Three people, including a teacher and an 8-year-old boy, died Monday morning in a classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, Calif., police said, dealing another shock to a community still reeling from a terrorist attack two years ago that claimed the lives of 14 people.
Police say the gunman, Cedric Anderson, 53, entered the classroom, raised a large caliber revolver, and, without saying a word, opened fire on the teacher, Karen Elaine Smith, also 53, who was Anderson’s estranged wife.
Police said they arrived at the scene about 10:30 a.m. to find that Anderson had turned the gun on himself as well.
Fifteen students and two aides were also in the room, a special education class with a mix of first- through fourth-graders. Two were near Anderson when she was shot and were struck by the gunfire. One of the students, 8-year-old Jonathan Martinez, was airlifted to a nearby hospital but died from his injuries. The second student, a 9-year-old boy whose name was being withheld, was in stable condition at a hospital, police said.
Capt. Ron Maass of the San Bernardino police said the children are not believed to have been targets but rather they were “unfortunate recipients of injuries.”
The incident comes as school shootings have faded from the headlines but remain a concern for parents and school administrators. There have been a dozen incidents involving the discharge of a gun at U.S. schools and colleges this year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that tracks gun violence, although this appeared to be the first murder.
The shooting is reminiscent of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, when a gunman killed 20 children and six staff members before killing himself. But for the San Bernardino community, the flashback was to 2015, when two terrorists opened fire at the Inland Regional Center there, killing 14 and wounding 22 in one of the deadliest such attacks since Sept. 11, 2001.