The latest school shooting happened on December 5, 2024, at Feather River Adventist School in Oroville, California. A man opened fire on the children, shooting two kindergartners and leaving them injured at the small Christian school. According to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office, the children are being treated at a local hospital and are in stable but critical condition. This is, unfortunately, another one of many school shootings that have taken place this year. When police arrived, they found the suspect dead at the scene, and it looked as if he had taken his own life.
Events That Took Place
The shooter was identified as Glenn Litton, a 56-year-old man who has a history of forgery and identity theft and a history of mental health issues. Before the school shooting occurred, Litton took an Uber to the campus, where he met with a school administrator to discuss enrolling a family member. Sheriff Kory Honea described the meeting as ‘cordial,’ and there were no concerns regarding the safety of the students. Authorities interviewed the Uber driver and are considering that the meeting was set up for the gunman to be allowed on campus and not be of concern.
The police had a quick response to the shooting and were on campus within minutes of receiving a call. Unfortunately, so much can happen in those several minutes. The suspect was found dead with a handgun near his body. The sheriff’s deputies arrived just after the highway patrol officer and tended to the injured kindergarten victims. They secured the campus and surrounding area before taking the rest of the children to a nearby church to be reunited with their families.
The lead pastor of that church, Travis Marshall, told CNN, “It was a very emotionally charged, traumatic, and grief-filled event as parents arrived not knowing exactly the details, not knowing if their child was injured or not.”
Targeted School Shooting
Feather River Adventist School is a private Christian kindergarten through eighth-grade school. According to the sheriff, the school only has 35 students enrolled. It seems odd that someone would open fire on such a small group if they are not personally connected. Not that anyone should ever open fire at a school or any public area, but this seems to be a targeted attack.
Sherrif Honea said in a statement after the shooting, “Whether or not this is a hate crime or whether or not it’s part of some sort of larger scheme at this point, I don’t have enough information to provide an answer to that.”
The shooter was found to have no connection to either of the victims or the school itself. What happened was a tragedy, and no one, especially a five and six-year-old child, should have to experience something of this nature. It is hard to imagine what could have possibly been going through those little one’s heads and their classmates when the gunman opened fire. It is truly heartbreaking. The sheriff reported that the other students comforted one another and tried to lift spirits to distract them from what was lurking outside the gym in which they hid.
Final Thoughts
Gun violence in the United States is the leading cause of death in children and teens and has been since 2020. In 2022, about 3,500 children died in a gun-related incident. If you are not concerned by that statistic, you should think more about what it means. More children die a year by a gun than die in car accidents. There are 14,386 car accidents a day on average, and yet there were only 1,129 child deaths by car accident in 2022.
With the number of mass shootings the United States has each year, something needs to be done. Parents should not have to fear sending their children to school. Students should not be worried about going to school and wondering if they will make it home. Hopefully, the children injured in this shooting make a full recovery. They have undergone surgery, but there have been no further updates on their condition besides they will require many surgeries. A GoFundMe page has been created to help pay their medical bills.
