Monash University shooting
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The Monash University shooting was a school massacre that took place at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia on October 21, 2002.
At 11:20am on October 21, students on the sixth floor of the Menzies Building on Monash's Clayton campus reported hearing gun shots. Huan Xiang, a commerce student at the university, armed with five loaded handguns, had opened fire in a tutorial room. Two students, William Wu and Steven Chan, were killed and others seriously wounded. When he stopped shooting and moved to switch weapons, injured lecturer Lee Gordon-Brown and a student in the room, Alaistair Boast, tackled him. Boast and fellow student Bradley Thompson were helped by a lecturer from a nearby room, Brett Inder, to restrain Xiang for fifteen minutes until police arrived while student Andrew Swann and university administrator Colin Thornby provided first aid. Xiang was deemed by police to be unfit for interview but wrote a note referring to William Wu after his arrest saying "I finally ended WW's life."
Huan Xiang was quickly reported to have 'struggled' with his classes, in particular due to not having sufficiently good English skills to succeed with his school work. The defence and prosecution in his trial agreed that he suffered from a paranoid delusional disorder. On June 17, 2004 a jury found Xiang not guilty of the murder of Wu and Chan and of the attempted murder of five other people in the room because of mental illness. Justice Bernard Teague ordered Xiang be transferred to the Thomas Embling psychiatric hospital.
References
- [Two die as gunman attacks his own class] (Sydney Morning Herald)
- [Two shot dead, five wounded at Monash Uni] (Sydney Morning Herald)
- [Man accused of uni deaths remanded in custody] (Sydney Morning Herald)
- [Killer sent to psych hospital] (Sydney Morning Herald)
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