Fiendish Killers

by Anne Williams

  Hamilton was a forty-three-year-old local man, who was an unemployed shopkeeper. He had also been a scout master but had recently been sacked by the Scout Association which had left him with several grievances. Although the exact motives for his attack are not certain, there had been several complaints regarding his behaviour towards young boys who had been under his guidance in the scout movement. Letters regarding his behaviour led to further rumours, which resulted in the collapse of his shop business in 1993. He had also had several run-ins with the police and the Scout Association when he attempted to set up a boys’ youth club, and it is thought that these were all contributory to his erratic behaviour on March 13.

  Hamilton managed to get into the primary school carrying two 9-mm Browning pistols and two Smith and Wesson .357 revolvers. Once inside the school he headed towards the gymnasium and opened fire on a class of five- and six-year-old children, killing or wounding everyone with the exception of one person. Fifteen children and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, all died instantly. Hamilton left the gymnasium via the fire exit and went into the playground, where he fired a few rounds of ammunition into a mobile classroom. Luckily, the teacher in the mobile classroom had had the forethought to tell the children to lie on the floor when she heard the shooting, which meant that no one was harmed. However, Hamilton also fired on a group of children walking down one of the corridors, injuring their teacher in the process.

  After this Hamilton returned to the gymnasium where he had caused most damage, and fired his gun into his own mouth killing himself instantly. When the emergency services arrived, a further eleven children and three adults had to be rushed to hospital and one of these children was pronounced dead on arrival.

  Stuart McCombie, a teacher who rushed to the gymnasium after the shooting, described the scene – one he says which will always be imbedded on his brain: ‘They were looking up at me with their wee eyes, slowing changing colour as the blood drained from their faces and they died in my arms. The room was just awash with blood!’

  It later emerged that Hamilton had a gun licence for six firearms, which led to criticism of the police for not questioning why he had so many and what they were used for. The event at the Dunblane school led to a massive campaign being launched asking for tighter gun controls, although many felt it was a little too late.

  Erfurt, Germany

  This school shooting took place on April 26, 2002, at the Johann Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt and resulted in the deaths of thirten members of staff, two students and one police officer.

  Robert Steinhaüser was a former student of Johann Gutenberg, who had been expelled a few months earlier for skipping lessons and forging letters of absence. His parents were still under the misapprehension that their son was attending school, as he would leave home each day on the pretence of attending lessons.

  On the day of the shooting, Steinhaüser left home as usual and told his parents that he was sitting for an examination. Strapped to his back was a pump-action shotgun and he also carried a 9-mm Glock 17. When he arrived at the school Steinhaüser went to the lavatory and changed into a black outfit and put on a mask. At about 11.00 a.m. he went from class to class, opening the door and pausing just long enough to shoot the teacher. He did not seem to be aiming at any of the students, even though two did get killed when they got caught up in the line of fire by accident.

  Just five minutes after the shooting started, police officers arrived on the scene. On hearing the sirens, Steinhaüser leaned out of one of the windows and fired at one of the police, killing him outright.

  The hero of the day was one of Steinhaüser’s former teachers, Rainer Heise. He managed to convince Steinhaüser to stop killing and was able to lure him into an empty room and then quickly locked the door. Within minutes Steinhaüser had committed suicide.

  beslan school siege

  Although this massacre was not carried out in quite the same vein as the previous events mentioned, it was a major event that rocked North Ossetia, killing 344 civilians, including 186 children.

  At 8.00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 1, 2004, a group of Chechen separatists, both men and women, stormed the Beslan No. 1 school, holding more than 1,000 children and adults hostage. After an initial shoot-out, the rebels forced the children and teachers inside and held them in the school’s gymnasium, placing several of the children in strategic positions at the windows to try and prevent troops from storming the building. In the initial chaos, around fifty people managed to escape and alerted the authorities.

  The rebels made a series of demands, asking to speak to the president of North Ossetia, Alexander Dzasokhov, Ingushetia’s president Murat Zyakikov and a famous doctor by the name of Leonid Roshal. What they wanted was the release of Chechen fighters and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya itself. The militants said that if their demands were not met they would blow up the school and kill twenty hostages for every member of their group who was killed.

  On the second day there was very little progress made in the negotiations, but the rebels did release a few of the women and some of the youngest children. They described the conditions inside as bearable, but they had been denied any food or water and had been forbidden to use the bathrooms.

  On the third day it appeared that there was renewed hope for the hostages when the rebels allowed a vehicle to enter the grounds to pick up the bodies of the people killed on the first day. However, as the emergency services started to recover them, a series of explosions went off inside the school. Part of the roof of the gymnasium, where the majority of the children were being held, collapsed killing several of the hostages, while others tried to escape during the confusion. Several Russian soldiers were seen carrying children out of the building covered with blood.

  However, the worst carnage came at the start of an attempt to rescue the remaining hostages. At about 1.00 p.m. on the Friday, Russian special troops stormed the building and the rest can only be described as pandemonium.

  Children and adults ran to escape the rebel’s fire, while the Russian soldiers surrounded a residential building where some of the militants had taken refuge. The floor of the gymnasium was a scene of carnage, while outside, children wandered around dazed and naked, gulping down bottles of water.

  By 2.30 p.m., rows of ambulances lined up outside the school, while civilians turned their vehicles into rescue wagons, ferrying people to hospital. The rescue operation was temporarily halted when a new phase of shooting broke out near the line of ambulances. Rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire from automatic rifles sent people retreating away from the school. Bodies of the hapless victims lay covered by white sheets as relatives peered underneath, praying that their child was not among the corpses.

  The scene at the hospital was just as chaotic, with the courtyard housing row upon row of stretchers with injured and dazed children.

  The battle with the rebels continued well into the evening and as night fell the school gymnasium was still smouldering, pock-marked with bullet holes and its massive windows blown out by explosions.

  Russia declared September 6 and 7 as days of mourning and many questions regarding the siege still remain a matter of dispute. Issues regarding the government’s handling of the situation are still outstanding as is the use of such heavy weapons when such young lives were at stake.

  Virginia Tech

  Thirty-three people were killed on the campus of Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, in Blacksburg, Virginia. Witnesses on the day described the massacre as ‘unimaginable horror’, as students were literally lined up against a wall and shot to death.

  Seung-Hui Cho had moved to the USA when he was eight years old and was majoring in English at Virginia Tech. In 2005, Cho was declared to be mentally ill after an obsession with two female students whom he had been constantly stalking. One of his professors was so worried about his state of mind that he had constantly pushed Cho to go and see a psychiatrist. However, his advice went unheeded and Cho was left to his own devices.

>   The tragedy on April 16 took place in two separate attacks on the campus of Virginia Tech. The first attack was around 7.15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnson, a residential building for students that housed around 895 people. Cho, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-calibre handgun, killed a man and woman in one of the dormitories. This attack occurred when most of the students were getting ready for classes and the university let everyone carry on as normal, despite the fact that two people had been killed.

  More than two and a half hours later, police responded to an emergency call saying that shots had been fired at Norris Hall, which was an engineering and science building at the opposite end of the campus. When the police arrived they found that the doors had been chained from the inside, preventing any of the students from escaping. The police managed to force their way into the building and followed the sound of gunshots up to the second floor. Lying on the floor was the body of Cho who had taken his own life by shooting himself in the face.

  As the police searched the rest of the building, the severity of the scene reared its ugly head. There was carnage everywhere in the nine minutes Cho had been on the rampage he had unleashed 170 rounds, killing thirty people and wounding many many more. Eleven students died in an intermediate French language class in Norris Room 211, nine students died in a hydrology class in Room 206, four students died in a German language class in Room 207 and one student died in a mechanics class in Room 204.

  Twenty-five people were also injured as a result of Cho, either by his bullets or when they jumped out of the second-storey windows to escape the attack. Many of the students believed that lives could have been spared if campus officials had taken immediate action when the first two people were shot at 7.15 a.m. However, the first warning the students and staff received was an email at 9.26 a.m., more than two hours after the shooting in the dormitory. The email simply warned the students to be cautious, but the officials did not attempt to stop any of the classes even though the gunman had not been apprehended.

  It is not clear exactly what happened between the two shootings – a gap of over two hours. The buildings where the attacks took place were about half a mile apart, a distance that could be walked in about fifteen minutes. The police had cordoned off the dormitory where the first shootings had taken place and were still carrying out initial tests, when they learned of the second spate of shootings.

  On April 18, NBC News received a package from Cho which had been time-stamped between the first and second attacks. Inside was a 1,800-word declaration, several photographs and twenty-seven digitally recorded videos in which Cho compared himself to Jesus Christ and expressed his loathing of the upper classes.

  ABC News also confirmed that there had been two separate bomb threats the week before at Virginia Tech, the first being directed at Torgersen Hall and the second at the many engineering buildings. Campus officials evacuated students and staff and sent out emails offering a $5,000 reward to anyone who came forward with information regarding the threats. Virginia Tech had always been noted for its peaceful atmosphere and security, and the majority of the students were under the impression that it was nothing more serious than someone playing a prank. Little did they realise just how wrong they were.

  Copyright

  © 2010 Omnipress Limited

  www.omnipress.co.uk

  This 2010 edition published by Canary Press,

  an imprint of Omnipress Limited, UK

  www.canarypress.co.uk

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The views expressed in this book are those of the author but they are general views only, and readers are urged to consult a relevant and qualified specialist for individual advice in particular situations. Anne Williams, Vivian Head, Amy Williams and Omnipress Limited hereby exclude all liability to the extent permitted by law for any errors or omissions in this book or for any loss, damage or expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by the third party relying on any information contained in this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-907795-38-1

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