OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A gunman who shot and critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny non secular faculty in Northern California earlier than killing himself suffered from psychological sickness and wrote about an assault to intentionally goal kids, a sheriff stated Thursday.
Glenn Litton used a “ruse” of pretending to enroll a fictitious grandson to realize entry to the Feather River Faculty of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville, Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea stated throughout a information convention.
Litton used a handgun to shoot two kindergarten boys, ages 5 and 6, who remained in crucial situation Thursday, the sheriff stated. The weapon was a so-called ghost gun, which is troublesome for investigators to hint.
Whereas Honea stated Litton, 56, additionally had a prolonged felony historical past — largely theft and identification theft — authorities stated they didn’t discover any violent crimes on his file.
Honea stated the person is believed to have focused Feather River Faculty of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville in Wednesday’s assault, although it’s unclear why. Litton had attended a faculty of Seventh-Day Adventists in one other city as a baby, the sheriff stated, and he presumably had a relative who attended Feather River as a younger baby.
However in Litton’s writings, the sheriff stated, the suspect wrote about taking “counter-measures” towards the college in response to America’s involvement in violence within the Center East.
“That’s a motivation that was in his thoughts. The way it was that he conflated what’s happening in Palestine and Yemen with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, I can’t speculate. I’m undecided that we’ll ever know that,” Honea stated.
He stated Litton had equally scheduled an appointment at one other Seventh-Day Adventist faculty, set for Thursday.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is a Christian denomination through which members think about the Bible their solely creed and imagine that the second coming of Christ is close to. The capturing occurred shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday on the personal Okay-8 Christian faculty with fewer than three dozen college students in Oroville, on the sting of the tiny group of Palermo, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Sacramento.
Legislation enforcement officers have documented Litton’s historical past of psychological sickness again to when he was an adolescent, although Honea stated investigators haven’t discovered a concrete prognosis.
In recent times, Litton searched on-line for weapons and explosives and wrote notes to himself to plan a non-specific mass incident, although Butte County District Legal professional Michael L. Ramsey stated they have been “simply ruminations.” Litton was a convicted felon and due to this fact couldn’t legally possess a firearm.
The sheriff stated the 6-year-old suffered two gunshot wounds that induced inside accidents, whereas the 5-year-old was shot as soon as.
“The truth that they’re presently nonetheless with us is a miracle,” Honea stated of the youngsters, including they’ll doubtless face extra surgical procedures and “have a really lengthy street forward of them, when it comes to restoration.”
Honea stated the gunman was dropped off by an Uber driver for the faux assembly with a faculty administrator.
Following the capturing, the gunman’s physique was discovered close to the slide and different playground gear on faculty grounds, which abut ranchland the place cattle graze. A handgun was discovered close by, Honea stated.
The varsity was closed Thursday however sheriff’s deputies walked across the campus behind shuttered gates and workers members carried classroom objects out to their automobiles.
Shawn Webber, an Oroville metropolis councilmember, stated the area was reeling.
“Whenever you see this on the information or nationally and it’s like, these issues don’t occur right here. Properly, yesterday (Wednesday) it occurred right here,” he stated. “It simply completely violated the peace of our group.”
A candlelight vigil is deliberate Friday.
It was the the newest amongst dozens of faculty shootings across the U.S. in recent times, together with particularly lethal ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The shootings have set off fervent gun management debates and frayed the nerves of fogeys whose kids have grown accustomed to doing energetic shooter drills of their lecture rooms.
However the shootings have carried out little to maneuver the needle on nationwide gun legal guidelines. Firearms have been the main reason behind dying amongst kids in 2020 and 2021, in keeping with KFF, a nonprofit that researches well being care points.
“We all know that the close-knit Feather River group will probably be grieving for a very long time, as will the remainder of our convention,” stated Laurie Trujillo, a spokesperson for the Northern California Convention of Seventh-day Adventists.
Sixth grader Jocelyn Orlando described the ordeal to CBS Information Sacramento.
“We have been entering into for lunch recess and mainly all people in my classroom heard capturing and most of the people have been screaming,” she stated. “All of us went into the workplace, we closed the curtains, locked the doorways, mainly did what we might do in a faculty capturing, after which one of many lecturers got here and all of us bumped into the health club.”
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Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Related Press journalists Kathy McCormack in Harmony, New Hampshire, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
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