Thursday, December 07, 2006

Memorial Middle School shooter certified to stand trial as an adult

I am still irritated by some of the comments to the initial Joplin Globe article about the possibility of Memorial Middle School shooter Thomas White being charged as an adult.
How could so many people think that White is too young (at 13) to be charged as an adult? He wasn't too young to take a gun to the school, fire it into the ceiling, and if fortune had not intervened, Memorial Principal Steve Gilbreth, and who knows how many other people, would not be with us today.
I know students and teachers welcomed Judge William Carl Crawford's decision Wednesday to have White stand trial as an adult. Judging from the testimony given at the hearing, the intent to kill was obvious. Consider this passage from Jeff Lehr's article in today's Joplin Globe.

Kim Comstock, a supervisor at the Jasper County Juvenile Detention Center in Joplin, was listening to detainees over an intercom on the night of Oct. 10.

There had been a lot of talk among them about what 13-year-old Thomas White had done the day before, when he allegedly walked into Memorial Middle School with an assault rifle, taken from his father's gun locker, fired a shot into a hallway ceiling and tried to shoot the school's principal when he approached.

Comstock heard one of the boys say that White should have shot Principal Stephen Gilbreth.

"I would have shot him in the head," Comstock heard White reply. "But my f------ gun wouldn't shoot."


For White to be tried in juvenile court and to quickly be returned to normal everyday society would have sent exactly the wrong message. How would that deter any other teenager with a grievance and a gun?

I cannot even imagine what it was like at Memorial Middle School the day of the shooting or even during the two months since. I know how it was at South Middle School. The kids tried to hide their fear, but it was evident. It was evident in the way they talked about the incident in hushed tones- Kids don't talk about anything in hushed tones. The incident weighed heavily on teachers' minds, as well.

Trying and convicting (if that happens) Thomas White in adult court is not going to guarantee there will never be another such incident at Memorial Middle School or at another Joplin school, but allowing White to get a slap on the wrist for an event that traumatized a community would be sending the wrong message to those who lived through the horrific incident...and to those who might consider trying something similar.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This won't be a popular stance, but he is only 13 years old and a disturbed kid. Yes, he does need to be held accountable but he also needs help. I am not convinced by what he said to another kid, when he was locked up. Kids say lots of things. I realize the juvy system is not the best....I would need more info before I could say he should be tried as an adult.

Anonymous said...

I don't work in the educational system or have any children so I am not as emotionally invested in this issue as many are. Trying a 13 year old as an adult looks like simple and shameful politics to me. I believe that there is a reasonable line that can be drawn where someone who is considered a juvenile can be tried as an adult, but 13 is below that line for me and rather obviously so.
But like I said earlier I may feel differently if I was more connected to this tragedy.

Anonymous said...

He should be tried as a juvenile, but punished harshly. At some point you have to draw the line, and a 13-year-old is not an adult, no matter what the crime is. If he was 18, then he's an adult. At 18 you can vote and buy tobacco, at 13 you can't do anything. No matter the crime, this kid is a juvenile any way you look at it and he should be treated as one.

Anonymous said...

I think in this case, it looks like it could come back to possibly (yes POSSIBLY) how the kid was raised. Look at the example his parents set. It has been reported his father is a convicted felon and still owns guns, so it teaches the child to do what you want and don't let anyone or any rule stop you. His mother goes along with the father (by staying with him when he is breaking a significant rule) instead of stepping up and away from the situation and taking that child out of home. Nothing I have heard has been reported on the mother but to stay with someone and keep your child in the home where the rules are taught to be broken speaks volumes to me. If there are other children in the home, also, then to me the State needs to step in and make her pay the consequences also.
And, no, I don't think it is always a parent who causes a child to turn out the way they do. Sometimes you can teach them and teach them but peer pressure or some other underlying problem creates a child that a parent doesn't know or can't control.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the boy (and he is a boy, not a man) did a terrible thing. And he does need to be held accountable.

That being said, he did not kill anyone and almost certainly will be getting out of jail. what kind of man will he be when he gets out?

He's a kid, damn it. He's a kid whose father obviously had problems himself and chose to perpetuate those problems by owning assault weapons as a convicted felon.

So what should happen? He should be tried as a juvenile and given punishment along with treatment to, we would hope,at least TRY to undo some of the damage that has been done for the last 13 years.

In an adult prison, he'll be raped, abused and ruined forever. With treatment, he might have a chance. Who knows: He might even grow up to understand what it means to have a problem, a big problem and overcome it.

He might even help other kids with problems. A normal kid from a normal family doesn't bring an assault rifle to school and try to kill his principal.

The boy needs treatment, as well as punishment. Steve Gilbreth said that he thought the angel was not so much on his shoulder as on the boy's.