Man who shot 2 kids at California school wanted to avenge ‘genocide’ of Palestinians
Police say Glenn Litton mentally ill, found writings saying he was carrying out ‘counter-measures’ and ‘child executions’ in response to US involvement in Middle East conflicts
OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A gunman who critically wounded two kindergartners at a tiny religious school in Northern California was mentally ill and believed by targeting children he was carrying out “counter-measures” in response to America’s involvement in Middle East conflicts, a sheriff said Thursday.
Glenn Litton used a “ruse” of pretending to enroll a fictitious grandson to gain entry to the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Oroville, Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea said during a news conference.
Litton used a handgun to shoot two kindergarten boys, ages 5 and 6, who remained in critical condition Thursday, the sheriff said. Litton then used the weapon — a so-called ghost gun, which is difficult for investigators to trace — to kill himself just yards (meters) from the school’s playground.
While Honea said Litton, 56, also had a lengthy criminal history — mostly theft and identity theft — authorities said they did not find any violent crimes on his record.
Honea said the man is believed to have targeted the Feather River School in Wednesday’s attack, though it’s unclear why. Litton had attended a school of Seventh-Day Adventists in another town as a child, the sheriff said, and he possibly had a relative who attended Feather River as a young child.
But in Litton’s writings, the sheriff said, the suspect wrote about taking “counter-measures” against the school in response to America’s involvement in conflict in the Middle East.
The note said he sought to carry out the “child executions” as a “response to America’s involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with the attacks towards Yemen.”
“That’s a motivation that was in his mind. How it was that he conflated what’s going on in Palestine and Yemen with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, I can’t speculate. I’m not sure that we’ll ever know that,” Honea said.
The US has supported Israel which launched a war against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists crossed into Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 44,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7. Israel has since been accused of committing genocide in in Gaza, a charge it strenuously denies.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
The US has also led an international coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who began attacking international shipping and firing missiles and drones at Israel after Oct. 7, saying it was in support of the Palestinians.
The sheriff said Litton had similarly scheduled an appointment at another Seventh-Day Adventist school, set for Thursday.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church is a Christian denomination in which members consider the Bible their only creed and believe that the second coming of Christ is near. The shooting occurred shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday at the private K-8 school with fewer than three dozen students in Oroville, on the edge of the tiny community of Palermo, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Sacramento.
History of mental illness
Law enforcement officials have documented Litton’s history of mental illness back to when he was a teenager, though Honea said investigators have not found a concrete diagnosis.
Feather River Adventist School shooter Glenn Litton left this note before ubering to the school and shooting two kindergarten students:
"Countermeasure involving child executions has now been imposed at the Seventh Day Adventist school in CA, U.S. by the international alliance.… pic.twitter.com/6YT1p08GoS
— Zach Boetto (@FOX40Zach) December 6, 2024
In recent years, Litton searched online for guns and explosives and wrote notes to himself to plan a non-specific mass incident, though Butte County District Attorney Michael L. Ramsey said they were “just ruminations.” Litton was a convicted felon and therefore could not legally possess a firearm.
The sheriff said the 6-year-old suffered two gunshot wounds that caused internal injuries, while the 5-year-old was shot once.
“The fact that they are currently still with us is a miracle,” Honea said of the children, adding they will likely face additional surgeries and “have a very long road ahead of them, in terms of recovery.”
Honea said the gunman was dropped off by an Uber driver for the fake meeting with a school administrator.
Following the shooting, the gunman’s body was found near the slide and other playground equipment on school grounds, which abuts ranchland where cattle graze. A handgun was found nearby, Honea said.
The school was closed Thursday but sheriff’s deputies walked around the campus behind shuttered gates and staff members carried classroom items out to their cars.
Shawn Webber, an Oroville city councilmember, said the region was reeling.
“When you see this on the news or nationally and it’s like, those things don’t happen here. Well, yesterday it happened here,” he said Thursday. “It just absolutely violated the peace of our community.”
A candlelight vigil is planned for Friday.
It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings around the US in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The shootings have set off fervent gun control debates and frayed the nerves of parents whose children have grown accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms.
But the shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws. Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
“We know that the close-knit Feather River community will be grieving for a long time, as will the rest of our conference,” said Laurie Trujillo, a spokesperson for the Northern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
