Wayne Lo

On December 14, 1992, a mass shooting occurred at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, United States. A student and a professor were killed, and four others were injured, before the gunman, 18-year-old Wayne Lo, surrendered to police. He is currently serving two life sentences plus 20 years.

Events Prior to the shooting On the morning of December 14, 1992, Simon's Rock receptionist Teresa Beavers searched a package addressed to Wayne Lo from the North Carolina company Classic Arms and found 7.62 caliber ammunition inside the package. She notified college residence directors and called for an investigation of Lo's dormitory. Residence director Katherine Robinson went to Lo's dormitory and asked Lo if she could see the contents of the package. The shooting began at approximately 10:20 p.m. in the school security area. He shot Theresa Beavers twice in the abdomen, and later fatally shot a Spanish language professor Ñacuñán Sáez in the side of his head while he was driving his Ford Festiva. Lo then fatally shot student Galen Gibson who had left the library to assist whoever had crashed their car, unaware that there was a gunman on campus. Gibson was struck twice, with the chest shot being mortal, and then he went back into the library and died. Lo also wounded another student. Afterward, Lo walked towards a dormitory where he wounded two freshmen students. Lo's rifle jammed after firing at least nine bullets during the entire attack and he dropped his weapon before walking to the student union building and phoned police to tell them of his actions. Lo surrendered to police without further incident. Faber was shot through both thighs and his left calf.

Perpetrator

Wayne Lo (Luo Wen) was born in Tainan, Taiwan, His parents later managed the Great Wall Chinese restaurant at Grand Avenue in Billings. He attended Lewis & Clark Junior High School in Billings for seventh to eighth grade, before attending Billings Central Catholic High School for his freshman and sophomore year. Lo was a violinist in the Billings Symphony Orchestra beginning at age fourteen. He attended the Aspen Music Festival in 1990 and studied under the prominent violin teacher Dorothy DeLay. Lo had a GPA of 3.56 in his sophomore year. While attending Simon's Rock, Lo expressed racist and fascist beliefs. In 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court banned life without parole sentences for crimes committed by offenders under the age of 21. However, Lo waived his right to a resentencing hearing, stating in an affidavit that he believed his original sentence was "fair and proportional to the horrific crimes I committed." He listed the names of all of the people whom he'd shot, both fatally and non-fatally.

Lo spent nine months at a maximum security facility at Walpole, Massachusetts, from February to November 1994. He was later transferred to MCI-Norfolk, a medium security prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Aftermath In 1999, Gregory Gibson, the father of victim Galen Gibson, wrote Gone Boy: A Walkabout, a detailed book recounting the shooting. The book spurred correspondence between Gibson and Lo, which was detailed in a New York Times article, as well as a German TV documentary film. In a February 2013 episode of PBS's Need to Know, journalist Maria Hinojosa reported, "In fact, in an interview with Newsweek in 2007 after 32 people were killed in the Virginia Tech shootings ... Wayne Lo said: 'The fact that I was able to buy a rifle in 15 minutes, that's absurd. I was 18. I couldn't have rented a car to drive home from school, yet I could purchase a rifle. Obviously a waiting period would be great. Personally, I only had five days left of school before winter break ... If I had a two-week waiting period for the gun, I wouldn't have done it. In December 2017, Lo was interviewed by Gibson. In the video, Lo explains how easy it is to legally obtain a semi-automatic rifle in the United States.

Lo wore a sweatshirt with the name of the New York City hardcore punk band Sick of It All during the shooting. This spurred the band to issue press releases denouncing Lo's crimes. The journalist Chuck Klosterman wrote a passage in his book, Killing Yourself to Live, in which Wayne Lo writes Klosterman a letter from prison contemplating what questions might have been raised if Lo were arrested wearing a T-shirt with the bands Poison or Warrant instead of Sick of It All.

Jonathan Fast’s detailing of the shooting in Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings led to Gibson publishing an article regarding allegations of plagiarized passages taken directly from Gone Boy: A Walkabout.

Through an intermediary, Lo sold art he made in prison, donating proceeds to The Galen Gibson Fund.

Lo was an inspiration for the 2019 feature film Cuck by director Rob Lambert. Lambert rode the school bus with Lo while they both lived in Billings, Montana.