Actor Jake Johnson, who is well-known for voicing Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its 2023 sequel, recently recalled the time his elementary school was subject to a shooting by a local woman named Laurie Dann.
The actor explained that his mother had a gut feeling just a day before his school was shot up, asking him to skip school that day. His mother eventually agreed because the actor went on a field trip that day. On May 20th, 1988, Laurie Dann, a mentally ill woman, entered a second-grade classroom and opened fire on the class.
Jake Johnson was saved from a near-death experience
During his recent appearance on the Dope as Usual podcast, actor Jake Johnson explained that his mother didn’t want him to go to school on a random day in fourth grade because of her “gut feeling.” The actor explained,
“I was sitting next to my mom, I was in fourth grade – Out of nowhere, my mother turns to me and goes, ‘You’re not going to school tomorrow.'”
Since the actor was going on a field trip that day, he argued and when his mom was sure that he wouldn’t be at the school, she agreed to send him on the field trip. The actor then explained that a woman opened fire in his school that day,
“The next day – May 20, 1988 – a woman walks into my elementary school through the door that my class was in – A woman walked into the school wearing a robe and nothing underneath… The room was empty, she walked through, walked down the hall, walked into another room, shot seven kids, killed one of them. True story.”
Laurie Dann, who suffered from mental illness, walked into the second-grade classroom of Hubbard Woods Elementary School in Winnetka, Illinois, and claimed she was there to teach the students about guns before open firing on the class. The woman also attempted to set fire to another school and the home of the family she had been babysitting on the same day.
Also read: Across The Spider-Verse: The Most Shocking Reveals, As Revealed By Reddit Users
Jake Johnson believes that he could’ve died if he was in school that day
Furhter in the interview, Johnson explained that he used to sit by the door because he used to get in trouble in school, adding that if he had been in school that day he would’ve said something,
“I used to get in a lot of trouble as a kid and I used to always talk, so the teacher pushed me in the far right corner so I sat away from the other kids – I would have said something, I would have tried to show off, I would have tried to get laughs. There’s no question – My mom cannot explain why she did not want me to go to school… I don’t get it.”
Johnson is well known for work as Nick Miller in the Fox sitcom New Girl (2011–2018) and voicing Peter B. Parker / Spider-Man in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its 2023 sequel. Apart from this, he has also showcased his talent in films like Let’s Be Cops (2014), Paper Heart (2009), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), 21 Jump Street (2012), Jurassic World (2015), The Mummy (2017), and Tag (2018).
