Posted on 05/13/2004 5:51:37 PM PDT by FilmCutter
THE KILLER AT THURSTON HIGH Thursday, May 13, 60 minutes
FRONTLINE [Repeat] 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings)
In May 1998, a year before the massacre at Columbine High, fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel shot his father in the head and waited in the garage for his mother to come home. He told her he loved her before shooting her six times. He then went into his bedroom, listened to his favorite music, and strapped ammunition to his body. The next morning, Kip drove the family car to Thurston High and opened fire in the school cafeteria. In the end, two students were killed and twenty-five others were wounded.
On the 5th anniversary of those murders, FRONTLINE reveals, in the first in-depth television examination of a school killer, the intimate story that every parent dreads of how the “shy and likeable” Kip Kinkel from a solid middle-class family became the boy police called “a cold-hearted killer.”
Yours is a sobering comment, indeed. I assume you were involved in editing the documentary.
Glad you posted...I'd nearly forgotten it's on tonight.
What do you think about this, overall?
Was the kid on any of those psycho-type drugs? To your knowledge?
Not that I pretend to know anything about raising kids, but maybe this is part of the problem:
(from an intverview with his sister):
How concerned were they were about his interest in guns and making bombs?
"They were both really, really concerned about it. He had been interested since he was a little boy. He was not allowed to have little soldiers, or any kind of toy that had any kind of violent anything. ... We weren't allowed to watch "Bugs Bunny" because it was too violent. Violence in our house was a huge no-no."
Now THAT is interesting. He never had a chance to do what all (or most all) little boys have done for centuries: play cowboys and Indians, soldiers and war. My brothers constantly played and drew pictures about war and soldiers and fighting. Every once in a while I come across one of their incredibly detailed pictures with hundreds of little fighting soldiers with their weapons and if the picture isn't of soldiers it's dinosaurs butting heads.
I missed the program and checked and it's not being shown in the next eight days. If you think of it and notice it's on in the future, I'd sure appreciate a freepmail.
Thanks for replying.
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