8-year-old Johnathan Martinez died after being caught in a murder suicide attack at San Bernadino’s North Park Elementary School. 53-year-old Cedric Anderson shot himself, his estranged wife, 53-year-old Karen Elaine Smith and two students who were standing near her.
Witnesses report that Anderson walked into the classroom and without a word, started shooting. The fact that only two students were caught in the hail of bullets is miraculous. There were 15 students and two adult aides in the classroom at the time of the shooting. The special needs classroom housed students in age range from first to fourth grades.
Anderson’s demeanor raised no red flags as he calmly walked into the school and signed in the guestbook in the office before killing himself and his wife, shooting the kids in the process. The murder occurred briefly before 10:30 a.m., students were then evacuated to a nearby school to be picked up by their parents.
We believe this to be a murder suicide. Happened in a class room. Two students have been transported to the hospital.
— Chief Jarrod Burguan (@SBPDChief) April 10, 2017
Although Anderson and Smith were just married in January of 2017, they had been estranged for at least a month.
There’s nowhere safe these days, as a parent myself, it’s getting harder and harder to send your kids out the door and feel safe. We have to worry about the street violence, bullies, cops, accidents and more and more, the schools. If it isn’t an overzealous school official it’s some deranged nut. You can’t pray peacefully in church, you can’t learn in school, you can’t enjoy the movies. It’s getting hard to dive safely with all the road rage incidents.
What happened to this world? I remember when certain places and people were just off limits. Do you feel safe when you send your kids out the door in the morning?
