The 28-year-old woman who allegedly opened fire at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee is just the fifth female school mass shooter in history.
Police say the killer – who has not yet been named – killed three kids and three adults before she was shot dead by police.
Females make up just about 2 percent of both mass shootings and school shootings in the United States, according to data compiled by The Violence Project, which maintains a database of school shootings in which more than one person was shot or a person came to school heavily. armed with the intent of firing indiscriminately.
It found that females committed just four school shootings out of 147 recorded.
The first took place in 1979 when 16-year-old Brenda Spencer shot dead her principal and another staff member at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego.
Asked why she killed, Spencer famously told a reporter: “I just don’t like Mondays.” I did this because it’s a way to cheer up the day,’ which inspired Bob Geldof to write the BoomTown Rats hit record.
The first of these female shooters carried out her attack that year, claiming she just doesn’t like Mondays. Brenda Spencer, a 16-year-old who carried out an attack on Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. She killed the school’s principal and a custodian, and wounded eight children and a police officer
Students are evacuated from The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday after a female shooter killed three kids and two adults
Teenage shooter in 1979 opened fire on an elementary school because she ‘doesn’t like Mondays’
On January 29, 1979, Spencer fired shots from her house across the street from the Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego.
Spencer famously told a reporter: ‘I don’t like Mondays. This lives up the day,’ which inspired Bob Geldof to write the BoomTown Rats hit record
She used a rifle and a scope her father gave her for Christmas as she took aim at the school, killing the principal and another staff member.
Eight students and a police officer were also injured in the rampage, in which she fired 36 rounds for about 20 minutes.
An ensuing standoff between Spencer and police officers lasted more than six hours before she was taken into custody
Her defense attorney later claimed she suffered from a broken home, an abusive father, drug use and was just generally hostile toward authorities and society in general.
But Spencer ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years.
Twenty-three year old opens fire at technical college
Latina Williams, 23, killed two students in a Louisiana Technical College classroom before turning the gun on herself.
Latina Williams, 23, who killed two students in a Louisiana Technical College classroom before killing herself in 2008.
Authorities said she entered an emergency medical technology classroom in February 2008, spoke briefly with the professor and left.
She then returned through another door, and fired six rounds, killing Karsheika Graves, 21, and Taneshia Butler, 26, both of Baton Rouge.
Police found in the aftermath that she was living out of her car and the time and had not spoken to her family much over the past two years.
Williams had been exhibiting signs of ‘paranoia and losing touch with reality,’ according to WAFB.
Fifteen-year-old shoots dead her best friend so ‘she could feel pain, too’ after they stopped talking
Teah Wimberly was just 15-years-old when she fatally shot Amanda Collette, also 15, at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2008
Teah Wimberly was just 15-years-old when she fatally shot Amanda Collette, also 15, at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2008.
The two had been best friends since elementary school, but the relationship took a turn for the worse when Wimberly started making romantic overtures toward Collette, who rejected his advances.
Then when Collette refused to talk to Wimberly in November 2008, she pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and shot her friend.
She said she fired the gun so Collette ‘could feel pain, too.’
Defense attorneys argued that Wimberly had been abandoned by so many people in her life that she could not stand to lose her best friend as well.
Sixth-grader opened fire at Idaho middle school
More recently, a sixth-grade girl opened fire at an Idaho middle school in 2021.
The 12-year-old girl was dressed mostly in black with a black surgical mask as she made her way around Rigby Middle School on May 6, 2021, East Idaho News reported, before she pulled out a semi-automatic pistol.
As students and staff fled outside, the unnamed juvenile followed them and continued to fire.
A second pistol was later found inside her backpack, and she claimed she also had two knives and was trying to build three bombs to blow up the school.
The girl was arrested on three counts of attempted murder, and could remain in a juvenile prison until she is 19.
A father carries his son out of The Covenant School in Nashville after a shooter killed three students and two staff members before being shot dead.
School buses filled with children arrived at Woodmont Baptist Church to be reunited with their families following the shooting at The Covenant School
Why are men more likely to commit these shootings?
Researchers have found that shooters who target larger groups or schools tend to study past perpetrators, who are more likely to be male.
‘They see themselves in some of these other shooters,’ said Violence Project President Jillian Peterson, a forensic psychologist and professor at Hamline University in Minnesota.
Boys in general tend to externalize anger and sadness against other people, whereas girls are more likely to internalize those emotions and have higher rates of depression and anxiety, Peterson said.
Two recent studies by the US Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center also offer insight into common characteristics among many kids who plan or carry out school shootings.
The students were often badly bullied, suffered from depression with stress at home and exhibited behavior that worried others.
They were also often absent from school before the attack.