Cleveland Elementary School, 20 East Fulton Street, Stockton, California, from the series "On This Site: Lanscape in Memoriam"
Place
United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date
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Unmarked recto; inscribed verso, on mount, along bottom edge, in black ink: "JS.221.0 1/7 Cleveland Elementary School, 20 East Fulton Street, Stockton, California, August 1994 N-August 1994 / P-September 1996 Joel Sternfeld"
Four hundred children were playing in this schoolyard on January 17, 1989, when a twenty-four-year-old man dressed in combat fatigues entered the grounds through a hole in the fence. Patrick Purdy, who once attended the school, opened fire with two handguns and an AK-47 assault rifle. In a two-minute shooting spree, Purdy killed five children and wounded thirty, before killing himself. In Purdy’s motel room, police found over a hundred small plastic soldiers, tanks, and weapons.
From the series, On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam
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