USFREEDOM911
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
Lessons from America's First School Massacre
Andrew Kehoe was 55 years old on the morning of May 19, 1927 when he began carefully peeling away a thick strip of bark from the entire circumference of each healthy fruit and shade tree on his farm. It was the most foolproof way he knew of to kill them, short of going through the trouble of toppling them.
Mr. Kehoe had already killed his wife, bashing Nellie's head with a shovel. Then he'd tied her to a cart that he regularly used for wheeling milk buckets. He placed on the cart, right within Nellie's easy reach, a tiny chest of silver keepsakes he knew she had liked.
The farm was in foreclosure. Nellie's aunt had loaned the two of them a good deal of money, but then Mr. Kehoe had gotten swept up in anger about the school taxes that were keeping him from paying important bills. He was so riled—especially about a proposal for a new school—that he'd run for a school board seat and become the board treasurer. He'd worked more on trying to stop that school than on farming, and so the farm had gone to waste. And then that fool school was built anyway. Now Nellie’s aunt was intent on collecting the acreage that the mortgage papers said were due her.
It was a fine piece of property. But if she expected a house and a working farm as part of the bargain, well, she had a surprise coming.
There wasn't much livestock left. What remained Mr. Kehoe tied securely in the barn that would soon go up in flames. He a took a few minutes to run around the whole property, making sure all of the firebombs were where they were supposed to be, and that they were all wired together. Then, in his workshop, he took out a two foot by one foot piece of board and sanded it till it was smooth. He even oiled it. Using a stencil, he traced letters into the wood, and then painted them nicely with a rich, black ink. Walking to a fence at the perimeter of his property, far away from any firebombs, he hung it.
It was looking like May 19th would be a beautiful spring day.
By about 8:00 am children began arriving at the new school. Mr. Kehoe sat on his porch in the morning sun, enjoying the sounds of children playing and of cars on the way to the schoolyard.
At about 8:45 is where the story gets tricky. Some witnesses reported that Mr. Kehoe detonated his own farm before the 1,000 pounds of dynamite he'd squirreled in the school’s basement and under its floorboards were triggered by a timer. Some said the school exploded first, and then the Kehoe farm went up in flames. Everyone agrees that townsfolk raced to the school. Nearly every family in town had a child enrolled. As mothers and fathers tore frantically at the rubble in search of their children, Mr. Kehoe drove into town, up to the mayhem, and blew up his car, killing himself, the school superintendent, and a few rescuers.
The death toll by the end of the week had climbed to 37 children and 7 adults. The numbers would have been about six times as high, but Mr. Kehoe wasn't as good an electrician as he'd thought. A main switch had a gap, and as a result only one of the wings of the school exploded.
After the wounded and dead were pulled from the scene, some townsfolk made it over to the Kehoe farm to try to puzzle out what had happened. At the perimeter fence they found the sign that Mr. Kehoe had so carefully kept out of harm's way. "Criminals," it said, "are made, not born."
After the slaughter in Bath Township, Michigan, there was a 39-year pause in mass killings on a campus. Then, on a hot August day in Austin in 1966, former Eagle Scout Charles J. Whitman climbed the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin, where he used his Marine sniper training to kill 14 people. Between that day and December 14’s deaths in Connecticut, over 150 more children and adults died in massacres on America’s school and university campuses.
During most of that time FBI agents tried frantically to compile a psychological profile of the sort of person that points a firearm into groups of innocent students and shoots randomly. Yes, they are usually angry, loner males who have with problems with authority. But few have previous criminal records. Most are excellent at “flying under the radar.” Generally, they’re not the sort of people to call attention to themselves. They remain hopelessly unremarkable until they act out.
In 1927 the Toledo Blade was the closest major newspaper to Bath Township, Michigan. Like Americans today, the Blade reporter wanted to know how someone who had once seemed relatively benign could wreak unimaginable devastation. She and the locally available forensic experts answered that question with this strong suggestion: “That person was no person.” From the Toledo Blade of May 23, 1927
Since firearms were so prevelant, prior to 1927 and more so before 1966, why aren't there more incidents of school shootings?
How come schools weren't killing grounds, when kids used to take rifles and shotguns to school and leave them in their cars or trucks.
1964-1976
There are others.
Andrew Kehoe was 55 years old on the morning of May 19, 1927 when he began carefully peeling away a thick strip of bark from the entire circumference of each healthy fruit and shade tree on his farm. It was the most foolproof way he knew of to kill them, short of going through the trouble of toppling them.
Mr. Kehoe had already killed his wife, bashing Nellie's head with a shovel. Then he'd tied her to a cart that he regularly used for wheeling milk buckets. He placed on the cart, right within Nellie's easy reach, a tiny chest of silver keepsakes he knew she had liked.
The farm was in foreclosure. Nellie's aunt had loaned the two of them a good deal of money, but then Mr. Kehoe had gotten swept up in anger about the school taxes that were keeping him from paying important bills. He was so riled—especially about a proposal for a new school—that he'd run for a school board seat and become the board treasurer. He'd worked more on trying to stop that school than on farming, and so the farm had gone to waste. And then that fool school was built anyway. Now Nellie’s aunt was intent on collecting the acreage that the mortgage papers said were due her.
It was a fine piece of property. But if she expected a house and a working farm as part of the bargain, well, she had a surprise coming.
There wasn't much livestock left. What remained Mr. Kehoe tied securely in the barn that would soon go up in flames. He a took a few minutes to run around the whole property, making sure all of the firebombs were where they were supposed to be, and that they were all wired together. Then, in his workshop, he took out a two foot by one foot piece of board and sanded it till it was smooth. He even oiled it. Using a stencil, he traced letters into the wood, and then painted them nicely with a rich, black ink. Walking to a fence at the perimeter of his property, far away from any firebombs, he hung it.
It was looking like May 19th would be a beautiful spring day.
By about 8:00 am children began arriving at the new school. Mr. Kehoe sat on his porch in the morning sun, enjoying the sounds of children playing and of cars on the way to the schoolyard.
At about 8:45 is where the story gets tricky. Some witnesses reported that Mr. Kehoe detonated his own farm before the 1,000 pounds of dynamite he'd squirreled in the school’s basement and under its floorboards were triggered by a timer. Some said the school exploded first, and then the Kehoe farm went up in flames. Everyone agrees that townsfolk raced to the school. Nearly every family in town had a child enrolled. As mothers and fathers tore frantically at the rubble in search of their children, Mr. Kehoe drove into town, up to the mayhem, and blew up his car, killing himself, the school superintendent, and a few rescuers.
The death toll by the end of the week had climbed to 37 children and 7 adults. The numbers would have been about six times as high, but Mr. Kehoe wasn't as good an electrician as he'd thought. A main switch had a gap, and as a result only one of the wings of the school exploded.
After the wounded and dead were pulled from the scene, some townsfolk made it over to the Kehoe farm to try to puzzle out what had happened. At the perimeter fence they found the sign that Mr. Kehoe had so carefully kept out of harm's way. "Criminals," it said, "are made, not born."
After the slaughter in Bath Township, Michigan, there was a 39-year pause in mass killings on a campus. Then, on a hot August day in Austin in 1966, former Eagle Scout Charles J. Whitman climbed the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin, where he used his Marine sniper training to kill 14 people. Between that day and December 14’s deaths in Connecticut, over 150 more children and adults died in massacres on America’s school and university campuses.
During most of that time FBI agents tried frantically to compile a psychological profile of the sort of person that points a firearm into groups of innocent students and shoots randomly. Yes, they are usually angry, loner males who have with problems with authority. But few have previous criminal records. Most are excellent at “flying under the radar.” Generally, they’re not the sort of people to call attention to themselves. They remain hopelessly unremarkable until they act out.
In 1927 the Toledo Blade was the closest major newspaper to Bath Township, Michigan. Like Americans today, the Blade reporter wanted to know how someone who had once seemed relatively benign could wreak unimaginable devastation. She and the locally available forensic experts answered that question with this strong suggestion: “That person was no person.” From the Toledo Blade of May 23, 1927
Since firearms were so prevelant, prior to 1927 and more so before 1966, why aren't there more incidents of school shootings?
How come schools weren't killing grounds, when kids used to take rifles and shotguns to school and leave them in their cars or trucks.
1964-1976
There are others.
