Shooter incident at elementary school in Uvalde, Texas - 19 children and 2 adults dead

Good article
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WEST PADUCAH, Ky. — At first, Missy Jenkins Smith thought the sound of gunfire at her Kentucky high school was a bad joke. Her prayer group had just said, “Amen,” and their day was about to begin. Then one of her classmates fell to the floor, shot in the head.


Another student was hit. Then another.

And suddenly, the 14-year-old boy wielding a Ruger .22 fired seven bullets indiscriminately toward the teens gathered inside Heath High School on Dec. 1, 1997, the Monday morning after Thanksgiving break.


Jenkins Smith dropped to the tile floor, struck by a bullet in the chest. A teacher knelt beside her.
“Am I going to die?” she asked.
Jenkins Smith survived but was paralyzed from the chest down at the age of 15 and has used a wheelchair since.


The attack upended the small town of West Paducah, in what was then a rarity in the United States: a school shooting.

Three students — Nicole Hadley, 14; Jessica James, 17; and Kayce Steger, 15 — were killed and five others wounded.

Michael Carneal pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. But under Kentucky law, the teenager who claimed to have been bullied was given the possibility of parole in 25 years.


Carneal is up for a hearing next month — a relatively rare instance in which an assailant in a school shooting has been given a chance at release. The proceeding will be held Sept. 19 and 20 over Zoom to determine whether Carneal, now 39, will be released in November.


The prospect of Carneal potentially getting released has reopened wounds for those who still carry the pain from a shooting largely forgotten by America.

The case also presents a unique question as school shootings continue to afflict the nation: What should happen to child assailants who decades later become eligible for release?

Privately, survivors and families of the victims in Kentucky have grappled with whether and how to forgive him — and if the pain he has caused makes that even possible……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ting-paducah-kentucky-michael-carneal-parole/