The Lindhurst High School shooting was a

school shooting A school shooting is an attack at an educational institution, such as a primary school, secondary school, high school or university, involving the use of firearms. Many school shootings are also categorized as mass shootings due to multiple c ...

and subsequent siege that occurred on May 1, 1992, at Lindhurst High School in

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, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

for the murders, and he is currently on

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

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

San Quentin State Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

.Encyclopedia of School Crime and Violence. By Laura Finley. Page 234.

Background

Lindhurst High School, where the shooting occurred, has a multiethnic student body, mostly from poor and working-class backgrounds.

Shooting and siege

Houston arrived on campus armed with a

12-gauge The gauge (or commonly bore in British English) of a firearm is a unit of measurement used to express the inner diameter (bore diameter) of the barrel. Gauge is determined from the weight of a solid sphere of lead that will fit the bore of the f ...

pump-action shotgun Pump action or slide action is a repeating firearm action that is operated manually 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 coc ...

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 Civics is the study of the rights and obligations of citizens in society. The term derives from the Latin word ''civicus'', meaning "relating to a citizen". The term relates to behavior affecting other citizens, particularly in the context of u ...

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 The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...

. 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 Sacra ...

upheld his death penalty. He is currently awaiting execution at

. 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. As of 2022, Houston is still on death row. A memorial park was erected on McGowan Parkway in Olivehurst, California, in remembrance of the four people who died that day.http://www.co.yuba.ca.us/departments/Admin%20Services/pdm/Multi-hazard%20mitigation%20plan/Annexes/Annex%20G%20-%20OPUD/Annex%20G%20-%20Olivehurst%20Public%20Utilites%20District.pdf

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