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4. A Deadly Partnership: Lethal Violence in an Arkansas Middle School
Pages 101-131

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From page 101...
... As a result, four students and a teacher died and 10 others were wounded. This chapter is based on interviews completed in June 2001 with 98 students, teachers, administrators, lawyers, judges, court personnel, parents of the victims and one of the shooters, church leaders, and community residents, as well as media reports and official court documents.
From page 102...
... Hence, the school had no violence prevention programs beyond anger management counseling in place at the time of the shooting. THE SHOOTERS Mitchell Johnson was 13 years old and in the seventh grade at Westside Middle School on the day of the shooting.
From page 103...
... , Scott Johnson, had an explosive temper. According to media reports, by his own admission Scott Johnson was a screamer.
From page 104...
... He got into serious enough trouble to land himself on in-school suspension at least three times while he was a student at Westside Middle School. The first incident came when he was in sixth grade: he got mad and hit a thermostat in the hallway, breaking its glass case.
From page 105...
... In the days and weeks immediately preceding the shooting, his mother did not notice any sudden changes in Mitchell's behavior but admits that there were some troubling signs that something was wrong. The summer before the shooting, Mitchell was caught molesting a 2-year-old girl in Minnesota and was charged for the incident in juvenile court.
From page 106...
... The Golden home was the office of the Tonesboro Practical Pistol Shooters Association, a local affiliate of a national gun organization, which is indicative of their enthusiasm for the sport. Most adults described Andrew, just as they did Mitchell, as an outwardly normal or typical child.
From page 107...
... Andrew's father came to parent-teacher conferences and, when Andrew was in elementary school, his grandmother would often go on school field trips. Most of his teachers described Andrew as a boy who always had a grin on his face and, if anything, would have gone unnoticed.
From page 108...
... She was hailed as a hero by many in the community and the press for shielding her students from the gunfire, giving her life for theirs. The wounded were Candice Porter, age 11, who "dated" Mitchell for a few days before she broke up with him; Crystal Barnes, age 13; Whitney Irving, age 11; teacher Lynette Thetford, who had Andrew in her social studies class; Brittany Lambie, age 13; Jennifer Jacobs, age 12, who reportedly dated Andrew and broke up with him before the shooting; Ashley Belts, age 12; Tristan McGowan, age 13, who was Andrew's cousin; Christina Amer, age 12; and Jenna Brooks, age 12, cousin of Natalie Brooks, who was shot and killed.
From page 109...
... Instead, Mitchell took the van and drove it to Andrew Golden's home. Andrew's parents, who had left for work, had left Andrew home alone to catch the bus on his own that morning, as they had recently started doing.
From page 110...
... Some law enforcement officials suspect that when a construction worker on the roof of the new fifth grade wing of the middle school saw the boys shooting and screamed at them to stop, they ended the assault. Mitchell fired a few shots at the construction worker and both boys fled the scene, running toward the van.
From page 111...
... 4 According to witnesses, many of the students knew immediately who was responsible for the shooting, and they told their teachers when they reached the safety of the gym, naming Andrew Golden, Mitchell Johnson, and a third shooter, reported to be an older student at a nearby high school. 5 Apparently, Mitchell and Andrew gave many hints about what they were planning to do.
From page 112...
... It is not clear whether the boys intentionally targeted specific individuals. In general, based on the ballistics evidence, people involved in law enforcement and the legal proceedings deny that individuals were targeted.
From page 113...
... Some residents also had trouble reconciling the fact that an insider like Andrew, whose family had been in the community for generations, could conceive of such a heinous act, so they find it more plausible to blame it on Mitchell, the relative newcomer. In retrospect, we know that Mitchell seemed to have precipitating events immediately preceding the shooting which could explain his anger at that time; we know little about Andrew, however.
From page 114...
... In addition, there is no evidence that either boy was on any form of medication. Family Problems Problems within the family including divorce, domestic or sexual abuse, frequent relocations, fragile family relationships, as well as lack of awareness or involvement in children's lives are another explanation for school shootings that has been put forth in the popular media.
From page 115...
... In contrast to Mitchell's more clearly troubled family history, Andrew Golden's family background seemed to be remarkably stable. His family was close, and they were well-respected long-time residents of the community.
From page 116...
... The Goldens were not accessible to us and hence we lack the kind of insight that might have been developed had we been able to interview his parents or grandparents. Bullying According to a number of people close to the boys including classmates, teachers, and law enforcement officials bullying, or at the very least teasing, may have been a factor in the shootings.
From page 117...
... Mitchell had access to a gun for hunting purposes, but because his stepfather had been convicted of a felony and was not allowed to have weapons in his home, the gun was stored with a neighbor and was not used for the shooting. Exposure to Media Violence or Media Coverage Many residents of the community where the shooting occurred believe that the media's glamorization of violence in general and of school shootings in particular fuel these types of incidents, if not this specific tragedy.
From page 118...
... At the time of the shooting, two other school shootings had occurred in the South in the previous six months: one in Pearl, Mississippi, and one in West Paducah, Kentucky. It is unclear whether the boys were aware of either shooting, but people close to the boys do not believe it was a primary motivation.
From page 119...
... There is no strong evidence to suggest that either Mitchell Johnson or Andrew Golden had particularly close relationships with adults outside their families. There were a couple of teachers that Mitchell liked, but he had disciplinary problems even with them when his temper got him into trouble.
From page 120...
... CRIMINAL ADJUDICATION Within minutes of the shooting, Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden were apprehended and taken to the Craighead County Jail's juvenile detention facility. Each boy was charged with 5 counts of capital murder and 10 counts of first degree battery.
From page 121...
... The one law which did emerge from the shooting, the Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction Act, was considered a disappointment. Although it does provide some potential adult sanctions for those under age 14, it actually reduced the number of crimes for which the prosecutor has discretion to try the offender as an adult.
From page 122...
... Given the abbreviated nature of the confinement, many in the Tonesboro and Westside communities are concerned about what will happen when Johnson and Golden are released, whether they will return to the area, and whether they will be rehabilitated by their stay in the Department of Youth Services facility. The view was commonly voiced in matterof-fact tones that their lives will be in danger once they are released, generally followed by the opinion that they should not try to take up residence in the vicinity of Tonesboro.
From page 123...
... News of the shooting has attracted various oddball characters to the school for example, a clown angered because the school denied him permission to perform for the students showed up anyway and was found performing magic tricks in the school cafeteria. A man with a car full of newspaper clippings about different school shootings around the country turned up at Westside as well.
From page 124...
... A minority has also voiced concern that the presence of a law enforcement official on the school grounds results in more students ending up in the criminal justice system. The SRO can report to the sheriff any rule violation that involves criminal activity, including weapon or drug possession and even fighting in the hallway.
From page 125...
... Dealing with the Trauma Needless to say, the shooting was the most traumatizing experience ever suffered by the Westside community. From the very beginning, they have had to contend with shock, grief, frustration, lack of privacy, and for the families of Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, shame, remorse, and the sense that they had been judged in the court of public opinion as parental failures.
From page 126...
... Some students were still scared and were reminded of the shooting whenever they heard a fire alarm or other loud noise, like a locker door slamming. Some students were still in counseling three years later, while others did
From page 127...
... The community is angry that there was never a sense of closure because Johnson and Golden were given indeterminate sentences, which are seen as too short even at their maximum length. There was also no sense of closure when the Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction Act was passed, because it did not provide them with the solutions they had
From page 128...
... Even the civil suits, which have kept the event alive in some other communities, are infrequently discussed in Tonesboro, and have not brought a "second life" to the shooting. Civil suits were brought by the victims' families against the shooters for wrongful death, against their parents for not controlling their children or being aware that a situation like this could happen, against Andrew Golden's grandfather for failing to adequately secure his guns from the known risk of burglary and use by a burglar, and against the gun manufacturers for failing to take available precautions to ensure gun safety namely for failing to install trigger locks.
From page 129...
... CONCLUSION No single cause accounts for the behavior of Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden. The cumulative impact of the forces that span the individual, the family, the school and society are all involved.
From page 130...
... Yet it must be said that millions of American teenagers watch the same films and TV programs, so it is problematic to assign their viewing undue weight. While residents in the Westside and Jonesboro communities are still unable to explain why this tragedy happened, they are generally quick to tell us, "If it could happen at Westside, it could happen anywhere." Many urged that school districts, communities, and indeed the nation simultaneously work to prevent and prepare for school shootings.
From page 131...
... There was clearly an element of failure in this for Mitchell and possibly for Andrew Golden as well. 3As is characteristic of rural communities with school districts that are large, the bus ride to school is extremely long, often upward of 1.5 hours for the children who lived farthest from the school.


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