Boy in gun episode being treated

The youngster isn't likely to return home soon.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- It's been nearly a year since the gun episode in a sixth-grade class at McKinley Elementary School here.
Although the pupils affected have gotten on with their lives, the boy who committed the March 23, 2000, crime continues to answer for it.
The youngster, now 14, remains in the Canton residential treatment center to which he was sentenced last April after admitting delinquency charges of inducing panic, taking a firearm onto school property, carrying a concealed weapon and aggravated menacing.
Based on those charges, the boy, whose name has never been released by authorities, could have been ordered to a juvenile detention facility until he was 21.
"He's working hard," Dane Walton, Columbiana County juvenile court director, said of the boy's progress in the treatment center. "He has to earn his release."
He can do that by successfully completing the center's program, which includes counseling and school work.
Peer sessions: Periodically, the youths at the center meet in groups, overseen by a counselor, and talk about how what they did affected themselves, their parents and communities. The sessions are part of a "positive peer pressure" program, Walton explained.
The boy's father and stepmother also are participating in counseling efforts involving him, Walton said.
His mother was released from prison last May by a judge who granted her shock probation on a nearly one-year sentence for violating probation, which stemmed from 1997 convictions for forgery and receiving stolen property.
Immediately after his arrest, the Lisbon boy attributed his actions to his mother's imprisonment. But he changed that story in court.
His own release date remains indefinite, although average commitment time to the treatment center is six to nine months.
"Because of his age and maturity level, it's going to take longer," Walton said. "It's been a long road, and we're not at the end yet," he added, without elaborating.
Next step: Once juvenile officials are satisfied that the boy is ready to leave the center, he'll likely be placed in a similar facility closer to home.
Restrictions there will be less stringent and he may be allowed periodic home visits.
When the boy is ready, emotionally and mentally, he may return home for good. "I wouldn't look for him to be home before the end of the school year," Walton said.
Even after returning the youth to his home, the court may place the youngster on probation that could include requirements for a curfew, community service and continued therapy.
Eventually, he will be permitted to return to Lisbon public schools.
Apologies: When the boy was sentenced for his actions, he apologized in court. His father also apologized.
Authorities determined the legally owned 9mm handgun the boy used had been properly stored by his father and stepmother. They were not charged in the boy's actions.
Asked by Judge C. Ashley Pike to explain why he committed the act, the boy issued a response that sounds similar to the motivation being attributed to both the 15-year-old suspect in the school shooting in Santee, Calif., and the 14-year-old suspect in the Catholic school shooting in Williamsport, Pa., last week.
"I just got tired of everybody picking on me and beating me up," he said.