San Bernardino’s North Park Elementary School Shooting

San Bernardinos North Park Elementary School Shooting

Jocelyn Reeder, Reporter

On Monday April 10, 2017, a Southern California man fatally shot his wife inside North Park Elementary School classroom attended by special needs kids before shooting himself. The shooter, Cedric Anderson, 53 years old, walked into the classroom with a large caliber revolver and opened fire, killing Karen Elaine Smith, 53 years old. Smith was a teacher.

According to CNN, two students were injured in the murder-suicide and one of those children later died at a hospital. Jonathan Martinez, 8-years- old, died at Loma Linda University Medical Center after being airlifted from the school. The other student, a 9- year-old boy, was listed in stable condition at the medical center, according to the hospital. “They were standing behind Smith,” the Police Chief stated. Police do not believe the two children were targeted.

Police received reports of the shooting at the school shortly before 10:30 am and the officers responded within minutes. San Bernardino Police Captain Ron Maass, the incident commander, stated to CNN that Anderson had gone to the classroom to visit Smith. He was known to the front office and told employees in the front office that he  wanted to drop off something for his wife. There was no indication that the suspects’s handgun was visible when he entered the school.

As far as the relationship between Anderson and Smith, they were recently married. Chief Jarrod Burguan stated, “I’m told that their marriage was relatively short. They have only been married for a few months and they’ve been separated for about the last month, month-and-a-half, roughly. But there’s nobody in the investigation that has come forward to say that they saw this coming.”