The Lindhurst High School shooting was a

school shooting A school shooting is an Gun violence, armed attack at an educational institution, such as a primary school, secondary school, high school or university, involving the use of a firearm. Many school shootings are also categorized as mass shooti ...

and subsequent hostage that occurred on May 1, 1992, at

Lindhurst High School Lindhurst High School is located in Olivehurst, California, USA. It is one of two high schools in the Marysville Joint Unified School District of Yuba County and draws students from the communities of Olivehurst, Linda, Plumas Lake, and Ma ...

Olivehurst, California Olivehurst (formerly, Denniston) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 13,656 at the 2010 census, up from 11,061 at the 2000 census. Olivehurst is located south-southeast of Marysville. ...

, United States. The gunman, 20-year-old Eric Houston, was a former student at Lindhurst High School. Houston killed three students and one teacher and wounded nine students and a teacher before surrendering to police. Houston was

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

for the murders, and he is currently on

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

death row Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting executio ...

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated area, unincorporated place ...

.Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence. By Laura Finley. Page 234. It, along with the 1998

Thurston High School shooting On May 21, 1998, 15-year-old freshman student Kipland Kinkel opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the cafeteria of Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, United States, killing 2 of his classmates and wounding 25 others. He had killed ...

, used to be the deadliest high school shootings in modern U.S. history until they were both surpassed by the April 1999

Columbine High School massacre A school shooting and attempted bombing occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 13 students and one teach ...

Background

Lindhurst High School, where the shooting occurred.

Shooting and hostage

Houston arrived on campus armed with a

12-gauge The gauge (in American English or more commonly referred to as bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) and other necessary parameters to define in general a smoothbore barr ...

pump-action shotgun Pump action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge and typically to cock the hammer or s ...

and a sawed-off .22 caliber rifle around 2:40 p.m. on May 1. As he entered the school, he fatally shot teacher Robert Brens, his

civics In the field of political science, civics is the study of the civil and political rights and obligations of citizens in a society. The term ''civics'' derives from the Latin word ''civicus'', meaning "relating to a citizen". In U.S. politics ...

teacher during his senior year. He shot and killed Judy Davis, a 17-year-old student in Brens' classroom. Houston then walked through the hallway outside the classroom and fatally shot student Jason Edward White in the chest. Further on, Houston pointed his shotgun at another student, Angela Welch. Still, before he could fire his weapon, another student, 16-year-old Beamon Aton Hill, pushed her to safety, taking a single fatal bullet to the side of his head. The gunfire injured ten others. Houston then entered a classroom with about 25 to 30 students inside. According to reports, Houston would send student Andrew Parks to retrieve more hostages, threatening that if he did not come back, he would kill another student and eventually held over 80 students hostage. He engaged in an eight-hour standoff with police before surrendering to authorities.

Aftermath

While in police custody, Houston stated that he was despondent over losing his job and was angered that he failed to graduate from high school or obtain a

GED Ged or GED may refer to: Places * Ged, Louisiana, an unincorporated community in the United States * Ged, a village in Bichiwara Tehsil, Dungarpur District, Rajasthan, India * Delaware Coastal Airport, in Delaware, US, callsign GED People * Ged B ...

. He claimed to be "out of touch with reality" when he committed the murders. He also confessed to holding a grudge against his former Civics teacher Robert Brens, who failed Houston in his class. On September 21, 1993, Houston was found guilty of all charges against him and was sentenced to death. In 2012, the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

upheld his death sentence. He was awaiting execution at

but was moved to

Pelican Bay State Prison Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison in Crescent City, California. The prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about to the west. Facilities The prison is located in a detached section of Crescent Cit ...

in March 2024. Eric Houston also stated that he had not warned the school about coming on campus, as some alleged. His statements were introduced as evidence in both the civil and criminal trials. A memorial park was erected on McGowan Parkway in Olivehurst, California, in remembrance of the four people who died that day.Annex Olivehust Public Utilities
yuba.ca.us

Film

'' Detention: The Siege at Johnson High'' (a.k.a. ''Hostage High'' and ''Target for Rage'') is a 1997 film based on the Lindhurst High School shooting. The television series ''Hostage Do or Die'' also produced an episode recreating the events of the shooting and standoff. The episode aired on December 29, 2011.

References

External links