SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The families of four children are suing the organizations that run the Feather River Adventist School in Oroville, where a man used a ghost gun to shoot and seriously wound two kindergartners at the small faith-based campus in Northern California.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 19 in Butte Superior Court by Mary E. Alexander, a San Francisco-based attorney representing the four children including the two boys who were shot by Glenn Litton before he fatally shot himself in December 2024.

The lawsuit alleges that Feather River Adventist School Principal Kathy Spiva met with Litton, 56, that day before allowing him to roam the campus unaccompanied by school officials. Litton followed the two boys, who were at recess, into a boys’ bathroom on the campus, where he shot them.

Alexander argues that the school failed to exercise reasonable care by allowing Litton to be alone with children on campus and that Spiva failed to escort him off campus.

“By allowing Litton to wander the Feather River campus unaccompanied by school officials, failing to have proper and appropriate security measures, policies and procedures, and inadequately supervising both guests and students, defendants and Principal Spiva provided the opportunity for Litton to open fire on the two young boys,” Alexander argues in the lawsuit.

The Oroville elementary school is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The defendants listed in the civil lawsuit are the Pacific Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church the General Conference Corporation of Seventh-Day Adventists and the North American Division of Seventh-Day Adventist.

Several leadership members of the Pacific Union Conference and the Northern California Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists did not respond to emails seeking comment on this story.

Authorities have described Litton as a homeless man who for years split his time between the Sacramento and Chico areas. Butte County sheriff’s officials said Litton was a convicted felon with an extensive criminal history, making it illegal for him to possess a firearm.

On Dec. 4, 2024, Litton entered the campus after setting up a meeting with school administrators using a fake name and a fabricated reason.

Sheriff’s officials said Litton told the school that his daughter recently moved to nearby Gridley and that he was considering enrolling his grandson in the rural K-8 school, located just off Highway 70 in Butte County near Palermo and Oroville.

The meeting Litton requested was a “ruse,” and there was no connection between Litton and the school, nor did he have a grandson. Sheriff’s investigators believe that Litton targeted the school because of its Seventh-day Adventist affiliation.

Litton had apparently set up a similar ruse at another small Seventh-day Adventist school, this one in Red Bluff, about 70 miles northwest of Oroville, sheriff’s officials said.

At some point in his youth, Litton had attended a Seventh-day Adventist school in Paradise, also in Butte County, where there are both a Seventh-day Adventist elementary school and a high school, which is known as an academy. Sheriff’s officials said it was unclear which school Litton attended or for how long.

After the planned meeting at Feather River Adventist School, Litton headed toward the parking lot. Sheriff’s officials said Litton then turned into a breezeway that cuts through the schoolhouse and leads to a playground, near which he shot the two boys, 5-year-old Elias Wolford and 6-year-old Roman Mendez.

After shooting the boys in the bathroom, Litton walked onto the school playground and turned the gun on himself, according to the lawsuit.

The children listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are identified as John Doe R.M., John Doe A.M. and their mother, Vanessa Diaz, along with John Doe E.W. and Jane Doe E.W. and their father, Fernando Wolford. Jane Doe E.W. was a second-grader at the time, and the other three children were kindergartners.

John Doe R.M. was shot three times and critically wounded, suffering extensive internal injuries, according to the lawsuit.

John Doe E.W. suffered a gunshot wound to his spine, causing paralysis in his legs, and spent approximately two weeks in intensive care and three months in the hospital. He underwent surgery for a leaking kidney and is presently unable to fully move his legs and requires the use of a walker, according to the lawsuit.

The attorney for the two families argues in the lawsuit that the plaintiffs and other parents of Feather River Adventist School students entrusted the school and its leaders “with the expectation that their children would be kept physically safe and protected from violent predators while they attended school.”

About a month after the school shooting, sheriff’s officials announced that investigators determined the ghost gun used to shoot the two boys had been sold to Litton by a convicted felon in Arizona. Litton used a Glock 19 handgun, a privately manufactured firearm commonly known as a ghost gun.

Ghost guns do not have serial numbers and are difficult for law enforcement officials to track. They are made with firearm parts sometimes sold in kits. With limited exceptions, the sale or transfer of ownership of self-manufactured or self-assembled firearms is prohibited under California law, according to the state Department of Justice.

Butte sheriff’s officials said Litton bought the ghost gun from Jesse Kitagawa Jr., a convicted felon who is barred from purchasing or possessing firearms. Kitagawa, 45, of Phoenix, sold the ghost gun to Litton for $300 in Arizona several months before the campus shooting, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

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