In 1979, a sniper fired on children arriving at Cleveland Elementary in San Diego, California. Holed up in her home opposite, rifle in hand, was 16-year-old Brenda Spencer, who said she’d embarked on her murderous spree because ‘I don’t like Mondays’.
Two men were dead, nine children wounded and a policeman was fighting for life. A police SWAT team was waiting in case she didn’t surrender . . .
For whatever reason, Brenda did not try to run; she remained in the house. It was unclear what she was doing, but it was now more than two hours since she last discharged her hunting rifle.
SWAT teams were in place, one in the driveway of the house next door to Brenda’s, preparing to unleash disabling gas on the Spencer house and its occupant if necessary. Police worried that the sniper might pick a new target and begin firing again. There was a housing complex with young adults and new families in easy range. Directly behind the school, it had balconies and a large parking space in view of the shooter.
Meanwhile, crowds of onlookers – terrified parents of children at the school, journalists, and so-called lookie-loos drawn to the scene by news coverage – were growing and becoming difficult to control. Officers feared they, too, might prove a possible target. The remaining children in the school – those not mown down by Brenda’s sharp-shooting – had been marshalled onto buses and driven to another school where frantic parents had been told to go to collect them.
Just after noon, Brenda answered the phone. It was Detective Paul Olson calling from the house next door. As primary negotiator, he was making the first attempt at building a rapport. He asked if she was OK and if she needed anything right away. Olson says she asked for a Burger King Whopper sandwich, and he agreed to get her one, but only after she surrendered.
‘Why do you think you are in this predicament?’ Olson asked her. ‘Everybody’s got problems. It isn’t me,’ Brenda replied. Olson asked what weapons were in the house. She did not answer directly but did say: ‘The scope on my rifle had been knocked out of place once when I was out hunting. That’s why it didn’t shoot straight.’
Before Olson responded, she continued: ‘Hey, do you think I can have some lunch?’ He told her he was interested only in caring for her safety and the safety of anyone in the area. It was best to resolve the incident as soon as possible, and then she would be able to eat. When asked about surrendering, she said she was at home and perfectly satisfied with where she was. ‘I’m having a lot of fun.’
About ten minutes into the talk, Brenda said she could hear noises outside and could see SWAT officers around her house and across the road at the school. ‘If I had wanted to, I could have shot several of them. Tell them to back off. They are p***ing me off.’ The SWAT team was told they were not helping and duly backed out of sight.
Olson would later say: ‘She was, let’s say, “irritated” but not raving mad. She settled down after the SWAT officers moved.’ Olson asked again what weapons she had. ‘I have a pellet rifle, and I am a crack shot,’ she replied. ‘I used to shoot it a lot in my backyard. I have shot rabbits in the back of the head at 25 yards. They would feel no pain. I’m also a good shot with my .22 rifle.’
‘Why don’t you throw your rifle out the front door through the broken window?’ Olson asked. ‘No way!’ Brenda cried. ‘I don’t want to injure it. It is my security blanket. As long as I have it, there is no way you’ll come into my house.’
‘What reason do you have for the shootings, Brenda?’ Olson asked. ‘I have no reason. I just thought of doing it at the spur of the moment. I’m gonna stay here awhile. I want to have some more fun. It was fun seeing kids being shot in a group,’ Brenda responded. She tried to explain that some children stood around looking at the victims, so she shot at the onlookers too.
‘It looked like a herd of cows standing around the one that was shot. It was really easy pickings. The kids that had red or blue ski jackets made the best targets. It was like shooting ducks in a pond, it was so easy. I enjoyed watching them squirm around after they had been shot.’
She expressed anger at Mike Suchar, the school janitor, whom she would have known because five years earlier she had been a pupil at Cleveland Elementary. She said she shot him because he was trying to get everybody off the school grounds and out of the way. She also indicated she knew exactly who he was, saying: ‘He was always out there ordering the kids around. I didn’t think this was a good thing. I wanted to make sure I took care of him.’
She said: ‘Also, I know I shot a pig.’ She told Olson she hoped to have shot other ‘pigs’, especially the one who drove the refuse truck into the playground to block her view. Throughout the conversation she repeated that she was ‘really having a lot of fun’.
When Olson asked whether anything had happened that day or over the weekend that made her upset enough to shoot people, Brenda replied: ‘I grew up hating people all my life. At school, my friends. I hate everybody.’ When Olson asked why, she replied that people were mean to her. Asked again for her reason, she said: ‘I have no reason for doing anything. I just thought of it this morning.’
At 12.26pm, authorities cut off the electricity to the Spencer residence, but Brenda did not appear to notice. For the next 20 minutes, Olson asked about her relationship with her family and whether she was upset with her father. She had continually refused to discuss him – police had brought him to the scene – until Olson asked if she had any message for him. ‘Yes, I do. Tell my dad to go get screwed,’ she said, adding: ‘I grew up hating people, and I will never change my mind.’
Over the next half-hour Brenda stayed on the line but was not very responsive. Olson found himself doing most of the talking and struggling to engage her. A little after 1pm, and without prompting, Brenda started to offer details about her mental state: ‘Oh, I’ve seen a shrink. I gave him three pages of notes, but that’s all.’
Then she began to share her drug history: ‘I use dope. I even fight my friends over dope deals. My father gives me $5 a week allowance. He’s been supporting my dope habit for about five years.’ When Olson asked what kind of dope she used, Brenda said: ‘I use any dope I can get my hands on. Today I took some downers, smoked some pot, and drank some beer and whiskey.’
She paused and then curiously said: ‘Let me give you some advice. Don’t chew bubble gum and drink whiskey at the same time. It ruins the bubble gum, and you have to throw it away. Also, M&Ms and beer are a bad combination. It’ll make you sick.’ Then she roared with laughter.
Olson wanted to let her speak freely but changed the subject. Asked what she had done over the weekend, Brenda said she had stayed home and that a 13-year-old friend from Santee had visited. She continued: ‘I like to fight. Whenever I fight, I fight dirty.’ She described injuring a friend during a dispute over drugs.
She said she carried a hunting knife whenever she left the house and hid knives in her clothing at night so police would not find them. She also bragged about shoplifting ammunition from different stores, sometimes for friends, and taking ammunition from her father’s van without him knowing.
As the negotiation carried on, Olson could tell that Brenda was either getting bored or was tired from the suspected drugs and drink. During this period, she told him: ‘I’m reloading my rifle. I have plenty of ammunition.’ She then hung up. When she picked up again, she warned him: ‘I heard noises in the front yard. If they don’t stop, I’m going to do something else.’
She told him she had boxes of ammunition for her .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle and could be there all day if she wanted to. Her father had told police his daughter might have as many as 600 rounds available.
To be continued…