparently shares a name, one has a single passing mention of her, and three have varying degrees of coverage (one of them does not have a preview of the chapter in which she is mentioned, a chapter about female school shooters). The second page is all passing mentions (in fact, in one of the results, her name is in the bibliography, where the author cites this article). On the third page, the only non-Wikipedia scrapes are a journal article which is the same article as the last result on the second page (published in two different collections) and a discussion of her that runs less than a column on a single page (the second column, visible in the snippet, is obviously about a different case altogether). I'll not dissect the remaining five pages of hots, but you should get the idea. The point is that while the shooting itself is notable, she really is not, especially in light of WP:PERP. The Stockton shooting case is an example of how I want to structure this, with a brief precis of the perpetrator in an article about the shooting incident. Horologium (talk) 19:16, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Or to put it another way, the ONLY thing she is notable for is the shooting. No-one would ever have heard of her otherwise. --MelanieN (talk) 20:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Plenty of notable people are notable for just one thing. That alone does not mean they are not sufficiently notable to have an article about them, especially if that one thing fuels ongoing and sustained coverage in reliable sources, which is the case here. --B2C 19:56, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Refocusing the article to be more in line with WP:CRIME is fine, but the proposed new name is horrible. Perhaps a dab from Cleveland school shooting would be better. And obviously, her name should be kept as a redirect. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

As with any title change (unless there are specific reasons which direct otherwise), the previous title would be retained as a redirect. I agree that a redirect from her name to whatever title ends up as the article title would be appropriate. But, as noted earlier, the redirect you mention lists four separate incidents--two in schools located in Cleveland, Ohio, and two in elementary schools in California named "Cleveland Elementary School". All of the articles need to have distinct titles, and the issue of the two identically-named schools in California means that some sort of disambiguation is needed. There is a concurrent discussion at Talk:Cleveland School massacre about the need for disambiguating the titles (for the requested move I initiated on that article). Reading that discussion may be relevant to the discussion here, since both page moves are related, and my reasons for each title should be fairly clear. I agree with the original requester's rationale, but I agree with you that the name proposed in this requested move is not a good choice. Horologium (talk) 00:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support titling based on the root event, even if most of the words follow the person. Event articles should be titled in reference to the event. Support a slightly simpler title, such as [[1979 [place] school shooting]]. Whether [place] should be the city or suburb, I'm not sure. What subsequently happened to the school? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:41, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

It was closed in 1983 due to declining enrollment. That was four years after the shooting and was unrelated; a number of other schools were closed at the same time. Since then it has been leased to a variety of private and charter school groups. The school is in the city of San Diego, not a suburb. Thanks for asking. --MelanieN (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. On further reading, it is obvious that the incident is sufficiently notable for Wikipedia. Coverage of the perpetrator, and victims, to the extent that the coverage relates to this incident, belongs in this article. It is not unaceptable that there is more recorded on the legal consequences to the perpetrator than on the fifteen minutes of the duration of the event. I see in http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-21253207.html that "the incident has no name", and something in the article about shooting being overlooked by society.

I suggest renaming to 1979 San Diego elementary school shooting. That seems accurate and precise enough. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I would not object to this, but I would suggest leaving out the year. The year is not generally included in articles about school shootings, and there isn't another San Diego elementary school shooting to require it as disambiguation. --MelanieN (talk) 04:48, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Converting article

Based on the above discussion, I have begun converting this to an article about the crime instead of about Brenda Spencer. Others are welcome to pitch in as well. --MelanieN (talk) 15:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

• For future reference, this is a link to the Brenda Ann Spencer article as it existed prior to this renaming. I still think she's sufficiently notable to have an article about her, as this revision demonstrates. --B2C 21:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• I think that this page, ostensibly about the event, will always contain everything we have on the perpetrator, and that this information may even dominate the word count, but the article should begin with focus on the event, and never should it be a full biography on the perpetrator. Thanks for the link to the pre-converted article. I don't think we want to loose any actual information that was in it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Very bad change

Choosing to change the name of an article to one that is the same name as another already existing article so that a parenthetical disambiguation has to be added seems to me rather odd. Surely the title should be there to make it easy to find the article and the info in contains, not diffuse attention and confuse with similar articles. There's now a link to a laundry list of any incident in the US that could possibly be called a school shooting. Perpetrators' background will be an article on a crime, whether their name is the title depends on whether they are notable enough. I note that Cleveland School massacre which the editor who changed this articles name is obviously aware of, has a very very detailed bio of the perpetrator that is really far more detailed than many a titled bio. There is really very little about Brenda Ann Spencer . Cleveland School massacre perp really has a bio despite the fact that he is totally obscure and dead. If we are to alter this article name to remove impression it's a perp bio, which is not unreasonable, we should alter the text of the article Cleveland School massacre - a lot. Issues should be dealt with by altering the content not just the title of articles to a standard title ' blank School massacre'.

The name change per [[WP:PERP]. It does not conform with a straightforward reading of it IMO. There are extremely well known cultural references to Brenda Ann Spencer. The motivation of Brenda Ann Spencer was widely considered noteworthy. WP:PERP "For perpetrators .The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual—or has otherwise been considered noteworthy—such that it is a well-documented historic event. Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role. Overagainst (talk) 18:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

many of the kind of details about Brenda Ann Spence's background which were removed as 'irrelevant' despite the fact that he is totally obscure and dead. Are you referring to the one sentence, about her father? Do you feel that should be put back? That was the only thing in her biography that was removed; otherwise everything that was in the Brenda Spencer article is still in this one as far as I can see.

As for the name, it is generally Wikipedia practice to write the article about the incident, not the person, if that is the only thing the person is known for, and that is what the above closer decided. Are you arguing to change it back? That can certainly be discussed here. Meanwhile, please assume good faith and don't make assumptions about the motivations of the discussants. --MelanieN (talk) 18:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

That change was OK really There are other serious issues BLP with the article nowOveragainst (talk)

Could you specify? If there are BLP issues we should fix them. --MelanieN (talk) 18:44, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

No middle name

I am not sure if you are aware of this but Brenda Spencer has no middle name. It is not nor has it ever been Ann...Almost every story I have read about Brenda is full a falacies. I think that people should have been more responsible when they were writing these stories. Having known Brenda for many years I also know for a favt that tha statement "I Hate Mondays" never came out of her mouth.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.15.68.118 (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

You make a good point. All of the earliest coverage of her calls her just Brenda Spencer. At some later point the coverage switches to calling her Brenda Ann Spencer. I'll see if I can find out what the state of California calls her; the state almost always uses a prisoner's full name. As for whether she told the reporter "I hate Mondays": only she and the reporter know that. --MelanieN (talk) 15:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

The State of California calls her Brenda Spencer.[8] Her attorneys call her Brenda Spencer.[9] That seems definitive to me and I am going to remove most of the references to the middle name "Ann". --MelanieN (talk) 18:01, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Publicity

I think in line with the renaming move to not weight articles after news angles on perpetrators there should be less emphasis given to her infamous 'Mondays' remark and the pop song. Overagainst (talk) 20:12, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Animal torture

I removed the text about animal torture, the source cited was a random e-mail. Furthermore, Channel 4's revealing documentary about Spencer made no mention of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.1.130 (talk) 15:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I recall the papers at the time mentioned that she liked to torture and kill small animals.Her dad bought her a gun to shoot at birds.jeanne (talk) 17:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

As a father, though not nearly as disconnected as this one, I have looked to the greater interests of my children, in the ways I might support them. A Ruger 10/22 does NOT necessarily mean that her father wanted her to "kill herself". If one is proficient in painting, get her paints. If one if proficient in writing, get her writing materials (or a word processor). So, the reference to the Ruger 10/22, while historically (accurate?) is probably his attempt to encourage his daughter in the skills she was good at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.27.179 (talk) 20:58, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Messed up

This is messed up. When she was sixteen years old, she got a rifle for Christmas? Wtf...--71.246.252.5 21:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as Brenda was a minor,wasn't her father held liable for her actions;especially in view of his having purchased the rifle as a Christmas present?jeanne (talk) 06:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

No, 16 years old is a normal age for children to shoot without supervision. Especially in the 1970s or 80s before everyone got their panties in a bunch about the worry of guns (or vidya games or violent cartoons) turning innocent children into homicidal maniacs. The vast majority of children that use guns never do anything remotely like this. So no, her father isn't repsonsible for her actions if all he did was give her a 22 rifle for her birthday. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.230.4.31 (talk) 22:45, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Father knows best.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

We need more on this article

Yes, it was small for a "massacre," however, it is still important as it was the first documented case of a school shooting in the US (I don't know if it was the first in the world). Also, it has significance as it was committed by a minor and happened in a learning institute, which would later have more focus upon, such as Columbine, Virginia Tech (I don't think those shootings were committed by minors though). Babando 00:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at school shooting. -213.115.77.102 (talk) 15:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

An important detail is missing from the article. Why isn't the city/state mentioned where Spencer lived, and the shooting took place? Sure, we can infer from the numerous mentions of "California" that it probably took place in California, but that is just an educated guess. "Grover Cleveland School", well, where is that? I mention this because I arrived here from the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays", where the song writer said that he read the story on a University of Georgia telex report. So, as I read the present article, I kept thinking "Georgia", and experienced a cognitive dissonance with the mentions of "California". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory.george.lewis (talk • contribs) 13:45, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

 Done: [10]. TJRC 02:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Excellent-o. giggle 21:54, 12 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory.george.lewis (talk • contribs)

Clarity edit requested

Doing some research on gun control and mass shootings and ran across this paragraph:

"After her parents separated, she lived with her father, Wallace Spencer, in virtual poverty; they slept on a single mattress on the living room floor, with empty alcohol bottles throughout the house. Spencer is said to have self-identified as "having been gay from birth."

It is unclear from the wording whether it was Wallace or Brenda who self-identified as gay from birth. If it's Wallace, the following sentence could have been included as a contributing factor to the conditions in the preceding sentence. It seems more likely it applies to Brenda and if so it's not really relevant in this paragraph. Either way, it hints at a negative bias by equating homosexuality with the poor living conditions.

@Chigwalla: I agree. I have rearranged some sentences. Thanks for the suggestion. --MelanieN (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

LGBTQ category?

Her girlfriend left prison, therefore she's bisexual or a lesbian and should be classified as LGBTQ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.88.201.122 (talk) 22:49, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. That could be appropriate if this was biographical article (and if the sourcing was better). But it's not a biography. It's an article about a shooting, not about a person. "Cleveland Elementary School Shooting (San Diego)" would look very strange in "Category:Lesbians". In any case, the rule at WP:BLPCAT is "Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." Her sexual orientation is not an important reason for her notability. --MelanieN (talk) 23:29, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction

The article contradicts itself by stating that Geldof and The Boomtown Rats were in San Diego at the time, but then says that Geldof learned of the shooting when he was in Atlanta. The reference for the former is a list of tour dates, and there are none in January 1979, and there is no reference for the latter. Can anyone correct this contradiction? --Craig (t|c) 03:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Mass murder

One should reconsider calling her a 'mass murderer'. It does not seem appropriate for me for two respects:

• She did kill two people which are not 'masses'
• She was sixteen years old when she commited these murders

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.162.35.163 (talk) 22:33, 2 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, for the first reason stated above. I'm deleting the sentence because it is inaccurate and inconsistent with the definition given in Mass murderer — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred Condo (talk • contribs) 19:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's not mass murder, but why is her age relevant? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoorFrame (talk • contribs) 14:28, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Age is irrelevant to being (or not being) a mass murderer. Arguably, her intent was to commit mass murder. However I agree with the deleted sentence. 66.17.105.226 19:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, age is irrelevant in many cases. But with all due respect, how do you KNOW her "intent" was to commit mass murder? No one knows the heart of the person, except the person themself, and God. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.127.27.179 (talk) 21:19, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I think because any Brenda Ann Spencer information is relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.62.137 (talk) 04:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

What about "failed mass murderer"? If she aimed to do that, but only killed two people, it stands to reason she failed at it 90.200.58.151 (talk) 23:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, she doesn't fit the definition of a spree killer either. But she is a mass murderer by intent, leaving 10 or more dead or injured. However, perhaps its simplest just to call her a school shooter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.174.62.183 (talk) 08:14, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

How about calling her a school active shooter? Alanobrien (talk) 11:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Song

I hope one does not mind, but I have put the title of the Boomtown Rats' song I Don't Like Mondays in wikilinks as this song has an article in Wikipedia. Vorbee (talk) 18:28, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I know the song should be mentioned in Media, but having it in the lead section seems strange. It's an abrupt shift when reading. I'm not claiming superior knowledge, but it made me double take when I read it. It's not related to the actual event, and its position makes it seem more tasteless than it is. Wulpp 09:25 2 December 2020 (PST)

This page is completely erroneous

There are numerous errors on this page that indicate that these authors are completely confused about this event. Brenda Spencer shot up Grover Elementary School in San Diego, NOT Cleveland Elementary School, in Stockton. That was the Patrick Purdy case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.102.62.250 (talk • contribs) 19:57, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Parole

Seeing the August 2019 parole date referenced from the Mirror in the UK put me in a bit of a panic. My father, the officer shot in the incident, died in November 2018 and I thought we hadn't received notification. It turns out B.S. had a hearing in September 2016 and was denied for 5 more years. then click on the yellow button at the bottom View Board of Parole Hearings' Actions. 2600:1700:7111:CC0:A9D1:1996:20BE:7EB9 (talk) 05:12, 15 August 2019 (UTC) Victim family member

The Mirror is a bullshit tabloid. That writer probably read "In 2009, the board again refused her application for parole and ruled it would be ten years before she would be considered again" in the Wikipedia article and came up with a 2019 parole date without reading or investigating further. TJRC (talk) 18:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

References

Brenda Spencer Infobox: Years active?

I have to admit I have absolutely no idea what the "Years active: 7" in the Brenda Spencer infobox refers to. Does it need clarifying? JezGrove (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

It looks like someone was experimenting. I have reverted this edit. --GentlemanGhost (séance) 08:50, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

School

Does anyone know if Spencer attended (or had attended) this particular school? Was it "her" school? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Brenda did attend the school about 5 years prior but could not find a reference. Updated the new location of the commemoration plaque Fishplater (talk) 08:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Imprisonment

BS applied for an earlier hearing after the 2016 death of her father. Fishplater (talk) 09:27, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Updated Parole hearing status Fishplater (talk) 09:01, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

False information - not a mass shooting

By definition a mass shooting is 3 or more dead. This article is not accurate. 2600:1011:B136:9C7C:199B:9F62:80F:ADFB (talk) 12:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, most suggest it is 3 or more injured to be a mass shooting. Mass murder, on the other hand is an entirely different dicussion. Fishplater (talk) 09:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

False Info - Perp

This statement is just not true! "Both father and daughter slept on a single mattress on the living room floor in a house strewn with empty bottles from alcoholic drinks". Interviews with the parents, crime scene photos and the new book all discredit this Milwaukee (sorry, from where?) article. Tried to change but it keeps being reverted. I give up Fishplater (talk) 13:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Wrong rifle referenced in article

It was a Marlin .22, not a Ruger. Cycotic2 (talk) 00:15, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Shooting section

The last sentence of the Shooting section says "crime-scene photos contradict these accounts". It is not clear which accounts are contradicted. Is it referring to the last sentence, or the whole paragraph. Can some make this explicit? Otherwise I think it is best to just delete this sentence. Ashmoo (talk) 06:44, 3 May 2023 (UTC)