(CHRISTIANITY TODAY) — On November 10, 1982, more than 15 years before the landmark Columbine High School massacre, 18-year-old James Quentin Stevens entered Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Va. intending to kill others and then himself. He began shooting erratically—into an office, down the hall, out the window—but hit no one.
“By the time I arrived at that school, I didn’t see human beings,” Stevens, who prefers to go by T. J., told Christianity Today. “I saw prey. The crazy thing is, when I shot, I shot above their heads. I don’t know why.”
He took 10 hostages, firing at the ceiling to prove that this wasn’t a drill. Police arrived, and a harrowing 21 hours of negotiations ensued.
