TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: Brent Clark

  • Brent Clark sentenced

    Mesa teen sentenced for plan to hold his classroom hostage:

    15-year-old Brent Clark was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison with 9 months served for plotting to hold his class at Powell Junior High hostage and holding a girl at knifepoint.

    On March 23, 2007, the Powell Junior High School student packed his backpack with a gun, 3 knives, and latex gloves with the apparent intent to hold his classroom hostage and be killed by police, referred to as “suicide by cop.”

    Clark was originally charged with terrorism which could have kept him in prison for 40 years. The plea dropped that charge. Clark’s mother feels they were blackmailed into the plea.

    “We were being blackmailed,” said Donette Reid, Clark’s mom. “That terrorism charge was blackmail.”

    His mom fears that his childhood is gone and his experience in prison will take his adulthood too.

    “My heart is broken.” she said through tears. “They just took my heart.”

    I think his childhood was gone the moment he held that girl at knifepoint. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Ms. Reid shortly.

  • Hostage taker pleads guilty

    Teen pleads guilty to kidnapping classmate at knifepoint:

    Brent Clark is the Mesa, Arizona teen who took a girl hostage at knifepoint. He has pleaded guilty to the kidnapping charges against him.

    Sentencing is June 19th and Clark is facing a possible sentence of 3 1/2 years behind bars.

  • Hostage taker wants his life back

    When the bullied becomes the bully: What made Mesa teen snap?:

    It’s been almost a year since I’ve posted anything about Brent Clark. He’s the kid from Powell Junior High in Mesa, AZ who took a 14-year-old girl hostage at knifepoint. She’s been mentally scarred but we’re supposed to feel sorry for him because he was allegedly bullied?

    “I’m not a bad kid. I just lost it,” he said. “I just want my old life back.”

    He said he was the victim of nine long months of bullying.

    “I was suffering continuous bullying from a kid. Every once in a while he would say, ‘Sir, yes, Sir,’ because I was in the young marines and it really bothered me.”

    So if you really were bullied and ‘snapped’ as so many people have claimed why did you follow this girl from the school to her apartment complex? That doesn’t sound like snapping to me. That sounds rather methodical. And again why pick a victim that had nothing to do with your alleged bullying?

    The school denies that Clark reported any bullying but his mom sticks up for him…

    “He was screaming for help,” said his mom, Denette Reid.

    “I never thought to address the issue before this happened. My feeling is that if my child has to go to a school, the adults there have a responsibility to him that he feel safe,” said Reid.

    “I don’t think my son is a martyr, ” Reid said. “I do know that taking his entire future away isn’t right. And that’s not opinion. That’s fact. It’s not right.”

    This is why bullying runs even more rampant in schools then it ever has. Parents are not willing to take responsibility when their kids are criminals. They’ve been taught that no matter what they do they’re never wrong.