Samson L. Freedman, a 56-year-old ceramics teacher at Leeds Junior High School in Philadelphia, was shot on a cold afternoon in February 1971 as he was leaving the school. Freedman had taught for 25 years in the district and served as chairman of a district human relations commission, remembered for his work on racial understanding.

Earlier that day Freedman had suspended a 14-year-old eighth-grade student, Kevin Simmons, for cursing and told him to bring his mother to school the following Monday. Instead, Simmons returned with a gun taken from his father’s bureau. As Simmons descended a staircase with the gun tucked into his pants, it reportedly discharged while he pulled up his pants; a single bullet struck Freedman in the back of the neck and exited through his face. Freedman died about an hour after being rushed to the hospital.

Simmons was taken into custody at his home later that day, charged as an adult with murder, and ultimately served nine years of a 20-year sentence after a plea bargain. The killing prompted calls for improved school security. Does anyone have further details about the school’s response or eyewitness accounts from that day?