Man kills wife, boy in California school firing
Print Edition
A MAN walked into his estranged wife’s elementary school classroom in San Bernardino, California, and opened fire without saying a word, killing her and an 8-year-old student before shooting himself in a murder-suicide that spread panic across a city still recovering emotionally from a terror attack just 15 months ago.
A 9-year-old student also was critically wounded. He and the boy who died were behind their special-education teacher, Karen Elaine Smith, 53, the target of the man she had married months earlier, police said.
The shooting at North Park Elementary School left hundreds of distraught parents waiting for hours to reunite with their children.
Staffers knew Cedric Anderson, who had been estranged from his wife for about a month, and he got into the school by saying he had to drop something off for Smith, officials said. “No one has come forward to say they saw this coming,” police Chief Jarrod Burguan told reporters.
Anderson had a history of weapons, domestic violence and possible drug charges that predated the short marriage, authorities said.
He frequently wrote social media posts about his wife over the past month. He posted several photos of his wedding to Smith early this year and their honeymoon in Sedona, Arizona. Smith’s mother, Irma Sykes, said her daughter had been friends with Anderson for about four years before they got married.
Fifteen students were in the special-education classroom, along with two adult aides and Smith, when Anderson emptied a large-caliber revolver and reloaded. Then, he turned the gun on himself.
The 600 other students at the school were bused to safety at California State University’s San Bernardino campus.
San Bernardino, a city of 216,000 east of Los Angeles, was the site of a December 2015 terror attack that killed 14 and wounded 22 others at a meeting of San Bernardino County staff. Husband-and-wife shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were later killed in a gunbattle with authorities.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
