Oct 28, 2026 · 3 hr 49 min · 28 segments
As always, thank you for hanging out and remembering Brandon Teena, L. King, Charlie Howard, Gwen Araujo, and Matthew Shepard with me today.
It's February 12th, 2008, and a classroom of eighth graders is moving from one room into the computer lab so that they can work on writing their papers.
They're writing papers on various topics related to tolerance in relation to World War II.
So the group of students is walking over and at the head of the class is Elle and their teacher.
And Elle and their teacher were super duper close.
Elle had actually brought their teacher a Dixie cup full of flowers because they were just like the sweetest king.
So all 28 students along with their teacher file into this classroom and Elle takes a seat right in the middle of the room.
at a computer because it's a computer lab and starts working on their paper.
The topic that they've chosen is protest songs of the 1960s.
And they're sitting there doing their work.
And a boy named Brandon, who was 14 years old, took a seat directly behind Elle.
Not at a computer, by the way.
He was sitting in a chair up against the wall.
Brandon was seemingly fuming.
He seemed to be very angry, very pissed off and was frequently looking over to Elle.
but not working.
And the teacher asked like, why aren't you working? Kind of thing.
And Brandon said that he was done with his paper, which was a paper on Adolf Hitler.
So then he took out a book and just kind of pretended to read.
The teacher of the classroom said that everybody was just working.
There was a sounds of, you know, keyboards, keyboards typing and an eighth grade class doing classwork, you know, normal sounds when all of a sudden she heard a loud pop and kids who had been in the class that day said that it kind of just sounded like a balloon had popped.
So the teacher kind of looked around and she saw that Brandon, was just standing up, just standing in the center of the room.
And she kind of looked at him, not understanding what had happened yet.
She looked at him, he looked at her and she said like, what are you doing? But he didn't answer.
And then he raised the gun and he fired a second shot.
It's February 12th, 2008, and a classroom of eighth graders is moving from one room into the computer lab so that they can work on writing their papers.
They're writing papers on various topics related to tolerance in relation to World War II.
So the group of students is walking over and at the head of the class is Elle and their teacher.
And Elle and their teacher were super duper close.
Elle had actually brought their teacher a Dixie cup full of flowers because they were just like the sweetest king.
So all 28 students along with their teacher file into this classroom and Elle takes a seat right in the middle of the room.
at a computer because it's a computer lab and starts working on their paper.
The topic that they've chosen is protest songs of the 1960s.
And they're sitting there doing their work.
And a boy named Brandon, who was 14 years old, took a seat directly behind Elle.
Not at a computer, by the way.
He was sitting in a chair up against the wall.
Brandon was seemingly fuming.
He seemed to be very angry, very pissed off and was frequently looking over to Elle.
but not working.
And the teacher asked like, why aren't you working? Kind of thing.
And Brandon said that he was done with his paper, which was a paper on Adolf Hitler.
So then he took out a book and just kind of pretended to read.
The teacher of the classroom said that everybody was just working.
There was a sounds of, you know, keyboards, keyboards typing and an eighth grade class doing classwork, you know, normal sounds when all of a sudden she heard a loud pop and kids who had been in the class that day said that it kind of just sounded like a balloon had popped.
So the teacher kind of looked around and she saw that Brandon, was just standing up, just standing in the center of the room.
And she kind of looked at him, not understanding what had happened yet.
She looked at him, he looked at her and she said like, what are you doing? But he didn't answer.
And then he raised the gun and he fired a second shot.
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