[Thurston High and Parental Shootings] Four Years Later

Four Years Later
Shockwaves from the shooting at Thurston High still ripple across America.
By Joseph A. Lieberman

It's not an anniversary anyone is looking forward to. Four years ago on May 21, 1998, Kipland Kinkel carried an arsenal of weapons into the cafeteria of Thurston High in Springfield and began shooting. He swept his semiautomatic rifle in an arc firing a 50-round clip into a crowd of over 250 students, hitting more than two dozen in less than a minute. Two died from their injuries. When Kip stopped to reload he was tackled by seven students

It could have been worse. When his gear was searched it was found that altogether he carried enough munitions to wound or kill 1,077 people.

The previous afternoon, Kip had murdered his parents, both teachers, after being expelled for bringing a gun to school. Bill Kinkel had retired from Thurston and was working part time at LCC. Faith was teaching at Springfield High.

The lives that Kip shattered extend far beyond the immediate shooting victims and their families. The aftermath of trauma still affects many of those involved even peripherally. For the community at large, the media glare of being caught up in the most infamous crime in Lane County history was an unwelcome intrusion most would rather put behind them.

There are several reasons why this case won't rest quietly, however, and most involve the aftermath of the shooting. Sixteen months after being indicted, Kip dropped his plea of insanity. Because many of his actions were deemed willful or volitional, his defense council no longer felt confident Kip could win a verdict of "guilty but insane." Kip's attorneys advised him to plead guilty to four counts of murder and 26 counts of attempted murder.

This meant there would be no trial. Instead, a sentencing hearing was called in November 1999. The main focus was Kip's mental state. District Attorney Kent Mortimore argued that Kip knew what he was doing, chose to do it, and should therefore "die in prison." He asked the court to lock Kip away for the maximum 222 years.

Kip, who turns 20 in August, is incarcerated in the Secure Intenstive Treatment program at Maclaren Youth Correctional Facility with other youths guilty of violent crimes.
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Because a formal trial was avoided, many questions raised by the shootings were never addressed. Unsatisfied was the issue of how this event ever came about. While elements of teenage revenge and family conflict were undoubtedly present, they reflect only part of the equation. And while testimony was given concerning Kip's mental state, this too was never fully resolved.

Kip, who turns 20 in August, is still incarcerated in MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility, a juvenile prison in Woodburn. He is housed in the Secure Intensive Treatment Program with other youths guilty of violent crimes. He attends school and takes part in intensive therapy specifically developed for severe adolescent offenders. While he may remain at MacLaren until he turns 25, the length of his stay will be determined by the staff's assessment of his participation in the program and his suitability for adult prison. Sentencing appeals shepherded by Chief Deputy Public Defender Jesse Barton in Salem are expected to last for years.

The rest of the nation may assume that with Kip behind bars, the story is over. Locally we know better. The tragedy affected the whole community and there are scars which may diminish but never heal with time. Some of the wounded will carry bullet fragments in their bodies for life. For others, such as the parents of Ben Walker and Mikael Nickolauson who died at Thurston aged 16 and 17 respectively, no passage of years can alleviate the pain.

There was talk of lawsuits and a few brief undertakings, but the only case still pending against insurers of the Kinkel estate is that lodged by the family of a seriously injured student, Teresa Miltonberger. "Her wounds will limit her abilities for the rest of her life," said her attorney, Art Johnson, who adds, "She has her share of anger."

Far From Over
Cindy Murdoch chairs the Parent Resource and Development Group for the Springfield-based Ribbon of Promise National Campaign to End School Violence.

Like most of its members, she uses positive activism to diminish the heartache of past trauma. "Being proactive and finding out more about why kids would want to create this environment of terror has been eye-opening," she says. "This knowledge and involvement has been helpful in my healing progress. At the same time, it's been scary to see what these kids are capable of planning."

Last month's school attack in Erfurt, Germany only reinforces the notion that this trend is far from over. On April 26, an expelled 19-year-old student went on a shooting rampage during which he killed 13 teachers, two girls, a school secretary and a policeman before committing suicide.

Even so, Murdoch says, "I never thought it would be so difficult to convince people, especially in my own community, that making changes is critical to preventing further violent episodes. You would think that parents and school officials would do everything they could to make sure it doesn't happen here again or anywhere else if they can possible stop the trend. Yet some seem to think they are now immune."

Murdoch argues, "Know-ledge on how to prevent school violence gives us the power to prepare for the actual event. What little progress is being made is happening mainly in schools that get the whole community involved."

Although the main purpose of Ribbon of Promise is preventing future incidents, it also deals with unresolved past issues. One source of resentment was the promised memorial to victims at Thurston which the school district continually delayed, "in a very nice PC way," according to Diana Alldredge, mother of a student who barely survived the slaughter.

"Community members and people across the nation asked to be involved in the memorial process. Many offered to pay for a bench, a tree, a plaque. Some even submitted a design and asked to pay for it. All offers were rejected," she says.

Alldredge views an alternate memorial of a new football stadium as inappropriate. "Which murdered or wounded student was a football player?" she asks. "None. The killer played football." Officials at Thurston insist the stadium was being planned before the shootings and was never meant to be an official memorial. There was simply an overlap in events.

A Disaster Waiting to Happen
Indignation remains concerning perceptions of preferential treatment. In some minds, the fact that both Kip's parents were teachers contributed to the lack of sufficient action in preventing his attack. "In my opinion, any other student, with teachers and counselors calling attention to serious behavioral problems, would not have been given the slack that this student and his family received," Murdoch insists.

Alldredge agrees, adding, "We know the Kinkels weren't monsters or saints, they were human. They tried, but the father lost hope and patience and the mother wore out carrying the load herself. If you compound that with the extreme pride of their standing in the community and the purchase of weapons for their angry, aggressive son -- it was a disaster waiting to happen."

When contacted, a representative at Thurston claimed Kip had only been referred for discipline once on a minor charge of being off campus without permission. He was not considered a serious threat. His earlier run-ins with the law and counselors occurred in middle school, and those records were not transferred to Thurston High.

In January 1997, for example, Kip was arrested for throwing rocks off a highway overpass in Bend which struck a car. Kip also made no secret of his bomb-making abilities and gave a lecture on it in class. Among students, Kip had carved out a reputation for being slightly dangerous, prone to sudden outbursts of anger.

Kip's final assault did not occur as an isolated event. There were headline-making school shootings for several years prior to his attack, and Columbine occurred exactly eleven months later. Closer to home, another 15-year-old boy named Buddy Morgan made the local TV news one week before Kip's rampage when he was arrested with stolen guns in the trees behind Elmira High School just 15 miles west of Springfield. One week after Thurston, Cody Hartle, 18, was arrested in Klamath Falls for threatening to kill fellow students during graduation. A few months ago, Thurston High was again closed down when administrators got wind of a student's plan to bring a gun to school.

After the incident at Bend, far from being remorseful, Kip wrote in his on-line AOL profile that his hobbies included dropping rocks on cars. In May, 1998, Kip Kinkel dropped a heavy stone indeed into the quiet pond of Lane County life. The shock waves hit dozens of people immediately and hundreds ultimately. Four years later, some peace has returned but closure will never be complete until the last ripple has been absorbed into the forgiving sands of time.

Kinkel appealing 112-year sentence

05/21/02MAXINE BERNSTEIN

Four years after Kipland P. Kinkel killed his parents and two students in a Thurston High School shooting rampage, the Oregon Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments July 31 in Kinkel's appeal of his nearly 112-year prison sentence.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Oregon have filed a friend of the court brief, joining the state public defender's appeal. They argue that Kinkel's schizophrenia can be treated, he can be reformed and he should be allowed to return to society when he is no longer considered a threat.

Kinkel, 19, who remains in the Secure Intensive Treatment Program at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn, looks forward to the court's review and is encouraged that the national mental health alliance is involved, said his trial lawyer, Mark Sabitt who exchanges letters with Kinkel.

"He certainly has a forward-looking perspective on his appeal, and is hopeful that the appellate court will take another look regarding his sentence," Sabitt said.

Oregon Assistant Attorney General Robert Rocklin will urge the court to affirm Kinkel's sentence. He said NAMI's arguments have little to do with the case because Kinkel waived the defense of mental illness and was sentenced, not because he is mentally ill, "but because he is dangerous."

"Even if defendant no longer suffered from a mental illness, it would not follow that he no longer was dangerous -- that is, that he was reformed or rehabilitated," Rocklin wrote. "Amici (the alliances for the mentally ill) have confused psychiatric apples with legal oranges."

Shortly before Kinkel was to go to trial in September 1999, he abandoned an insanity defense and accepted a plea deal for a 25-year sentence in the May 20, 1998, killings of his parents, William Kinkel, 59, and Faith Kinkel, 57, and for killing Thurston High School students, Mikael Nickolauson, 17, and Ben Walker, 16, the next day. But the deal left Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Mattison to decide how much time Kinkel would serve for 26 attempted murder counts.

After a six-day hearing that ended Nov. 10, 1999, Mattison tacked on 40 months for each of the attempted murder counts, essentially adding 86.67 years to the sentence for a total of 111.67 years without the possibility of parole.

In a 54-page appeal, chief deputy state public defender Jesse Barton argues that Mattison misread Oregon's sentencing guidelines and wrongly gave more consideration to the "protection of society" principle over "reformation."

Barton contends that Mattison should have given equal weight to each of the constitution's sentencing guidelines: protection of society, personal responsibility, accountability for one's actions and reformation. The appeal says lawmakers sought to balance the sentencing considerations, citing the Voter's Pamphlet and a legislative staff summary.

Before voters amended the guidelines in 1996, state law on sentencing read, "Laws for the punishment of crime shall be founded on the principles of reformation and not of vindictive justice."

The state attorney general's office, however, interpreted voters' intentions differently. Rocklin said that by choosing to make the protection of society guideline more explicit, voters intended to emphasize that over reformation.

A secondary appeal argument is that Kinkel's sentence violates state and federal constitutional bans on "cruel and unusual punishment," considering that Kinkel was 15 and suffered from the onset of paranoid schizophrenia when he committed the crimes.

Rocklin says that Mattison correctly interpreted the state constitution to emphasize the protection of society and that Kinkel's prison term "does not shock the moral sense of all reasonable persons as to what is right and proper."

In its brief, NAMI claims Mattison ignored the reformation principle. It said the trial court "locked Kinkel up and threw away the key" because of uncertainty about whether he could be reformed.

NAMI argued that Mattison wrongly assumed Kinkel would not receive proper treatment in prison, ignored medical science that showed Kinkel's schizophrenia could be treated with drugs and failed to recognize that other mentally ill criminals in Oregon have been released successfully under proper supervision.

Since 1992, according to NAMI, mental-patient inmates released to the community under supervision have a recidivism rate of 1.15 percent, meaning they are less likely than the general inmate population to commit new crimes. According to NAMI, 27 of 68 mentally ill criminals who committed murder and (unlike Kinkel) are under the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security Review Board, successfully live in the community under supervised release, take their medications and keep medical appointments.

"The unconstitutionality of that sentence is obvious if one envisions a truly reformed Kinkel 35 years from now who remains behind bars for one reason and one reason alone: He has schizophrenia," Phillip Chadsey , a Portland attorney, wrote on behalf of NAMI. "Such an outcome would constitute the criminalization of an inherited trait, pure and simple."

But Rocklin countered that Mattison did not base his sentence on Kinkel's illness, but his danger to society. He called the consecutive prison terms appropriate.

"The trial court -- acting within its authority -- reasonably imposed a sentence proportioned to the offenses and designed to ensure the safety of the citizens of Oregon," he wrote.

As his appeal winds through the courts, Kinkel remains on a regimented mental health program in the Secure Intensive Treatment Program, where he will likely remain until he is transferred to adult prison at age 25. Dr. Olin Bolstad, a clinical psychologist, and William Sack, a psychiatrist, continue to work with Kinkel as he takes college courses in prison.

"I think that he is getting some pretty good mental health treatment that has benefited his mental illness," Sabitt said.

Kinkel's sister, Kristin, teaches English as a Second Language classes to middle-school students in the Portland area. She visits her brother regularly and returns to her parents' home in Springfield periodically, said Donald Loomis, her lawyer.

Meanwhile, a Thurston High School committee set up to raise money for a memorial has lost its momentum. The group of staff, parents and students has raised about $30,000 -- far short of the $250,000 goal set for a memorial design the Springfield school board approved.

"It's stalled because donations weren't coming in," said Cherie Kistner, a spokeswoman for the Springfield School District. "There's really not any action plan at this point."

Yvonne Atteberry , the mother of Thurston High graduate Ryan Atteberry who was shot by Kinkel, partly blamed the dismal fund raising on the economic climate and the time that has passed.

"They say there's an 'optimal time' -- that beyond that, people have moved on," Atteberry said. "It's too bad, but that's how things are. Life changes. For a while, I was discouraged, but we'll keep working at it."

You can reach Maxine Bernstein at 503-221-8212 or by e-mail at Maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com.

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