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“I wanna shoot the whole day down…”

“I haven’t written in so long,” I said.  “Should I write about ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ or Saint Jerome?”

“Write about ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’,” Rona said.  “Save Saint Jerome for when I need a pick-me-up.”

…

Brenda Ann Spencer was 16-years old when her father gave her a semi automatic .22 caliber rifle as a Christmas gift.

About a month later, on Monday, January 29, 1979, Brenda went to her bedroom window, rifle in hand.  She had a perfect view of the busy schoolyard at Cleveland Elementary.  With her gun pointed towards the schoolchildren, Brenda fired 36 rounds.  Her shooting spree left nine injured, eight of which were children.  Two adults were killed.

A six and a half hour standoff followed, ending in her arrest.  When Brenda was asked what compelled her to do such a horrible thing, she simply replied, “I don’t like Mondays.  This livens up the day.”

Brenda was tried as an adult.  She has been denied parole four times, and will not be eligible again until 2019.

Click here to listen to Tori Amos’s cover of the Boomtown Rats song, “I Don’t Like Mondays”.

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Brenda Ann Spencer (above)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Pictures, Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to ““I wanna shoot the whole day down…””

  1. Adam Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am

    I bet the people she killed didn’t like mondays either. Especially that one.
    I also bet that her only regret is that the gun wasn’t of a higher caliber. Damn it, is there any more history on this woman? Her family life before the shooting? She looks a bit like Axl Rose.

  2. Ashleigh Says:
    December 1st, 2009 at 11:31 am

    I was going to include her pre-16 childhood, but it’s a little sketchy. Years after she was arrested, she started claiming that her dad molested her, that she was on drugs when she committed the shooting and that the authorities hid the results of her drug test, etc etc. People think she’s full of crap. Basically, it’s like the song said. “The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload.”

  3. Tova Says:
    December 2nd, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    I was just talking about this the other day, but I falsely believed she’d been released. I guess she was just up for parole. Thanks for clarifying for me!

    I love the song too. xoxo

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