U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Babcock has suggested that the depositions given by the parents of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold should be sent to the National Archives and be kept sealed for 25 years.
In 2002, the parents of Columbine killer Eric Harris gave more than 16 hours of depositions in connection with a lawsuit by Columbine survivor Mark Taylor against Solvay Pharmaceuticals, maker of Luvox.
Taylor claimed that Luvox, an anti-depressant, made Harris homicidal and suicidal. However, Taylor dropped the lawsuit in February 2003 after Solvay agreed to contribute $10,000 to the American Cancer Society.
The other depositions of Harris’ parents and the parents of Dylan Klebold took place over a four-day period in August 2003 in connection with a lawsuit filed by the families of five slain Columbine students. But, like the Solvay lawsuit depositions, the depositions were sealed when those families reached a settlement with the Harris and Klebold families.
The depositions have since been sitting in a highly secured evidence room at the federal courthouse awaiting a decision by Babcock about what should be done with them.
After 25 years, the National Archives would decide if the depositions are of significant social value and could release them to the public. Otherwise, they’d be destroyed, according to evidence presented at today’s hearing.
Babcock said he wouldn’t make a final decision until all sides had an opportunity to file written responses with him. He gave the parties a two-week deadline to file motions.
I understand that depositions in privately settled lawsuits are supposed to remain sealed, but this is a special case.
I’ll be honest with you. I can think of no legal reason why the depositions should be made public. I only want to see them released for my own personal curiosity.
In my opinion, it’s already been proven that the Harrises dropped the parenting ball. I just want to see how many opportunities they had to prevent the massacre but didn’t.
I finally got to see the video of Super Columbine Massacre RPG’s creator Danny Ledonne’s interview on AOTS. You can see it if you go to AOTS’s video page and go back to 1/22/07.
I could tell it wasn’t going to be a heated debate when host Kevin Pereira basically stated that Slamdance’s decision to pull SCMRPG from its competition amounted to censorship. Why is it that people still don’t realize that censorship can only come from the government? A private organization like Slamdance has the right to let in or kick out any game they want.
Then Captain Smug himself, Ledonne, came on and basically acted like he was the Messiah of all video games, with Kotaku’s Brian Crecente acting like one of his disciples.
I thought at one point we were actually going to get a decent debate when Pereira asked Ledonne if he thought SCMRPG glorified Columbine. Ledonne avoided the question, and both Pereira and Crecente let it slide. This wasn’t as much of a debate as it was a bunch of ass kissing.
What they should have done is have someone with an opinion that actually was opposed to the game. Like a Columbine victim’s family member or a Columbine survivor. I bet it would have been a lot different debated if they did.
Granted AOTS isn’t exactly a bastion of journalism, but they did a great disservice to their viewers by having such a one-sided conversation.
Mitchell Johnson, one of the gunmen in the Jonesboro massacre, is due in court today on charges stemming from his arrest 2 weeks ago.
To refresh your memory, he was pulled over in a van that had marijuana and a loaded 9mm in it. And oh yeah, also a guy who killed his father at 15 with a crossbow.
He faces misdemeanor charges of drug possession and carrying a weapon at his arraignment today. It didn’t take us long to hear about Johnson again after he was released. I doubt it will be long again.
The last we heard on the fate of Tobin Kerns was back in October, when a Massachusetts supreme court justice refused to rule on the interpretation of the law regarding communicating a threat. The matter now is expected to be argued before the full Supreme Judicial Court on February 8th. Let’s hope that Tobin will finally be exonerated come the 8th.
A teacher at Foss High School, where Douglas Chanthabouly, shot Samnang Kok to death, found a backpack belonging to Chanthabouly two days after the shooting. In turn, the teacher turned the backpack over to police. Police are hoping to find documents related to the motive in the bag.
“The affiant recovered a notebook with “LOC” written inside along with two blue bandanas,” Krause said. “The affiant also observed that the clothes in the closet were mainly blue or black in color. The affiant is aware that the term LOC is commonly associated with a Cambodian gang known as the “Loced Out Crips. Their colors are blue.”
Police are still saying the shooting wasn’t gang related, but I still disagree. I’m still betting that Chanthabouly was trying to impress the gang and saw this as a way of getting in. But that remains to be seen.
The original Michigan mutant, Andrew Osantowski, is back in the news again. This time, he’s pleaded guilty to larceny charges for stealing tools from a cemetery. The sentence for this charge should be handed down at the end of February.
I had asked another blogging doctor about Asperger’s as a murder defense in the case of John Odgren. I e-mailed Dr. Feste of Illyria and this is what he had to say. Again, nothing has been edited…
One would think that a 16-year-old with such a diagnosis would not be allowed to have a knife collection; obviously parents have poor insight into the problem…. oftentimes the parents have just as many issues. If I were the supreme authority on truth, justice and all things imperial (I should be provided with such responsibilities), I would not incarcerate the individual, since the explosive outbursts are a consequence of his disease, but I would not let him roam free, especially with such parents….. it seems a good chunk of modern society is incapable of reasonable parenting, and thus the murderous 16-year-old should be under constant supervision and a controlled environment until there is proof that he will not repeat his offense. Parents need a good whack in the head, though.
Easy-going with a shy smile, James Alenson was a good student with a dry sense of humor who got along well with peers, recalled former classmates and his former speech team coach at Wilson Middle School in Natick.
“I cannot imagine him getting into a confrontation with anybody,” said Deanie Goodman, who coached the boy for two years on Wilson Middle’s speech team. “He was a really sweet kid, somewhat shy, a little bit quiet, and really easy-going. I could not believe this would happen to a kid like that.”
Alenson was not a master orator and had joined the speech team at his parents’ urging. But he was a good sport about going to weekly practices after school and cheered his younger sister, a team member and a great speaker, Goodman said.
Former classmates said that Alenson, tall and lanky with sandy blond hair and blue eyes, kept to himself and never caused trouble. But he would not allow classmates to pick on him, often retorting back when teased, students said. They do not recall him getting into physical fights.
“When people would make fun of him, he wouldn’t let it go,” said Cassie Kosky, 15, a freshman at Natick High School who had gone to school with Alenson before he moved. “He wouldn’t flip out, but would come up with a remark.”
Former Natick classmates said Alenson was typically an A student at the middle school. Antone Wilson, 15 and a Natick High freshman, said that whenever he would ask Alenson for the answers to a test, Alenson would say no.
Wilson emphasized that while quiet, Alenson was no pushover.
“He wouldn’t let people bully him around,” Wilson said.
Jeff Scannell, 15, has known Alenson since the boys were about 9 years old and they attended the same speech therapy class. In eighth grade last year, they were in the same math and English honors classes. Alenson liked to spend his time reading and writing and rarely interrupted class, Scannell said.
“He was a nice kid to be around,” said Scannell, a Natick High freshman. “He wouldn’t say one bad thing about another student. He was easy to talk to.”
Lynn Rome, whose son attended the eighth grade with Alenson, said her son and his friend described Alenson as an “extremely bright, studious, and very friendly boy.”
Samantha Abrams, 18, a senior from Sudbury said she was a “peer connector” for freshmen, including Alenson. “He was really quiet and shy,” Abrams said. “He was just an innocent little kid and he didn’t deserve anything like this.”
The parents of slain “sweet, funny, kind” student James Alenson broke their silence yesterday saying that they are devastated by the loss of their 15-year-old boy, who was stabbed to death at his suburban school.
“He was always embarrassed by the adjectives we had to use to describe him; sweet, funny, kind, considerate, gentle. An innocent. Always the first to offer help, incapable of telling a lie, he was a genuinely good person in a world that under appreciates how much joy that brings to the people around them,†the statement said.
Alenson worked part time for a community organic farm in Natick and spent his summers at a camp in New Hampshire, where he was hoping to become a counselor, according to the family.
Alenson’s family, including his two siblings, moved from Natick to Sudbury last year so Alenson could be in a safer and better school, family members have said. Lincoln-Sudbury classmates said he hadn’t made many close friends yet, but he was universally described as a sweet and quiet straight-A student.
Those of you who are trying to make James Alenson out to be some kind of aggressor or tormentor, in this case, should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that James Alenson was not a good kid. One of the things about this website is that if I defend or berate someone on this site, I usually hear from their friends or family within a few days telling me how wrong I am. I have yet to hear from anyone that knew James Alenson to tell me otherwise.
In seventh grade, John Odgren had several explosive episodes, was verbally abusive, and at times became physically aggressive, his parents, specialists, and teachers said, according to a state hearing report.
His parents had argued to the state agency that their son needed better services than he had received from the Wachusett Regional School District, which had placed him in an alternative school in Fitchburg. At that school, he was so miserable he came home and “often spent evenings wrapped in a blanket, crying,” one of his parents testified.
The state agreed that the placement was not appropriate and ordered Wachusett to pay for Odgren’s attendance at a smaller program in Belmont that his parents had found.
The report, giving an overall description, said that Odgren became aggressive at times when confused or ordered to do work, but did not offer details other than to say he was suspended three times for physical aggression within a two-month period at Caldwell Alternative School in Fitchburg. His parents, at the same time, were expressing concern for his physical and emotional safety at Caldwell, whose principal declined to comment.
The report made one mention of him having “explosive episodes” in fall 2002 in Wachusett’s special education program, but did not detail those. Wachusett school officials declined to comment about Odgren, citing student confidentiality.
Odgren, according to the state report, was diagnosed with depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in 2000 and later placed in a special education program at a Wachusett elementary school. In 2002, in the sixth grade, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s. His parents complained that he needed training in social skills, according to the state report, but never received it.
Shortly after beginning seventh grade in a Wachusett school, his performance deteriorated, according to the report, and the school system placed him at Caldwell Alternative School in Fitchburg for students in grades 7 to 12. The school serves students with emotional and behavioral problems and learning disabilities.
But he floundered at Caldwell, where the other students “teased, used foul and aggressive language, and were rude and disrespectful to each other and to the teacher,” according to the report. Odgren’s behavior grew more troubling, resulting in the suspensions and his failing three subjects.
In March 2003, his parents took him out of Caldwell and placed him at Pathways Academy in a special education program at McLean Hospital in Belmont for students ages 12 and 13. There, his behavior dramatically improved, the report stated.
Odgren told his parents the program was “like heaven.” His father testified that after about six weeks at Pathways, Odgren “demonstrated spontaneous empathy for the first time.”
It is unknown whether Odgren went directly from Pathways to Lincoln-Sudbury and whether school officials were made aware of the state report that described a history of physical aggression. Beginning this school year, he was a sophomore at Lincoln-Sudbury enrolled in Great Opportunities, a program for students with significant emotional and/or psychiatric disabilities. Lincoln-Sudbury officials have said they had no knowledge of any violent behavior involving Odgren.
According to the state’s report, Odgren needed to be in an educational environment where he would not be threatened and would “be free from peers who tease, bully, or have behaviorally based disorders.”
In the days after the stabbing, Lincoln-Sudbury students told reporters that Odgren had been teased by schoolmates for wearing a trench coat in the halls like the killers in Columbine High School. Police have not said why Odgren allegedly stabbed Alenson, who was described as shy and sweet, in a boy’s bathroom.
Odgren’s mother , Dorothy, a nurse at a Worcester clinic, is a fierce advocate for her son, said Kathryn Mattison, a Princeton child and family therapist. Dorothy Odgren is a fixture at area conferences on Asperger’s, she said, adding that she met Dorothy Odgren when she was a school nurse at Princeton’s Thomas Prince Elementary School, which Mattison’s children attended.
He was known to have “explosive episodes” yet his parents allowed him to have an extensive knife collection? What the hell were they thinking? And why should it be the state’s responsibility to make sure that he gets training in social skills? If they were so worried about him being in a school where the students teased, used foul and aggressive language, and were rude and disrespectful to each other and to the teacher, then they could have homeschooled him. Because as far as I’m concerned, that sounds like every school in the world.
If your child has a learning disability, it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure he gets help. Not the state’s and not the schools’ but the parents’.
And for those of you who either have or know someone with Asperger’s and are saying “oh poor John Odgren”, stop using your disability as a crutch. Stop acting like a damn victim. So God dealt you a bad hand. Suck it up. There are a lot of people worse off than you, and there are a lot more people who don’t constantly whine about having Asperger’s.
John Odgren is a danger to society, pure and simple and needs to be put away for a long time. Don’t like what I have to say? No one is making you stay here.
I guess if I’m going to take this blog seriously, I have to start watching (ugh) Attack of The Show again.
It seems that our favorite attention whore, SCMRPG creator Danny Ledonne, was on AOTS tonight discussing his virtual abortion of a game with one of Kotaku’s writers.
I didn’t see it tonight so I’ll have to try to catch the replay over the weekend. If someone out there has a video of it that they can post on YouTube, please let me know.
In a follow-up to Alyric’s post about Super Columbine Massacre RPG Slamdance Festival co-founder has said that the reason SCMRPG was pulled from the festival’s competition was for legal reasons…
The “hurt” factor and a moral obligation to the public, along with a “very high” legal risk, were a few reasons given Sunday during a panel discussion about why the controversial video game “Super Columbine Massacre RPG” was pulled from a Slamdance game competition.
It didn’t help the game’s reputation, panelists agreed, that there was a “mushroom cloud” of negative and uninformed press and knee-jerk reactions to Danny Ludonne’s game.
“It was a very hard decision to pull Danny’s game from the competition,” said Slamdance co-founder and president Peter Baxter. “We have not got the time or the money to take on the first round of civil action on this.”
Prior to the start of the annual film festival and its newer video game competition, Slamdance was already getting outside pressure to distance itself from Ludonne’s game over fear of a civil lawsuit, possibly coming from relatives of Columbine victims.
But Ludonne’s game was described by panelists and the discussion’s audience members as part documentary and part “art” for its depiction of actual events that took place when its creator, now 25, was a sophomore in a Colorado high school. When he created the game and submitted it anonymously to an Internet address, Ludonne said he was trying to work through notions of how he identified with the two Columbine killers.
First of all, it cracks me up to no end that they misspelled Danny Ledonne’s name throughout the entire article. Secondly, SCMRPG is hardly what I would call art. And it’s more of a “fan tribute”, if you will, than a documentary. Documentaries are supposed to be impartial. SCMRPG is an obvious tribute to the Columbine killers, even though Mr. Ledonne says otherwise. And yes, I actually have played the game.
When the game was pulled from the competition, Mr. Ledonne claimed that this was a blow against free speech. I disagree. I think that it’s the best exercise in free speech. The protesters voiced their opinion and the founder of the festival listened. That is what free speech is all about.
Do I think the game should be banned? Not at all. We have the right in this country to make any kind of offensive piece of crap we’d like, just about. However, the game should not receive the praise that it has. It is not art. Art contributes something to society. The only thing this game contributes to is the designer’s own ego. It’s not close to a documentary due to its inaccuracies. For example, calling the victims generic names like “Jock” instead of using the actual victims’ names. If you’re striving for authenticity, why not go all the way?
Personally, outside of hero-worship, I think the game is nothing more than an experiment in attention whoring. It looks like the experiment was a success.
