April 15-20, “Mass Murder Week”
First, I want to preface this by saying I do not condone or support in any means what is stated in this post nor the perpetrators. I don’t intend to cause harm to anyone; this is merely for educational purposes.
The Boston Marathon bombings occurred on April 15, 2013, during the 117th running of the marathon in Boston, Massachusetts. Two homemade bombs, concealed in pressure cookers and placed in backpacks, detonated near the finish line, resulting in the deaths of three individuals and injuring over 260 others. The attack prompted a massive emergency response, with local police and medical personnel rushing to assist victims. In the aftermath, authorities identified the suspects as brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev through surveillance footage. The brothers were motivated by extremist religious beliefs but were not affiliated with any terrorist organization.
The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting and mass shooting that occurred on Monday, April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols before committing suicide. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho.
On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people, and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in the community of Enfield. The attacks are the deadliest shooting rampage in Canadian history.
On April 19, 1995, American anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh, assisted by Terry Nichols, detonated a makeshift bomb stored in a rental truck parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in an act of domestic terrorism. The attack killed 167 people, injured 684, and destroyed more than a third of the building. The attack also destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings, destroyed 86 vehicles and caused an estimated $652 million in damage.
Columbine High School massacre
On April 20, 1999, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 students and one teacher in a school shooting and attempted bombing at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. Their gunshots injured 20 more people; three others were injured while trying to escape. The attack ended when Harris and Klebold died by suicide. The Columbine massacre was the deadliest mass shooting at a K–12 school in U.S. history until the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012. It remains among the most infamous massacres in the United States and the deadliest mass shooting in Colorado.
Columbine High School massacre