Howard Unruh: The First Mass Shooter in Modern American History
“I’d have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets.”
On the morning of 6th September, 1949, 28-year-old Howard Unruh woke and enjoyed a breakfast of fried eggs prepared by his mother. He then got himself ready, armed himself with a 9mm pistol, and left his home to carry out what is now infamously renowned as the first mass shooting in modern American history.
Unruh, a World War Two veteran, had been keeping a mental list of neighbours and local town residents who he felt had wronged him — and it was time for them all to pay.
Killings
After leaving his second floor apartment and making his way onto the street, Unruh shot at a man delivering bread, but missed. Moving on, his next victim was shoemaker John Polarchik, who died instantly from a fatal gunshot wound. He then made his way to the neighbouring barber shop, where he shot and killed Clark Hoover as he cut the hair of a 6-year-old boy named Orris Smith. Unruh also shot the young boy, as his mother watched in horror.
Unruh then continued to fire shots out in the street while approaching the nearby tavern, where he took aim at the customers inside. Amazingly, all survived. As Unruh made his way down the street shooting at more citizens, another resident attempted to put an end to the horror by taking aim from his apartment window and shooting Unruh in the back of the leg. However, this did not stop him, and he continued making his way through the area, shooting people through store windows and gunning down people at close range who passed him on the street.
The next local business to be targeted was the chemist, which was run by a man named Maurice Cohen and his wife, Rose. On his way there, a pedestrian accidentally collided with Unruh in the street, and was immediately shot. By this point, Rose Cohen was aware of Unruh approaching and hid in a closet, but she was found and shot multiple times, as was Maurice’s mother, who was fired at as she dialled for the emergency services. Maurice was also shot as he attempted to flee onto the roof, and his body fell onto the pavement below. A passing car slowed upon seeing Maurice’s body splayed on the sidewalk, enabling the shooter to fire into the vehicle and killing two passengers.
Howard Unruh’s last targeted location was the tailor shop, but upon finding the tailor himself was not there, Unruh instead shot his wife. Following this, Unruh shot at what he thought was merely a shadow but turned out to be a 2-year-old child innocently playing with a toy. The child — a little boy named Thomas Hamilton — sadly died, and this was to be Unruh’s only admitted regret of the day.
After shooting Thomas, Unruh fled back into his apartment, which was then surrounded by police. While barricaded inside, an editor of a local newspaper called Unruh’s phone — and surprisingly he picked up. The journalist asked how many people he had killed, and Howard replied as though the entire ordeal had been some sort of competitive sport:
“I don’t know, I haven’t counted. Looks like a pretty good score.”
Trying to uncover any sort of motive for the senseless rampage, the editor went on to ask why Unruh was killing people, to which he responded:
“I don’t know. I can’t answer that yet. I’ll have to talk to you later. I’m too busy now.”
In a total of 12 minutes, he had killed 13 people ranging from 2 to 68 years old, and injured 3 others.
Arrest and Consequences
The local police, who were largely untrained to deal with such unheard of incidents at the time, eventually figured out a strategy to detain their active shooter. They gained access to the apartment building’s roof and were able to launch teargas canisters through Unruh’s windows. He surrendered very shortly afterwards and was taken into custody.
Howard Unruh was assessed and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which had fuelled fuelled his ideas that people were out to get him. Deemed criminally insane, he never had to face trial for the mass murder he committed that day. He instead would spend the rest of his life at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey, USA, where he died in 2009 at 88 years old.
Unruh has his mark in history as the first “lone wolf” modern shooter, which has proved to be the common archetype for American male shooters in recent decades. Adhering to the FBI’s definition of mass murder, which specifies the killing of four or more people on any one occasion, mass shootings in 21st century America have claimed the lives of 700–800 victims and injured over 1000 others — sparking international outcry and debates on the urgent need for tighter gun control legislation.
