JONESBORO — Mitchell Johnson apologized for his role in the shooting deaths nine years ago of a teacher and four students at Westside Middle School while continuing to insist - in a videotaped statement made last month - that he never intended to hurt anyone.

Ten other students and teachers were injured when Johnson, then 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, opened fire on March 24, 1998, on the campus just west of Jonesboro.

"I'm sorry ... this is something that I have to live with the rest of my life as well," Johnson, 22, said in a deposition taken April 2 in Fayetteville by Jonesboro attorney Bobby McDaniel. The attorney is pursuing a civil action against Johnson, Golden and the manufacturer of one of the guns used in the schoolyard slayings.

"I understand why they would be upset," Johnson said in the deposition, referring to the families of those slain. "They have every right to be, you know. If I could take it back, even if it meant me dying and going to hell, I would, and I wouldn't second-guess it."

His remarks didn't impress the husband of the slain teacher or the local prosecutor.

"I was sickened by his responses," Mitch Wright said Wednesday. "He [Johnson] never was responsive. He never said 'This was my fault.'"

For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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