Brampton Centennial Secondary School shooting

Brampton Centennial Secondary School shooting
Michael Slobodian in 1975
LocationBrampton, Ontario, Canada
DateMay 28, 1975 (1975-05-28)
11:35 a.m. (EDT)
TargetMargaret Wright, Ross Bronson
Attack type
Weapons
Deaths3 (including the perpetrator)
Injured13
PerpetratorMichael Peter Slobodian
MotiveRevenge against two teachers, as well as the school system

On May 28, 1975, a school shooting occurred at Brampton Centennial Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The perpetrator, 16-year-old Michael Slobodian, a student at the school, shot and killed two people and injured 13 others before committing suicide.

Shooting

Michael Slobodian, a 16-year-old student at the school, had been skipping classes, prompting his teacher, Margaret Wright, to contact his parents. When Slobodian returned home during a mid-morning break, his mother confronted him about the absences. He subsequently wrote a note to his family stating: "I am going to eliminate certain people from this world. Those people are: Mrs. Wright, Mr. Bronson and any other sucker who gets in my way. I am then going to kill myself so as not to be imprisoned."[1]

Slobodian returned to school with two rifles in a guitar case. He also carried 70 rounds (50 .22 rounds + 20 .444 rounds) of ammunition to the school.[2][3][4] He moved to a washroom on the ground floor of the school. In the washroom, he entered a toilet cubicle to prepare his weapons while leaving the cubicle's door open. As Slobodian was preparing the rifles, John Slinger and another student walked in on him and noticed the guns. Slobodian shouted to them: "Get out of here. I don't want to shoot you".[5] As the two students turned away from Slobodian, he opened fire on them with his .22-calibre Ruger semi-automatic rifle. He fired seven times, killing Slinger and wounding two other students.[1][4] Slobodian stepped out of the washroom and fired a single shot from the .22 rifle towards a classroom, wounding two students.[4]

Slobodian then switched to his Marlin .444 rifle and fired at a different classroom twice, wounding two students. Slobodian walked northbound towards an east/west intersection in the hallway. At the intersection, Slobodian fired a shot west, injuring four students with shrapnel. He then fired a shot east, grazing a student.[4]

He proceeded to an art classroom, killed Wright and wounded two more students with two shots. Witnesses in the art classroom described Slobodian stopping at the doorway and putting down the Ruger rifle. Wright, recognizing the shooter, stated: "Mike" before Slobodian raised the Marlin rifle in response. Wright tried to run away but was shot in the back, with the bullet exiting her chest and hitting another student.[4]

After shooting up the art classroom, Slobodian returned to the hallway and killed himself with an upwards shot through the chin. He died adjacent to the art classroom. In addition to the three dead (including himself), Slobodian had wounded 13 others.[6] It was determined that Slobodian fired eight shots from the .22-calibre Ruger rifle and seven shots, including the suicide shot, from the .444-calibre Marlin rifle.[4]

Witnesses of the shooting included students Cathy and Nancy Davis, the daughters of then Ontario Premier William Davis. Another witness was Scott Thompson, of the Kids in the Hall, who was in the same English class with Slobodian that was taught by Wright.[7] Thompson has stated that the 24-year-old Wright, who was six months pregnant, had been his favourite teacher and the first person to encourage his writing talents.[7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Andrew-Gee, Eric (May 23, 2015). "Brampton Centennial students still haunted by shooting rampage 40 years on". Toronto Star. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Slobodian is the first recorded high-school killer in the country". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on November 23, 2007. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  3. ↑ Youth kills two, self at school, Ellensburg Daily Record (May 29, 1975)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Police Force, Peel Regional (June 6, 1975). "Brampton Shooting Police Report" (PDF). Schoolshooters.info. Retrieved August 26, 2025.
  5. ↑ Ramnaraine, Jankie Devi (December 2014). "Michael Slobodian: The Forgotten School Shooter An Examination of the On-Scene Offense Characteristics of the First Canadian School Shooting, Brampton, Ontario, 1975". ontariotechu.scholaris.ca. Retrieved August 26, 2025.
  6. ↑ Revenge motivated teen, The Ledger (May 29, 1975)
  7. 1 2 Myers, Paul (2018). The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy. House of Anansi Press. pp. 62–63. ISBN 978-1487001834.

43°40′03″N 79°44′57″W / 43.667456°N 79.749128°W / 43.667456; -79.749128

This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.