South Carolina has history of school shootings

ANDERSON, S.C. — The shooting Wednesday at Townville Elementary School in Anderson County, S.C., marked another incident in a long history of school shootings in South Carolina.

On Sept. 26, 1988, two 8-year-olds were killed in a school shooting at Oakland Elementary School in Greenwood.

James William Wilson, 19 at the time of the shooting, fatally shot 8-year-olds Shequila Tawoon Bradley and Tequila Maria Thomas. Multiple other children and adults were wounded in Wilson's shooting spree.

Wilson said in an interview with The State (Columbia) newspaper in September 1988 that as he pulled the trigger of his grandfather's .22-caliber pistol he was remembering the ridicule he endured from classmates at other schools for being overweight and dressing funny.

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Wilson also said that he was copying a similar act by a woman in Winnetka, Ill.

Witnesses said Wilson shot pupils who screamed.

''I thought some of the students in the school were after me,'' Wilson was quoted as saying. ''I was trying to make them be quiet. I feel real bad about what happened.''

Wilson eventually pleaded guilty, but mentally ill to murder and other charges. He remains on death row, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections website.

In January 1994, 17-year-old Earnest Dunlap was fatally shot by a fellow student at Eau Claire High School in Columbia.

Dunlap was shot in a third-floor hallway at the beginning of a break in classes.

Floyd Eugene Brown, 18 at the time, was arrested shortly after at his home.

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In October 1995, a jury acquitted Brown of murder.

Jurors accepted the defense's picture of Brown as a vulnerable young man threatened by a bully, rejecting the prosecution's portrait of the defendant as a cold-blooded teen bent on using bullets to repair his wounded pride, according to an account by The State newspaper.

Also in October 1995, a suspended student shot a teacher in the face at Blackville-Hilda High School in Blackville and then fatally shot himself.

Toby R. Sincino, 16, had been expelled the previous school year, but had returned to classes on probationary status. He was suspended again the day before the shooting after making an obscene gesture on a school bus and faced another expulsion.

On the day of the shooting, he walked through a back door at the school armed with a .32-caliber revolver. He passed two classrooms and entered a third, where he shot and wounded math teacher Johnny Thompson, 38, investigators said.

Sincino continued down the hall and confronted another math teacher, Phyllis Senn, 56, who was later found dead in a teachers' work room, authorities said at the time.

Sincino's father, Randolph, said his son was a small boy who sometimes was picked on by other students in the rural town of 3,000 people about 45 miles south of Columbia.

Among other incidents in recent decades, this year a student accidentally shot himself at Southside High School in Greenville County on a morning in May.

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The wounded boy and a 17-year-old were charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, disturbing schools and carrying a weapon on school property in the case. The injured boy was charged as a juvenile, so his name was not released.

Two other people were charged later in May in the case.

Nationwide, between April 2009 and November 2015 there were 162 school shooting incidents, according to the latest statistics available from the U.S. Department of Education.

That number includes elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities. The total number of deaths was 138 — 76 students, 17 teachers, and 45 others not affiliated with the schools, according to the Education Department. For the purposes of the statistics, a school shooting was defined as an incident that occurred on or in the immediate vicinity of school grounds or other locations and during hours for which students and personnel have a reasonable expectation of safety.

In 2013, an advocacy group called Everytown for Gun Safety began tracking gunfire in schools and at college and universities — public reports that a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds. Over the next three years, ending in December 2015, Everytown identified 160 qualifying incidents, including fatal and nonfatal assaults, suicides, and unintentional shootings.

Follow Alison Newton on Twitter: @AlisonNewton16