What is it about Haiti? The poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti just seems cursed. Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles Archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. Haiti ought to be, on the surface at least, an idyllic tropical paradise.
Haiti is the third-largest country in the Caribbean by area and sports a population of some 11.4 million people. However, since the turn of the recent century, Haiti has had more than its share of foul luck. The country has been subjected to a couple of devastating earthquakes. The temblor in August of 2021 killed more than 2,200 people. The 2010 quake claimed more than a quarter-million lives.
On July 7, 2021, a group of 28 mercenary fighters attacked the Presidential residence in Haiti and killed Jovenal Moïse, the controversial chief executive of this impoverished country. They also gunned down the man’s wife. She survived and was subsequently taken to the US for treatment. Given its audacity and the obvious military acumen of the players involved, the operation that killed this man was an undeniably impressive feat of arms.
The Op
I’m typing this fairly soon after the event. Details are still a bit sketchy. If new information arises before this piece hits the streets be patient with me.
The Haitian Presidential residence is located in the Pelerin 5 neighborhood in the hills overlooking Port au Prince, the Haitian capital. The Haitian President, his wife Martine, and their adult daughter Jomarlie were present along with at least two domestic staff and some twenty-four security officers. At 0100 on July 7, 2021, several SUVs drove up and disgorged a contingent of “white armed men.” These operators were dressed in tactical clothing and heavily armed. They moved like they knew what they were doing.
Upon their arrival, one of the attackers shouted through a portable loudspeaker, “DEA operation, everybody stay down!” The US DEA later offered assurances that they had nothing to do with the whole sordid affair. Apparently, the swiftness of the attack along with its violence of action was adequate to convince the Haitian security force not to resist. There have been subsequent allegations of collusion as well.
Seven of the gunmen moved into the residence. The remaining twenty-one stayed outside to pull security. Of the seven, four, designated the “Delta Team,” did the actual killing. Those four were apparently some fairly serious shooters.
It was the middle of the night, and the assault force enjoyed the element of surprise. They moved through Moïse’s office and bedroom until they had the President cornered. They then shot him all to pieces. A post-mortem evaluation showed that he was hit 12 times in his chest, arms, right leg, left hip, and left eye.
In the process, the assault team shot Moïse’s wife Martine in the arms and thighs. As she resisted the attack she also suffered injuries to her hands and belly. Throughout the whole sordid mess, their daughter hid in a bathroom and escaped without injury. Investigators later reported that the residence was littered with 5.56mm and 9mm cases.
The Aftermath
The brutal killing resulted in a massive mobilization of Haitian law enforcement that ultimately accounted for all but five of the attackers. The story of the team’s recruitment and organization could have been drawn from the pages of an action novel. Two of the twenty-eight mercenaries were Haitian-Americans. The rest of the assault team hailed from Colombia.
The details are still sketchy, but many of the Colombian operators appear to have been hired under false pretenses. Four different international companies purportedly did the hiring. Nobody yet knows for certain who all was behind the mission.
The coordinators supposedly made the necessary connections via WhatsApp. The former Colombian soldiers posted outside claimed they were told that they were being hired to provide security services for vulnerable Haitian politicians. A few were apparently expecting to be pulling security for Moïse himself. Some flew into the Haitian capital directly, while others landed in the Dominican Republic and entered via the Carrizal border crossing. Haitian conspirators arranged a safe house near the Presidential residence along with weapons and police sirens for their vehicles.
The Guns
Haiti has a most chaotic history. Prior to Operation Uphold Democracy, the American military intervention in 1994, the Haitian military fielded a fairly typical array of Western military equipment. This included Cadillac-Gage V100 Light Armored Vehicles as well as both 75mm and 105mm towed howitzers. Long guns included American M16s and German G3 battle rifles. Haitian security troops also wielded Uzi submachine guns. The standard Haitian military handgun was the Beretta Model 1951.
As a result of the US intervention, the Haitian dictator Raoul Cedras was deposed and replaced by the democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Starting in 2019 President Moïse embarked on a rearmament program. This resulted in weapons acquisitions from China, Russia, Brazil, South Korea, and Israel. The end result was a fairly eclectic collection of small arms.
Though I haven’t found an inventory of the guns captured along with the attackers, I did discover a photograph or two. The array of weapons depicted includes a pair of combat handguns, a fairly archaic slide-action 12-gauge sporting shotgun, a Remington 870 with a pistol grip, a full-sized Uzi submachine gun, an M4 carbine, and an Israeli Galil ACE assault rifle. While the Uzi, M4, and sporting weapons are ubiquitous background clutter most anyplace people wish to kill each other, the Galil ACE is a curious find.
The original Israeli Galil assault rifle was a hybrid that combined features from the Kalashnikov, the M16, the FN FAL, and the Finnish Valmet. In fact, the first prototypes were built upon Valmet RK 62 receivers covertly obtained in Europe and smuggled into Israel. The Galil was first issued in 1972 and has since been produced in Israel and under license around the world. As a result, the Galil has seen service in conflicts ranging from Nicaragua to South Africa to Mogadishu to Myanmar.
The Galil ACE was an evolutionary development of the original Galil designed to make the weapon lighter, handier, and more user-friendly. By combining a steel receiver with a polymer fire control housing as well as a few other strategic tweaks the weight dropped from around 9 pounds to 7.9. The ACE is offered in 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm, 5.45x39mm, and 7.62x51mm versions.
Other improvements include tritium night sights, a collapsible M4-style polymer buttstock, a left-side charging handle, and a last round bolt hold open on the 5.56mm version. MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rails up front offer plenty of space for accessories, while the fire control system from the Galil sniper rifle produces a highly refined trigger experience. Contemporary users include Ukraine, Chile, Vietnam, Zambia, Peru, Laos, Colombia, and many more.
The Rest of the Story
It is suspected that a substantial number of the mercenaries might not have appreciated the true nature of the operation. However, there resulted in a fierce running gun battle as these soldiers of fortune attempted to escape the country. One contingent took three Haitian police officers hostage and retreated into a nearby house.
Haitian cops surrounded the building and shot it out with the mercs. Three Colombians were killed, the Haitian hostages were freed, and the rest of the group was captured. Once word got out that the President had been assassinated angry Haitian civilians joined in the hunt. They torched several of the mercenaries’ vehicles and ultimately helped track down several of the Colombians who had been hiding amidst the foliage. Among the final count were the two American-Haitian operators.
Eleven of the attackers broke into the nearby Taiwanese embassy apparently seeking refuge. However, the government of Taiwan waived their rights of extraterritoriality, and the Haitian police arrested these eleven without further incident. The remaining five have yet to be apprehended as of this writing.
The two Haitian-Americans claimed they had been hired solely as translators. One of them was later discovered to have been a prior informant for the American DEA. Those ultimately arrested included disgruntled former Haitian politicians, members of President Moïse’s security team, a Venezuelan businessman, and scads of other folks.
Ruminations
In response to the shockingly professional assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, many people in Haiti responded by stealing stuff and burning their neighborhoods down. I always foolishly figured that a national crisis was a great excuse to pull together and work toward a common goal. Apparently, folks in places like Seattle and Portland subscribe to the same mantra.
Haiti has long been a cesspool of crime, drugs, and violence. The assassination of the Haitian President did little to improve the situation. Gang violence increased across the country.
The funeral for President Moïse was intended to be a low-key affair, but it attracted its own share of controversy. Some mourners heckled the attending Haitian politicians, and there resulted a fairly ignoble application of both tear gas and gunfire. Foreign diplomats who gathered to pay their respects had wisely departed earlier.
Somebody someplace started the rumor that the US was going to be handing out visas, so a mob descended upon the US embassy seeking that golden ticket to take them to the Big PX in the Sky. I think those Americans who seem convinced that America sucks so bad should consider swapping places with them.
Addendum–43-year-old ex-Colombian commando Mario Antonio Palacios was apprehended in October 2021 in Jamaica after the issuance of an Interpol Red Notice. He was the only member of the Delta Team that actually did the shooting who had not been captured in Haiti. Palacios voluntarily agreed to travel to Miami, Florida, where he was arrested and charged with all manner of vile stuff. He is being tried in the US as much of the planning for the operation occurred here. He faces the prospect of life in prison if convicted. Another conspirator named Rodolphe Jaar was also arrested and sent to the US. He faces a similar fate. As of now, the remaining members of the team remain incarcerated in Haiti and have yet to be charged.
Elizabeth McHutcheson was a hearty woman of Scottish descent cursed with a terminal case of wanderlust. She married a ship’s captain named Francis Sinclair and eventually produced six children. Elizabeth moved her family to New Zealand and established a farm. However, her husband and eldest son were later lost at sea along with most of the family’s possessions.
Down but not out, Elizabeth relocated to Canada and then Hawaii with the remains of her family. Once settled in she bought the Hawaiian island of Ni’ihau for $10,000. Ten grand was an astronomical sum in 1864, but it turned out to be a fairly prescient investment.
Ni’ihau is the furthest West and second smallest of the primary Hawaiian Islands. Ownership of the island passed down through the family until 1941 when Elizabeth’s great-grandson Aylmer Robinson maintained possession. Aylmer was a Harvard graduate who spoke fluent Hawaiian. He was a benevolent landlord who lived on nearby Kaua’i. His island was accessible by permission only which was seldom granted. Robinson made weekly visits by boat to check on the native islanders who held him in high esteem.
In 1941 one hundred thirty-six native islanders called Ni’ihau home. Among them were three individuals with Japanese ancestry. Aylmer Robinson administered his idyllic little kingdom free from government interference.
In the buildup to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese naval planners mistakenly assessed Ni’ihau as uninhabited. As a result, they briefed their aviators to divert to Ni’ihau in the event of battle damage preventing return to the carriers. The plan was for downed aircrew to survive on the island until they could be retrieved via submarine.
The Plot Thickens
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Airman First Class Shigenori Nishikaichi launched his A6M2 Zero fighter B11-120 from the carrier Hiryu as part of the second wave. Unlike the first attack that achieved complete tactical and strategic surprise, the second element flew into a hornet’s nest. American fighter resistance was negligible, but the warships anchored at Pearl bristled with antiaircraft guns. .50-caliber, 20mm, 40mm, and 5-inch antiaircraft weapons filled the sky with steel.
Nishikaichi’s Zero was badly damaged during a strafing run on Wheeler Field and limped away trailing smoke. Realizing that there was no way his nimble Zero was going to make it home, Nishikaichi diverted for Ni’ihau. Crash-landing his crippled fighter in a field near a local named Hawila Kaleohano, Nishikaichi was briefly dazed but otherwise unhurt.
The Chemical Formula for Awkward
The arrival of Nishikaichi’s Zero was the biggest event on Ni’ihau in collective memory, and the islanders all came out to gawk. They knew that the relationship between the United States and the Empire of Japan was strained. However, the Hawaiians are a naturally friendly people. Hawila Kaleohano relieved the young aviator of his handgun and personal documents, and the rest of the islanders threw the lad a party.
Only the three islanders with a Japanese nexus spoke Japanese, and the rest of the Ni’ihau inhabitants were unable to communicate with their new guest. For ease of explanation we will refer to these three individuals by their first names—Ishimatsu, Yoshio, and Irene. However, the Japanese pilot was becoming ever more agitated about the loss of his maps, weapon, and mission directives.
The island’s residents caught a report of the attack on a battery-powered radio and confronted the Japanese pilot. Their intent was to send him back with Mr. Robinson when he arrived on his next scheduled visit. Their guest now effectively became their prisoner.
Aylmer Robinson failed to arrive on his appointed day, and this unsettled the islanders. Robinson was typically quite punctual. However, the military had banned boat traffic, so Ni’ihau was effectively isolated.
Petty Officer Nishikaichi was remanded to the home of Yoshio and Irene, two of the islanders with Japanese connections, to be overseen by four volunteer guards. Unbeknownst to the rest of the island’s inhabitants, Yoshio and his wife were re-evaluating their loyalties. All the while the pilot’s classified documents remained in the possession of Hawila Kaleohano, the man who had originally encountered the pilot.
A Cold War Goes Hot
These people were not soldiers, and three of the four guards eventually wandered off. Seeing their opportunity Irene turned her phonograph up to cover the sounds of the ensuing struggle, while her husband and the pilot attacked the remaining guard. In short order the two had the man secured in a warehouse and had retrieved Nishikaichi’s pistol as well as a shotgun.
The two men then proceeded to Kaleohano’s home in search of the attack plans. They arrived during the man’s quality time, so he was serendipitously hidden unseen in his outhouse. When the moment was right Kaleohano fled the privy and ran for his life, shotgun blasts chasing him down the trail. Thusly alerted the islanders retreated to caves, thickets, and distant beaches, unable to believe that these people with whom they had shared the island were now actively firing upon their friend and neighbor.
The pilot and his compatriot then stripped a 7.7mm machinegun and ammo from the plane, unsuccessfully attempted to use the radio to contact the Japanese fleet, and set the Zero alight. They then went to Kaleohano’s home and burned it to the ground in a further effort to destroy Nishikaichi’s classified documents.
It Gets Worse…
Kaleohano, his home conflagrated, kept the Japanese military documents in his possession and took to a boat to row to the nearest nearby island. Not realizing he was gone, Nishikaichi and Toshio press-ganged a local couple named Ben Kanahale and his wife Ella into the hunt for Kaleohano. The pair took Ella hostage to motivate her husband to stay on task.
Ben wasted a little time pretended to search and returned to check on his wife. When Nishikaichi realized he was being deceived he pulled his pistol and threatened to kill everyone in the village. At this provocation Ben Kanahale went full Chuck Norris on the man.
The Gun
For reasons you will find out momentarily, the exact model of the handgun has been lost to history. However, the three most likely candidates are the 8mm Type 14 or Type 94 autoloaders or the Type 26 revolver. Balance of probability suggests that at the beginning of the war in the hands of an elite Japanese Naval Aviator his handgun was likely a Type 14 Nambu.
The Type 14 is a recoil-operated, locked-breech, semiautomatic handgun whose original mechanism dates back to the late 19th century. LTG Kijiro Nambu designed the weapon along with an array of other Japanese military arms. The locked-breech mechanism favors and was likely inspired by that of the Glisenti Model 1910.
The Type 14 debuted in 1925 and fires the relatively anemic bottlenecked 8x22mm round common to all Japanese wartime autoloading handguns. Considerably less powerful than the 7.62x25mm, 9mm Parabellum, and .45ACP rounds used by other combatant nations, the 8mm Nambu was marginal at best. The Type 14 fed from an 8-round box magazine, sported a 4.6-inch barrel and weighed about 2 pounds. About 400,000 copies were produced.
Japanese officers were expected to buy their own handguns, and the Type 14 was a popular souvenir of combat in the Pacific. As the war progressed and B29 attacks strangled the home islands the quality of these weapons declined precipitously. Bill Ruger bought a Type 14 from a returning Marine in 1945 and used it as a basis for his Ruger Standard pistol that eventually morphed into the Mk I, II, III, and IV .22 handguns so common today.
The Climax
Seeing an opportunity, Ben Kanahele and his wife Ella jumped the distracted Japanese pilot and his turncoat buddy. Ella grabbed his gun arm, but Yoshio Hamada peeled her off. Nishikaichi then shot Ben three times, striking him in the upper leg, groin, and abdomen. This turned out to be a grave mistake.
Kanahele was a sheep farmer and a powerful man. Despite his grievous injuries he took hold of the Japanese pilot, lifted him bodily, and threw him headlong into a stone wall. Ben and Ella then fell upon the dazed Japanese aviator with a vengeance. Ella smashed his head with a rock, and Ben cut the man’s throat with his hunting knife. Overcome by events, Nishikaichi’s ally Yoshio shot himself in the head with the shotgun.
Ella Kanahele snatched up the shotgun and pistol and ran for help. Along the way she inadvertently dropped the weapons. The pistol was never recovered, but the shotgun washed up in a flood some five years later.
Yoshio’s widow spent the next 31 months in prison and was released in June of 1944 despite never being formally charged with a crime. Ben Kanahele was evacuated to a nearby island with a hospital and ultimately recovered, being awarded the Medal for Merit and Purple Heart for killing the Japanese pilot in close combat. The remains of Nishikaichi’s Zero are on display at the Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor today.
If you want to experience a WW2 handgun without paying antique prices, the Walther P1 is a direct descendant of the iconic Nazi P38 and a lot cheaper to own. The Walther P1 is the aluminum-framed copy of the WWII Walther P38 pistol and has its own history. For 25 years these pistols served with the Bundeswehr and West German police. During the 1990s the Germans began phasing out the P1, fielding the P8 (a military version of the H&K USP), finally retiring the weapon altogether in 2004. The P1 is now readily available on the civilian market.
Everyone who has seen a WW2 movie thinks the Nazis all carried a Luger P08. While some of them did, their main sidearm was the P38. Lugers fought in the Great War and were the standard-issue sidearm for the German military from their adoption in 1909 until 1938. They were an innovative design in their day and brought us the standard 9×19 round (also called 9mm Luger).
Handguns are support weapons and in a wartime economy, cheap and effective beats pretty every time. Experience in the Great War had shown the Lugar to be complicated and expensive to manufacture. The toggle operating system did not tolerate hostile conditions well so Walther developed a more reliable and less expensive option, the Pistole 38 or P38.
The P38 is a full-size service pistol chambered with the standard 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge firing from an 8-round magazine. One of the first double-action handguns, it allowed Soldiers to safely carry the P38 with a round chambered and the hammer down, needing only to draw and squeeze the long double-action trigger pull to fire (without manipulating a manual safety).
Military production began in 1939 with Walther. The demand for the P38 was so high, that Mauser and Spreewerk also received contracts producing over one million P38s during the war. P38s went on to see combat in every theater of war and field use in harsh conditions proved it to be a magnificent design. The only reason the Germans issued so many other handguns was that there were never enough P38s available.
As WW2 ended, the Cold War began and the P38 received a new lease on life. The new German army (Bundeswehr) wanted the gun they knew, Walther updated the design, replacing the steel frame with a lightweight aluminum alloy unit (during the war, aluminum was prioritized to the Luftwaffe for aircraft). In 1955, the initial production run of new pistols was marked “P38”, The design was de-Nazified and adopted in 1957 as the Pistole 1. This model served not only the various branches of the Bundeswehr but also the Austrian Army, for decades.
The original Walther factory was in the Soviet occupation zone. What was not stolen was destroyed by the Russians. The Manurhin company in France made the P1 gun for several years under contract until Walther built a new factory in Ulm/Donau. Walther built the P1 for the West German military and police for more than 25 years. They are marked ‘P-1’ and have a four-digit production date on their frame. The date is simple to figure out, my gun is marked 04/79, it was made in April of 1979.
P1 and the P38
The P1 is different than the P38. The design is almost exactly the same, but it isn’t the same gun. The P1 frame is aluminum, the P38 is steel-framed. For all intents and purposes, both guns feel and shoot the same. In 1975, the aluminum frame was reinforced with a hex bolt above the trigger guard, and a thicker, stronger slide was added.
I was cruising my local gun store and saw a camo holster, a German flecktarn holster. Then I saw the gun. A very good condition P1 with all the family charm of its WW2 relatives. For less than a used Glock, I got to find out why the Germans kept this gun for so many years. I was not disappointed and I learned a great deal about where modern handgun features originated. (Spoiler Alert: Everybody but Browning stole something from this gun. Looking at you Beretta, SIG and Glock.)
The P1 and the P38 are true double-action / single-action guns. It was designed to be carried with the chamber loaded and the hammer de-cocked using the lever. With the safety off, a double-action pull of the trigger will cock and then fire the gun.
Walther P1 Specifications
- Method of Operation: Short recoil
- Caliber: 9x19mm Parabellum
- Action: Double Action / Single Action
- Safety: Decocker, Manual Safety, Firing Pin Block Drop Safety
- Trigger Pull: Single Action 5.5 lbs / Double Action 9.5 lbs
- Sights: Fixed Front Post with White Dot and U-Notch Rear
- Overall Length: 8.5″
- Overall Width: 1.5″
- Weight: 27 ounces
- Barrel: 4.9 inches, 6 groove 1-10 Right Hand twist
- Feed: 8-round single-stack detachable magazine
The P1 has a manual safety / de-cocking lever, a last round slide lock mechanism, and a take-down lever, all on the left side of the pistol. The slide locks back after the last round was fired, a tab in the magazine pushes up on the slide lock. The only feature not familiar to modern shooters is the magazine release on the bottom rear of the magazine well.
This release is a common feature on older European handguns. In Europe, magazines are scarce and human life is cheap. Nobody cared about rapid reloads. You got two magazines with your handgun and they were serialized. You were forced to retain the magazine by design.
There’s a prominent loaded-chamber indicator just above the hammer which protrudes to indicate the pistol’s condition. A glance or touch will reveal the weapon’s status. This little part could easily get hung up on something and is a bit of complication which could have been avoided.
Though based on a WW2 design, the P1 is a contemporary of the SIG P226 and the Beretta 92 (M-9). While the single stack 8-round magazine can’t compete with the double stack super nines, I find the ergonomics superior to the M-9 I was issued. The P1 sights and trigger are better and I can shoot it faster and better than the M-9.
The Beretta grip is fat and the trigger pull is long and heavy. The ambidextrous safety/de-cocker on the M-9 is very easy to activate when manipulating the slide. This provides a surprise dead gun after a re-load or malfunction. It is always a bad surprise. The P1 weighs in at 27 ounces, (unloaded) versus 33.9 for the M-9. The only advantages of the M-9 are the magazine release and a 15 round magazine.
Shooting
The P1 feels good. The thumb rest and lanyard ring on the left grip are designed for righties. The slide stop and decocker/safety are positioned for right-handed manipulation. How did the Germans accommodate left-handers? They forbid left-handed shooting. Problem solved.
This is not a show stopper for the lefties. There are no left-handed holsters, but the controls can be manipulated left-handed or with the support hand. The magazine release is ambidextrous.
The P1 is made for a flap holster and has a prominent front sight, sharp edges on the slide, and an awkward loaded chamber indicator. The is not your new EDC or concealed carry gun. In spite of a single stack mag, the slide and grips are 1 1/4″ thick. The de-cocker and slide release also stick out with sharp angles that can snag.
Using my Bundeswehr surplus flectarn camouflage pattern flap holster I took my P1 to the range over a couple of months. The operation is just like the SIG and Beretta except for the magazine release. The de-cocker must be manipulated before holstering. Reloads are just the same as more modern guns.
The 8+1 capacity was a limitation but not that big a deal. Trying to draw from the flap and reload from the holster was slow, but they were designed to protect, not to gunfight. It was expected that your gun would be in your hand if you needed it.
I used several different loads, ranging in bullet weight from 115 to 147 grains, including the dreaded +P loads. I have heard that you shouldn’t use +P in an aluminum frame. The P1 was designed to shoot hot NATO spec submachinegun ammo. It will handle +P, but you should expect accelerated wear. The P1 fed everything I tried with grace and a complete lack of malfunctions. The dual recoil springs are old but they have plenty of flex left in them.
The only thing odd about shooting the P1 is the magazine well magazine release. That said, It was not that hard to hit the release and pull the magazine out. It is a little slower, but works just fine with a little practice. In Europe, life is cheap and magazines are scarce. The magazines were seen as components of the weapon to be kept for life.
The dot front and strip rear sights are as good as any service pistol sights I have ever seen. The double-action pull is as good as a SIG and better than Beretta. The single-action pull and reset are better than a Glock. Felt recoil is very manageable with little flip. The weight is all in the back of the gun. Brass ejects in various directions occasionally hitting you in the head, but it always ejects.
I found the P1 shot very well for speed and accuracy from 7 yards to 50 yards. I am sure it would go farther but my range discourages shooting across the parking lot. I was unexpectedly impressed by the trigger. Light and smooth with a short re-set.
Fun Fact: the Walther P1 (imported by P.W. Arms) is on California’s roster of state-approved handguns.
After a few hundred rounds, I found that I really liked the P1. In an open carry environment, I would pick it over the Beretta every time. I see the P1 in gun stores all the time and they are readily available online. The price of P38s has risen dramatically as collectors seek them out, with prices running around a thousand dollars. The P1 is a product improved P38 for less than half the price. Since they were manufactured as late as1980s and were not taken as war trophies after years of combat use, most P1s are in great condition.
The P1 is a fun and affordable piece of history. If you have ever thought about owning one, now is the time. In a few years, they will be collectible and un-affordable. Your kids and grandkids will thank you.
When I was growing up kids brought guns to school all the time. We typically left them in gun racks in the back windows of our pickup trucks or in car trunks in anticipation of after-school hunting trips. Our driver’s ed teacher was a compulsive hunter. His name was Coach Smith. When out of earshot we called him Poach Smith. He famously kept a shotgun and a garbage bag in the trunk of the driver’s ed car in case he came across something that needed shooting. He once returned after an outing around the county with both his students and a fresh wild turkey.
I recall one kid bringing a 1911 pistol to show off to his pals. Somebody saw it in his locker and alerted the headmaster, himself a Naval officer who had served in the Pacific during World War 2. The headmaster confiscated the gun and put it in his desk drawer, directing the kid to pick it up after school and not to bring it back again. He didn’t even call the boy’s parents. That’s because at that time in that place it would have been literally unimaginable to shoot up a school. That all changed on January 29, 1979.
Gender Issues
Figuring out whether you were a boy or a girl used to seem a fairly straightforward chore. Nowadays things are a bit more opaque. However, there yet remain some fundamental differences that are empirically demonstrable between men and women. In addition to the capacity to carry a child to term, one of the two genders is just a bit more innately rotten than the other.
Testosterone is the most potent poison known to man. 93.3% of the incarcerated population in America is genotypically male. Were we being completely honest the quickest way to restore peace and harmony to the species would be to just lock up all the guys. Believe it or not, there are some radical feminists who have suggested just that.
Despite this gross gender imbalance among the world’s criminals, when it came time for Satan to kick off the ghastly phenomenon that is the modern school spree shooting it was a woman who first squeezed the trigger. In 16-year-old Brenda Spencer, we find the genesis monster.
Origins
Like most true psychopaths Brenda’s origin story is sordid and broken. Born in 1962 in San Diego, California, and raised across the street from the Grover Cleveland Elementary School, by her sixteenth birthday Brenda stood all of 5’2” and sported bright red hair. Her parents were separated, and she lived in squalor with her alcoholic father, Wallace Spencer. It was so bad that the two of them slept on a common mattress in the living room surrounded by empty beer and liquor bottles.
As a child Brenda took a tumble on her bicycle and suffered a head injury. Though she recovered physically she was never quite right after that. Head scans later revealed permanent damage to one of her temporal lobes that likely contributed to the aberrant behavior that was to follow.
Spencer was a predictably poor student with truancy issues, but she had a talent for photography. She took first prize in a local Humane Society photography contest. However, her teachers reported that she fell asleep regularly in class.
While growing up Brenda demonstrated an inexplicable hatred of policemen. She also wandered the neighborhood killing birds with a BB gun. At age fifteen she was arrested for shooting out the windows in the school with her air rifle as well as burglary.
Her probation officer recommended that she be hospitalized for depression, but her rocket scientist dad refused to give permission. At Christmas of that year, he gave Brenda a Ruger 10/22 semiautomatic .22 rifle, a riflescope, and a 500-round brick of ammunition. Brenda later said of the gift, “I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun…I felt like he wanted me to kill myself.”
The Shooting
On Monday morning, January 29, 1979, a herd of children had gathered outside the gates of the elementary school. As 53-year-old Principal Burton Wragg walked out to open up the facility Brenda opened fire with her 10/22. As one might expect, unfettered chaos ensued.
Spencer shot and wounded eight elementary school kids. Principal Wragg rushed into the line of fire to drag children to safety and was shot down as well. The school custodian, a 56-year-old Navy veteran named Mike Suchar, also ran to the sounds of battle. He was gunned down, too. Though all eight of the children ultimately recovered, Wragg and Suchar were killed.
Brenda shot the first police officer to respond in the neck with her rifle. By this point, she had fired a sum total of thirty rounds. The police parked a garbage truck in the road to shield the school and evacuated the injured children to safety. Spencer spent the next several hours barricaded in her house talking to police negotiators.
A reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune dialed random numbers in the neighborhood until he got Spencer on the phone. When queried concerning her motivations she said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” She informed him that she had chosen the kids across the street because they made easy targets. She actually said, “It was a lot of fun seeing children shot.” She also explained that it was her intent to leave the house guns a’blazing.
Eventually, Brenda grew peckish. She ultimately left the house peacefully in exchange for a meal from Burger King. Police subsequently described the home as littered with beer and whiskey bottles. However, Spencer’s drug and alcohol tests were all negative.
The Gun
First introduced in 1964, the Ruger 10/22 is likely the most successful .22 rifle ever devised. As of 2015, there had been more than seven million copies sold. Aftermarket parts and accessories are so prolific that you can actually build a Ruger 10/22 nowadays that doesn’t include a single Ruger part. The number of young shooters whose first taste of a trigger was that of a 10/22 defies counting.
The standard Ruger 10/22 features a blued finish and walnut stock, though there are plenty of factory options available. The 10/22 has been offered in .22LR, .17HMR, and .22 Win Mag variants. However, the .17HMR and .22 Win Mag versions were only available for a couple of years. The standard .22LR rifle feeds from a flush-mounted 10-round helical-feed magazine, though aftermarket magazines and drums carry fifty rounds or more.
The standard 10/22 rifle comes with quality iron sights. The rear sight folds flat when not needed. Every 10/22 rifle is tapped for a scope mount that comes with the gun.
Aftermarket dress-up kits span the spectrum. The modular nature of the design lends itself to creativity. The basic chassis has been adapted to emulate a crank-powered, tripod-mounted Gatling gun, a miniaturized MG42 machinegun, and even an M1 Garand. The Archangel Nomad kit is a drop-in polymer chassis that makes the 10/22 into a proper facsimile of an HK G36 assault rifle.
When introduced in 1964 the 10/22 sold for $54.50. That’s about $465 in today’s money. The MSRP for the base model 10/22 today is $309. In addition to being reliable, accurate, and customizable, the 10/22 was also designed from the outset for ease of manufacture. The receiver is an investment casting, while many of the components are polymer. This helps keep the gun affordable.
The Rest of the Story
Spencer pled guilty to two counts of 1st-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. She was sentenced to 25 years to life on the day after her 18th birthday. She has thus far been before a parole board four times and has been denied each time.
Brenda alleged that her father Wallace both beat and sexually abused her. He bizarrely married Brenda’s 17-year-old prison cellmate after her release, and they had a daughter together. The young woman eventually left him, but he lived in the same house across the street from the school until his death in 2016. The Grover Cleveland Elementary School was demolished in 2018.
In 2005 Brenda’s prison girlfriend was released and she was reported for an incident of self-harm. The report stated that she had clawed the words “Pride” and “Courage” into her flesh. When challenged she claimed the words were actually “Unforgiven” and “Alone.” She is currently 59 years old and resides at the California Institution for Women in Chino. She has been formally inducted into the “Golden Girls Club,” an organization of female inmates aged older than 55.
Bob Geldof, lead singer for the rock group the Boomtown Rats, read about the incident and wrote a song titled I Don’t Like Mondays that was released in July of 1979. The song was number 1 for four weeks in the UK, though it did not break the top 40 in the US. The Spencer family made a concerted effort to keep the song off the air on this side of the pond, but it received fairly extensive airplay regardless.
Geldof later said, “[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.”
“With every school shooting, I feel I’m partially responsible. What if they got the idea from what I did?”
–Brenda Spencer
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