Jonesboro school shooter free

Johnson released on 21st birthday

(Friday, August 12, 2005)


JONESBORO, Arkansas (CNN) -- Mitchell Johnson walked free from prison Thursday, seven years after he and another student opened fire outside a Jonesboro middle school killing four students and a teacher.

Johnson, who was tried as a juvenile, left a Tennessee facility on his 21st birthday -- his record wiped clean.

The release angered many in Jonesboro and opened fresh wounds in a small community still coping with the deadly attacks.

"I'll never forget what he did to our school, our friends and our teachers. He's changed our lives completely. We don't even know what a normal life is really," shooting survivor Brandi George said.

George was with two friends -- Natalie Brooks and Paige Herring -- on that fateful day at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro on March 24, 1998. The fire alarm had gone off in the school, and they thought they were heading outside for a fire drill. Instead, it was an ambush.

As the girls were walking outside, holding hands and singing, Natalie and Paige were shot dead by Johnson, then 13, and Andrew Golden, then 11. Two other students and a teacher were killed. Nine students and a second teacher were wounded.

Mitch Wright, whose wife was killed in the attack, finds it outrageous that Johnson is getting out. "You look at the number of deaths and the number of people shot, and it's just not right," he said.

Johnson and Golden were tried and convicted as minors, due to a now-closed loophole in which they could not be held under Arkansas' juvenile justice system past age 18. Federal prosecutors were able to use gun charges to keep them in prison until their 21st birthdays.

The boys had stolen weapons from Golden's grandfather, pulled the school's fire alarm and then waited in the woods for teachers and students to gather outside before they opened fire.

Golden is set to be released in 2007.

Johnson left the facility with a clean record. Because he was convicted as a minor, he no longer has a criminal record reflecting the shootings.

Sheriff Jack McCann of Craighead County, Arkansas, said that means he will be able to legally purchase guns. McCann said neither of the boys has given a reason for the shootings or expressed remorse.

"I think that's one of the major problems everyone has with this case," he said.

The sheriff spoke with Johnson's mother who said her son would not be living in the Jonesboro area after his release. She still lives about a mile from the middle school where the shooting took place.

Johnson's mother was quoted in an Arkansas paper as saying her son wants to become a minister and that he promises to never live in Arkansas again.

That suits most people here in Jonesboro just fine.

"I'm glad he's not coming back to Jonesboro. Too many people in this area would put a hole in him," resident Greg Slayton said.

Whitney Irving, a student at the middle school when the shootings occurred, said she and others still struggle to cope with what happened seven years ago.

"I want to ask him personally: Have you changed? Do you feel sorry for what you did? Have you suffered like we have?" she said. "Of course, there's no way he's suffered as much as we have."

She added, "In my eyes, he's always going to be a killer. I mean I don't see how you can go from being a killer to being a minister, especially just in seven years."

This is not a gun / gun violence issue. The judge was faithful to the laws as written. If you wish to point blame, it’s the politicians you must look at. Best wishes to all the families. Talk to you DA or AJ about this.

This is not a gun / gun violence issue. The judge was faithful to the laws as written. If you wish to point blame, it’s the politicians you must look at. Best wishes to all the families. Talk to you DA or AJ about this.

No, this is a gun violence issue. It's established fact that someone with a prior history of violence is far more likely to be violent in the future than someone without such a history.

It is also a familiar slogan of the NRA and other gun rights groups that "We don't need to pass more laws, just enforce the ones we have." This is a clear example of why new legislation is needed.

“No, this is a gun violence issue. It's established fact that someone with a prior history of violence is far more likely to be violent in the future than someone without such a history.”

I’m glad your crystal ball is working. How does the above facts guarantee future issues?

Take a hard look at the “juvenile” classification. The politicians wrote and voted the law into the books. The judge was faithful to the laws as written.

“No, this is a gun violence issue. It's established fact that someone with a prior history of violence is far more likely to be violent in the future than someone without such a history.”

I’m glad your crystal ball is working. How does the above facts guarantee future issues?
quote]

No crystal ball. Try the findings of many studies instead, done by many different investigators at many different facilities over an extended period of time.

There is never a guarantee that something will happen; we just have good documentation of predictive factors.

To give you an analogy, I know of a prior bank officer who embezzled $5 million from his employer before he was caught. He was discovered, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. He has since served his prison time and completed probation. He's looking for work now--but not at a bank. He can never be bonded again because of his history, and so cannot work at a bank. Yet banking is what he is educated for and it's the only trade he has experience with. Tell me, do you think it's unfair to bar this man from ever working at a bank again? After all, nobody can say for sure that he'd break the law again.

So if a prior embezzler should be barred from working in a bank, why shouldn't murderers be barred from ever accessing a gun? Both have been grossly irresponsible with a privilege, haven't they?

Please take a hard look at the “juvenile” classification. Review it with your local DA or AG.

You can find studies for both sides. Follow the money if you want the true.

From above:
“There is never a guarantee that something will happen; we just have good documentation of predictive factors.”

Did you use the same logic on your children?

The past does not equal the future.

Your bank officer friend is an adult. Now a felon, so now no bank work or gun.

It is not hard to understand.

"Please take a hard look at the “juvenile” classification. Review it with your local DA or AG."

I'm already aware.

"You can find studies for both sides. Follow the money if you want the true."

It's not the money; it's the quality of the data and the types of studies done and their reproducibility that determine conclusions. Talk to a social sciences researcher and they can hopefully explain to you in a layman's terms what I'm referring to.

"From above:
“There is never a guarantee that something will happen; we just have good documentation of predictive factors.”

Did you use the same logic on your children?"

Every parent with a toddler who has fenced their yard, put caps on electrical outlets, put a kiddie gate at the top of the stairs, or taken the control knobs for the stovetop range off their oven is applying the same principle with their kids. I can cite other examples, but I think you get the picture. The answer is yes, and it saves lives and reduces injuries.

"The past does not equal the future.

Your bank officer friend is an adult. Now a felon, so now no bank work or gun."

The bank officer wasn't my friend. I never met him. I read about it in the newspaper and talked once to someone who worked with him.

Back to the point Al, the juvenile and adult designations under the law are somewhat arbitrary. They are not necessarily based on scientific findings about psychosocial development. The Jonesboro shooter may still have lingering psychiatric problems that would impair his judgment in spite of his aging. We know now that certain types of disorders that affect judgment have a genetic basis and they do not resolve with age or experience. The extraordinary lack of empathy this person displayed at the time of the crime may be a permanent feature of his personality. This possibility deserves the benefit of the doubt in view of his extraordinary history.

“Back to the point Al, the juvenile and adult designations under the law are somewhat arbitrary.”

NO, it is not. In this case, he was convicted as a juvenile. If you want to fix this issue, you must rewrite the juvenile classification law.

LOL, did you talk to a DA about this???

Also your friend can not vote for Kerry after his jail time.

“Back to the point Al, the juvenile and adult designations under the law are somewhat arbitrary.”

NO, it is not. In this case, he was convicted as a juvenile. If you want to fix this issue, you must rewrite the juvenile classification law.

LOL, did you talk to a DA about this???

Also your friend can not vote for Kerry after his jail time.

Al, the juvenile classification varies from state to state! It even varies from context to context within a state (for example, when deciding if someone is "mature" enough to get a driver's license, a marriage license, held maximally accountable for a crime, etc.).

Further, each state's criteria will probably continue to change over time as science gives us more and better info. on human psychosocial development. In the meantime, the criteria each state uses right now may or may not reflect the scientific truth of the matter!

And really, the fact remains that some people will always have impaired judgment, regardless of age. Whether this problem manifests itself during childhood, the teenage years, or later matters not. It's still a permanent problem for many people, despite optimal home environments and/or state-of-the-art medical treatment. Public policy really needs to allow for this reality, esp. gun policy.

In his state, at the time of his hearings, in the USA he was judged to be a juvenile; end of point.

The problems still lies with the juvenile clean slate after time law, not a firearms law. And that applies to all states in the USA.

Please visit a local court room.