1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting | |
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![]() Location of Stockton city. | |
Location | Stockton, California, U.S. |
Coordinates | 37°58′56″N 121°18′03″W / 37.98222°N 121.30083°W |
Date | January 17, 1989 11:59 am – 12:02 pm (PST) |
Target | Students and faculty at Cleveland Elementary School |
Attack type | School shooting, mass shooting, mass murder, murder-suicide, domestic terrorism, suicide attack, arson, hate crime |
Weapons | |
Deaths | 6 (including the perpetrator) |
Injured | 32[2] |
Perpetrator | Patrick Purdy |
Motive | Unknown (possibly xenophobia, eviction, and legal stress) |
The Cleveland Elementary School shooting (also known as the Stockton schoolyard shooting and the Cleveland School massacre) occurred on January 17, 1989, at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, United States, when 24-year-old Patrick Purdy, who had an extended criminal history, shot and killed five students and wounded 32 others. As first responders arrived at the scene, Purdy committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
The attack was the U.S. non-college school shooting with the highest number of fatalities and injuries until the Columbine High School massacre, and of all U.S. school shootings in the 1980s, it had the largest number of victims. It was also the deadliest mass shooting at a elementary school in U.S. history until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012.