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In 1979, a 16-year-old high school student opened fire at an elementary school in San Diego, California, killing two and injuring several others. The sniper, Brenda Spencer, was a problem child and he product of a broken home. She lived with her father after her parents’ divorce several years earlier. Spencer was frequently absent from school, abused drugs, and committed petty thefts. She enjoyed watching violent programs on television and shooting birds. She once used a BB gun to shoot out the windows of Cleveland Elementary School, located across the street from her home. For Christmas 1978, Spencer’s father gave her a semi-automatic .22-caliber rifle and about 500 rounds of ammunition. In early January 1979, apparently preparing for an attack, Spencer moved her weapons to the garage and dug a tunnel as a hideout in her backyard. During the week on January 22, she announced that she planned to “do something big to get on TV.” On Monday morning, January 29, she watched the principal of Cleveland Elementary School approach the school’s gate. As Principal Burton Wragg opened the gate to the waiting school children, Brenda opened fire. She killed Wragg and janior Michael Suchar. One of the first police officers to arrive on the scene, 30-year-old Robert Robb, was wounded in the neck as he helped a victim. Nine children from age six to twelve were wounded during the twenty-minute shooting spree, including two 9-year-olds, Christy Burell and Monica Selvig. For the next several hours, Spencer hid in her house. Talking with the police and reporters by telephone, she explained, “I just started shooting. That’s it. I just did it for the fun of it. I just don’t like Mondays…I did this because it’s a way to cheer up the day. Nobody likes Mondays.” Six hours after the shooting, Brenda walked out of her house, laid down her rifle, and surrendered to the police. After a change of venue, Spencer was tried in Santa Ana, California, and convicted of two counts of murder and one count of assault. She received two concurrent sentences, a twenty-five-year to life term for murder and a forty-eight-year term for assault with a deadly weapon. Spencer’s Monday morning shooting spree prompred the song “I Don’t Like Mondays,” by the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats.