The man who allegedly shot up a parochial school in Butte County Wednesday before taking his own life was known to law enforcement in the Chico area from some petty crimes two decades ago, and was reportedly homeless.
The shooter has now been identified by the Butte County Sheriff’s Office as 56-year-old Glenn Litton, who had been homeless in recent years and spent time moving between Sacramento and Chico. As KTVU reports, he had not been in Butte County Jail since 2003, but he had a history of theft, forgery, and identity theft charges dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s.
Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea provided some details about Litton’s history at a press conference Thursday, as the Scramento Bee reports. Litton was “best described as homeless” and suffered from “severe mental health issues.” His reasons for targeting the Feather River Adventist School — a small Seventh-Day Adventist K-8 school with just 35 students and four teachers — remain unclear, but Honea told reporters that they had evidence Litton had considered another school to target as well.
Litton reportedly attended Paradise Adventist School, in Paradise, as a child.
In evidence apparently taken from a laptop, Litton had discussed being a “lieutenant” in “The International Alliance” and had possibly conflated the Seventh-Day Adventist church with global politics. Honea said he also wrote of a “countermeasure involving child executions,” and said he was responding to “[America’s] involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with attacks towards Yemen.”
Litton reportedly scheduled an appointment under a false name with the principal of Feather River Adventist School, and had a “cordial” meeting with the principal to discuss possibly enrolling his grandson at the school, as Honea explained. This was just a ruse to gain entrance to the building.
Litton’s criminal history apparently spans multiple states, including Nevada and Arizona. Litton was arrested in March for an alleged theft while working at a CVS in Phoenix. He was arrested last month for renting a U-Haul in Chico and never returning it, and he had an outstanding warrant in San Bernardino County for burglary. And a decade ago he was brought up on federal identity-theft charges in California and Nevada, according to Siddhartha “Sid” Patel, the special agent in charge of the FBI Sacramento field office, per the Sacramento Bee.
He also had an extensive criminal history as a juvenile in Chico, Honea said.
The two children who were injured, who remain in critical condition facing surgeries, have been identified as well.
The victims were identified as Roman Mendez, 6, and Elias Wolford, 5. Wolford was shot once in the abdomen, and Mendez was shot twice, but authorities did not say more.
Honea said Thursday, “The fact that they are currently still with us is a miracle.”