I Don’t Like Mondays

On the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, sixteen year old, Brenda Spencer opened fire on Grover Cleveland Elementary School killing two and injuring nine. When asked why she did it, she responded, “I don’t like Mondays.”

Brenda Spencer was born on April 3, 1962. When her parents separated, Brenda remained with her father in their house in the San Carlos neighborhood of San Diego California, which was situated right across the street from Grover Cleveland Elementary School.

Her father was poor, and they shared a single mattress on the living room floor. Empty alcohol bottles littered the house, and it was no surprise Brenda had anger issues. Making things more difficult, she was only 5’2” and had bright red hair, in addition to being gay.

People who knew her reported that she often spoke about killing a policeman, or doing something really big, so she could get on TV.

She was exceptionally talented as a photographer, even won first prize in a Humane Society competition, but she chose to focus her attention elsewhere. She was not interested in school, often falling asleep in class. She was referred to a facility for problem students in 1978, due to her truancy. Her parents were told she was suicidal.

Over the summer, Brenda spent time at home, hunting birds. One day she decided to shoot out the windows of Grover Cleveland Elementary School. She was arrested for that, and for burglary.

Her probation officer arranged a psychiatric evaluation, which was carried out that December. The doctor recommended Brenda be admitted to a mental hospital for depression, but her father refused, taking her home instead. He bought her a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with a telescopic sight and 500 rounds of ammunition for Christmas.

Brenda was somewhat perplexed by the gift, later stating, “I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun.” When she was asked why he might have done that, she answered, “I felt like he wanted me to kill myself.”

Instead, on the morning of Monday, January 29, 1979, Brenda Spencer sat in her bedroom, looking out the window at the children arriving at Grover Cleveland Elementary School. She got out her Christmas present from her father, and opened fire, aiming for the children waiting for the principal to open the gates to the school.

Chaos ensued as Principal Burton Wragg tried to help the children to safety. He was rewarded by being shot and killed. The school custodian, Mike Suchar moved out, trying to pull another child to safety, when he too, was shot and killed.

Police arrived, and the first officer on scene was wounded in the neck, but managed to carry on. Brenda fired about thirty shots, injuring a total of eight children, before she put the rifle down and barricaded herself inside her home.

She spoke to police negotiators, and even a reporter from The San Diego Union-Tribune. She told the reporter she opened fire because, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” She went on to tell the police negotiators that those she shot were easy targets, and she had planned to “come out shooting,” but she ultimately surrendered.

Law enforcement noted that there were beer and whiskey bottles cluttered around the house, however Brenda did not appear to be intoxicated when she was arrested.

Brenda Spencer was charged and tried as an adult. She pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. On April 4, 1980, the day after her eighteenth birthday, she was sentenced to 24 years to life in prison.

Medical tests conducted during her incarceration determined that Brenda had sustained an injury to the temporal lobe of her brain, which was attributed to an accident on her bike. The temporal lobe is instrumental in processing sensory input into derived meanings for the appropriate retention of visual memory, language comprehension, and even emotion association. She was also diagnosed as an epileptic, for which she received medication along with her depression.

Brenda first became eligible for parole in 1993, which was unusual as very few people convicted of murder were able to obtain parole in California before 2011. She told the board she was a frequent user of drugs and alcohol, contradicting the drug test conducted when she was first apprehended. She also said she wished the police had shot her.

In another parole hearing in 2001, she claimed that her father had beat her, and was sexually abusing her, which he denied. Since this was the first the parole board, and any prison staff, had heard of these allegations, they dismissed them as being not true.

In 2005, a San Diego District Attorney brought up an incident of self harm Brenda had inflicted four years earlier, which to him indicated that she was psychotic and unfit to be released. Brenda had a girlfriend who was released from jail, and scratched the words “courage” and “pride” into her own skin. Brenda, however, corrected this, stating that they were “runes” reading, “unforgiven” and “alone.” Parole was denied, and at her next hearing in 2009, it was denied again.

Brenda is not eligible for parole again until 2019, and as of October 2018, she remains incarcerated at the California Institute for Women, in Chino, California.

Grover Cleveland Elementary school has since been shut down, and has housed several other schools over the years, the last one being Magnolia Charter School.

Finally, there’s the song, “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the Boomtown Rats. Bob Geldof, then lead singer, read about Brenda Spencer, and inspiration struck. He wrote the song, publishing it in July 1979. The song hit number one for four weeks in the UK, and was the band’s biggest hit in their native Ireland. In the US, the song received extensive airplay, despite Brenda’s family’s efforts to prevent it, but it never made top 40. Later, Geldof mentioned that “[Brenda Spencer] wrote to me saying ‘she was glad she’d done it because I’d made her famous,’ which is not a good thing to live with.

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