Young shooting victims identified Suspect in Palermo school shooting also named

by Yucheng Tang
posted Dec. 5

Roman Mendez, aged 6, sustained two gunshot wounds resulting in internal injuries when a gunman entered his school yard Dec. 4 and opened fire. Elias Wolford, 5, was shot one time in the abdomen, also resulting in internal injuries.

The two kindergarten students who attended Feather River Adventist School in Palermo remained in critical condition today. In the pictures shown at a press briefing earlier today, smiling Roman wore a red sweater and Elias cupped his chin in his hands.

“They have a very long road ahead of them in terms of recovery,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea. “It’s very likely that they are going to have to have a number of surgeries going forward.”

Authorities say the gunman killed himself after injuring the kindergarteners. The shooting was reported to the California High Patrol at 1:08 p.m. Dec. 4.

Honea identified the suspect as Glenn Litton, who he said can be “best described as being homeless.”

“He spends time between Sacramento and the Chico area,” Honea said. “He has a lengthy criminal history and history of mental health issues.”

Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said a search of 56-year-old Litton’s computer in 2002 showed “his curiosity or searching of a number of websites involved with looking for guns, looking for explosives. Notes in the computer to himself were fairly significant in terms of planning some sort of mass incident involving explosives.”

Litton was listed as a suspect in a Chico PD case last month when he failed to return a rented vehicle, and was arrested by the South San Francisco Police Department.

On Dec. 4, Litton went to the school for an appointment he had made with the school administrator to “explore the possibility of enrolling a family member as a student at school.”

After that meeting, the sheriff said Litton walked to the parking lot and then made a turn and started to walk back through the breezeway that leads to the playground. The children at the school were finishing up their noon break and in the process of heading back to the classroom. Law enforcement officials say that Litton opened fire.

Honea said the appointment appeared to be a ruse to gain access to the campus. Authorities believe the gunman targeted the school because of its religious affiliation.

Honea indicated there are some writings that “we believe came from him (the suspect).”

“Countermeasures involving child executions has now been imposed at the Seventh Day Adventist school in California, United States by The International Alliance. I, Lieutenant Glenn Litton of the Alliance carried out countermeasure in necessitated response to Americas involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with attacks towards Yemen.”

Honea didn’t reveal more details about those writings and how they were found. He said: “At this particular point, we’ve been working not only with local law enforcement, but federal law enforcement … we have not been able to find any organization that calls themselves the International Alliance.”

“It appears that he pulled information from various sources and all came together in his mind to form a reality that perhaps is false or different than ours,” Honea added.

Feather River Adventist School is a Seventh-day Adventist school, with an enrollment of about 30 children in kindergarten through 8th grade. On the school website, the “About Us” says: “…teaching (is) much easier with students like ours who are respectful, friendly, and play hard at recess!”

North Valley Community Foundation has opened a victims’ assistance fund, promising that no administrative fees will be charged.

A fundraising event will be held at 5:30 pm Dec. 9 at the Southside Community Center in Oroville, organized by local churches and community leaders.

Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol.