The school shooting of 1997 was not a part of the national consciousness at the time. The carnage that left three students dead and five more injured at Heath High School, near Paducah, Kentucky, ended when Carneal put down his gun and the principal walked him to the school office.
Carneal’s life sentence gave him an opportunity for parole after 25 years, the maximum sentence allowed for his age.
After Sandy Hook and Uvalde, American life is very different than it was 25 years ago with a parole hearing next week. Many schools now have police officers and metal detectors in place, as well as kindergarteners being drilled to prepare for active shooter situations.
At the time of the sentencing, it seemed like twenty-five years was too long. When she was a teenager, she was shot by a friend. She uses a wheelchair after being shot. She has counted down the time until she could be released from prison.
I would think about it for a long time. How much more time? I thought at the 20-year anniversary memorial that it would come up.
A professor of social welfare and education at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied school violence, said public opinion has changed over the last 25 years. Children who had committed very serious crimes, including murder, but were rehabilitated and not jailed, were provided therapy by Astor in the 1980’s and 90’s.
All of them would have been locked up today. Most of the time, the majority went on to do good things.
It is possible to help troubled children. She used to work as a counselor for at-risk youth and used her wheelchair to remind her of the dangers of violence.
She said that kids who threatened school shootings were sent to her. Some are grown ups. I like to see how they have changed their lives. They’ve learned from their mistakes.
She doesn’t think he should be freed. She is concerned that he isn’t prepared to handle life outside of prison and could still hurt others. She doesn’t think it would be right for him to be free when the people he hurt are still suffering.
He needs to have a chance at 39. There are people getting married. She stated that they have children. He shouldn’t have a normal life because the three girls he killed won’t have one.
Four people were killed in the shooting, three of them were teenagers.
When it comes to the worst crimes, like many people, he is unsure of what age children should be held accountable for their actions. As a class exercise, he has his students think about the appropriate punishment for a person of a certain age. Should a 16 year old be treated the same as a 12 year old? A 12-year-old should be treated the same as a 40-year-old.
He said that without a national consensus, you end up with a patchwork of laws and policies that result in different punishments for the same crime.
On the Monday after Thanksgiving break, a shooting occurred at a high school. Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson shot and killed five people at a middle school in Arkansas in less than four months. Nine children and an adult were wounded. They were released on their 21st birthdays after being tried as juvenile delinquents.
The 19-year-old killed 17 people at a high school in Florida. A jury in Florida is considering whether to sentence Cruz to death or life in prison.
Smith has been trying to understand why the student opened fire on his classmates. She said that she loved being around him because he made boring days fun.
In 2007, she met with Carneal in prison and had a lengthy conversation with him. She said she has forgiven him.
She doesn’t think that exonerating him from consequences is the right thing to do.
Those who were injured in the shooting and close relatives of those who were killed are expected to testify at the parole hearing. Only one victim who supports some form of supervised release for Carneal supports it. He will speak from the Kentucky State Reformatory on Tuesday. If the board decides against releasing him, they can decide how long he should wait.
The parole hearing will be conducted by video conference, but the parole board will not be able to see her wheelchair because she is immobile. Everyone who experienced that impact 25 years ago is still dealing with it, she said.
That’s right.
The news researcher contributed to the report.
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