On April 10, 2017, a shooting occurred inside a special education classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California. The shooting was an apparent murder–suicide and an act of domestic violence. Three people—the gunman; his wife, who taught at the school; and a student standing behind her—died from their wounds. Another student was wounded and hospitalized.
Background
The shooting followed a terrorist attack that occurred in San Bernardino in December 2015. After that attack, the San Bernardino City Unified School District reexamined its security measures and gave all of the school principals lockdown training. North Park Elementary School is located about from the Inland Regional Center, the main location of the 2015 terrorist attack.
Shooting
On the morning of April 10, external CCTV recorded the gunman's failed attempt to enter North Park Elementary School through a locked secondary door. He then went through the main entrance and was permitted entry after he told administrators that he had to drop something off to his wife. He was allowed entry as it was not uncommon for someone to visit a school campus to meet up with their spouse, and no one noticed his concealed gun. Staffers were also already aware of the gunman beforehand, but had no knowledge of the couple's ongoing conflict, and did not recognize any signs of agitation from him.
Shortly before 10:30 a.m., he entered Classroom B-1, a special education classroom where his wife taught, and walked "a short distance" inside. The 53-year-old teacher was standing in the middle of the room, about ten to fifteen feet away from the door. Without saying a word, the man opened fire with a "large-caliber revolver", firing ten rounds and reloading once before shooting himself. Both the gunman and the teacher died. There were fifteen students ranging from the first to fourth grades, along with two teacher's aides, also in the classroom at the time. Two of the students suffered gunshot wounds, with one of them mortally wounded.
A nine-year-old girl who witnessed the shooting said that the gunman "shot everywhere", and that one of the students was shot in the stomach. According to Laura Dillon, her son (Gavin Dillon), who was in a next-door classroom and knew one of the injured students, overheard "four loud booms", people yelling "No! Don't!", and the gunman reloading.
Other teachers initially mistook the gunshots as loud noises being caused by a maintenance crew working nearby. When they realized an active shooting was underway, one of the teachers left her workroom to shepherd students in the hallway to safety and to check on classrooms. She eventually sought shelter inside a classroom.
The first responding officers arrived at North Park Elementary School within seven minutes of receiving the first 9-1-1 call. They confirmed the presence of multiple victims at approximately 10:45 a.m.
Victims
Both the gunman and a teacher were killed, with two students injured. The two injured students were transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC). One of them, identified as eight-year-old Jonathan Martinez, had to be airlifted, but he later died there. After his death, Martinez's family requested privacy, but also asked the media to raise awareness about a developmental disorder called Williams syndrome, which Martinez suffered from.
The second injured student, identified as nine-year-old Nolan Brandy, was in stable condition, having been hit in the upper body, after initially being described as being in critical condition. School officials said that Brandy was "recovering well" on April 13, and by the next day, he had been discharged from LLUMC to continue recovery at home.
Aftermath
Students at the nearby California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) campus, as well as two other elementary schools, were asked to shelter in place for an hour during the incident. About 500–600 other students were in attendance at the time of the shooting. By about 12:00 p.m., they were all transported by bus to the CSUSB campus, then to the nearby Cajon High School.
North Park Elementary School was closed down, but eventually reopened on April 17. Plans were made to move Class B-1 out of the classroom and into another one. Grief counselors were available at Del Vallejo Middle School on April 11, the day after the shooting.
A GoFundMe campaign was set up to pay for Martinez's funeral, and has since raised more than $120,000 as of April 13. Another GoFundMe campaign was set up to help Brandy's recovery in the hospital.