User:Cal Umbra/sandbox/Dunblane

The Dunblane school massacre occurred on 13 March 1996 at Dunblane Primary School in Dunblane, Scotland. The gunman, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton, armed with four legally obtained handguns, shot and killed sixteen school children and their teacher before killing himself. A further twelve children and three adults were injured. The massacre is the deadliest mass shooting to have occurred in Great Britain.

Shooting
On the morning of Wednesday 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton was witnessed scraping ice off his van at approximately 8:15 am outside his home at Kent Road in Stirling. He left a short time afterwards and drove approximately 5 mi north to Dunblane in his white van. He arrived on the grounds of Dunblane Primary School at around 9:30 am and parked his van near to a telegraph pole in the car park of the school. Hamilton severed the cables at the bottom of the telegraph pole, which served nearby houses, with a set of pliers before making his way across the car park towards the school buildings.

Hamilton headed towards the north-west of the school to a door near toilets and the school gymnasium. After gaining entry he made his way to the gymnasium armed with four handguns; two 9mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolvers. He was also carrying 743 cartridges of ammunition. In the gym was a class of twenty-eight Primary 1 pupils preparing for a P.E. lesson in the presence of three adult members of staff. Before entering the gymnasium, it is believed he fired two shots into the stage of the assembly hall and the girls' toilet. Upon entering the gymnasium, Hamilton was about to be confronted by Eileen Harrild, the P.E. teacher in charge of the lesson, before he started shooting rapidly and randomly. He shot Harrild, who sustained injuries to her arms and chest as she attempted to protect herself, and continued shooting into the gymnasium. Harrild managed to stumble into the open plan store cupboard at the side of the gym along with several injured children. Gwen Mayor, the teacher of the Primary 1 class was shot, and killed instantly. The other present adult, Mary Blake, a supervisory assistant, was shot in the head and both legs but also managed to make her way to the store cupboard with several of the children in front of her.

From entering the gymnasium and walking a few steps, Hamilton had fired 29 shots with one of the pistols and killed one child and injured several others. Four injured children had managed to shelter in the store cupboard along with the injured Harrild and Blake. Hamilton then advanced up the east side of the gym, firing six shots as he walked and then fired eight shots towards the opposite end of the gym. He then proceeded towards the centre of the gym, firing 16 shots at point-blank range at a group of children who had been incapacitated by his earlier shots.

A Primary 7 pupil who was walking along the west side of the gym building at the time heard loud bangs and screams and looked inside the gym. Hamilton shot in his direction and the pupil was injured by flying glass before running away. From this position, Hamilton fired 24 cartridges in various directions. He fired shots towards a window next to the fire exit at the south-east end of the gym, possibly at an adult who was walking across the playground, and then fired four more shots in the same direction after opening the fire exit door. Hamilton then exited the gym briefly through the fire exit, firing another four shots towards the cloakroom of the library, striking and injuring Grace Tweddle, another member of staff at the school.

In the mobile classroom closest to the fire exit where Hamilton was standing, Catherine Gordon saw him firing shots and instructed her Primary 7 class to get down onto the floor before Hamilton fired nine bullets into the classroom, striking books and equipment. One bullet passed through a chair where a child had been sitting seconds beforehand. Hamilton then re-entered the gym and dropped the pistol he was using and equipped himself with one of the two revolvers. He put the barrel of the gun in his mouth, pointed it upwards and pulled the trigger, killing himself. A total of 32 people sustained gunshot wounds inflicted by Hamilton over a 3–4 minute period, 16 of whom were fatally wounded in the gymnasium, which included Gwen Mayor and 15 of her pupils. One other child died later en route to hospital.

Emergency response
The first call to the police was made at 9:41 am by the headmaster of the school, Ronald Taylor, who had been alerted by assistant headmistress Agnes Awlson to the possibility of a gunman on the school premises. Awlson had informed Taylor that she heard screaming inside the gymnasium and had seen what she thought to be cartridges on the ground, whilst Taylor had been aware of loud noises which he assumed to have been from builders on site that he had not been informed of. Whilst on his way to the gym, the shooting ended and when he saw what had happened ran back to his office and told deputy headmistress Fiona Eadington to call for ambulances, which was made at 9:43 am.

The first ambulance arrived on the scene at 9:57 am in response to the initial made at 9:43 am. Another medical team from Dunblane Health Centre arrived at 10:04 am which included doctors and a nurse, who were involved in the resuscitation of the injured. Medical teams from the health centres in the nearby towns of Doune and Callander arrived shortly afterwards. The accident and emergency department at Stirling Royal Infirmary had also been informed of a major incident involving multiple casualties at 9:48 am and the first of a number of medical teams from the hospital arrived at 10:15 am. Another medical team from the Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary arrived at 10:35 am.

By approximately 11:10 am, all of the injured victims had been taken to Stirling Royal Infirmary for medical treatment; one victim died en route to the hospital. Upon examination, several of the patients were transferred to Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary in Falkirk and some to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.

Perpetrator
Thomas Watt Hamilton (born Thomas Watt) (10 May 1952 – 13 March 1996) was a 43-year-old who murdered sixteen children and their teacher and wounded fifteen others at Dunblane Primary School, commonly known as the "Dunblane massacre".

Memorials
Two days after the shooting, a vigil and prayer session was held at Dunblane Cathedral which was attended by people of all faiths. On Mothering Sunday, on 17 March, Queen Elizabeth II and her daughter Anne, Princess Royal attended a memorial service at Dunblane Cathedral. In August 1997, two varieties of rose were unveiled and planted as the centrepiece for a roundabout in Dunblane. The two roses were developed by Cockers Roses of Aberdeen; the 'Gwen Mayor' rose and 'Innocence' rose, in memory of the children killed.