Jonesboro shooter Johnson gets 4 years back behind bars

By The Associated Press

FAYETTEVILLE — A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Jonesboro school shooter Mitchell Johnson to four years in prison on a weapons charge.

Johnson, 24, will remain on supervised parole with restrictions for three years after he's released, U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren ruled. Johnson had faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after being convicted in January of possessing a firearm while being a user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

Mitchell Johnson

While his trial contained no reference to the 1998 shooting at Jonesboro's Westside Middle School, it weighed heavily on Johnson's sentencing hearing Thursday. Prosecutors argued Johnson should serve more time as federal guidelines did not take into account the severity of the shootings, which left five dead and 10 others wounded.

"No matter what I do today, you will have a life to live," Hendren told Johnson. "Those who died in 1998 will not."

Johnson already was being held at the Benton County jail on separate state charges, accused of taking a debit card left by a disabled man at the Bentonville gas station Johnson worked at. Mitchell wore black and white striped prison clothes, his white socks visible through jail-issued sandals.

Johnson rocked back and forth in his chair, his hand clasped in his lap. When asked if he had a statement, Johnson told the Fayetteville courtroom that "not a day goes by that I don't think about what happened" - nearly the same comments he made to Washington County deputies who arrested him Jan. 1, 2007.

When Johnson was arrested during the traffic stop, he was traveling with Justin Trammell, who had been found delinquent after shooting his father to death with a crossbow in 1999. Johnson and Trammell were roommates.

Deputies had received a tip the duo's van carried 100 pounds of marijuana. Deputies found only 21 grams of the drug but also found a nickel-plated handgun and a 20-gauge shotgun. State prosecutors later turned the case over to federal prosecutors.

In 1998, Johnson and classmate Andrew Golden stole guns from Golden's grandfather and a white van belonging to Johnson's stepfather. They waited in camouflage atop a wooded hill after Golden triggered a fake fire alarm.

They opened fire as classmates and teachers left the school. Shannon Wright, an English teacher, died while shielding student Emma Pittman from a pair of bullets. Students Natalie Brooks, 11; Paige Herring, 12; Stephanie Johnson, 12; and Britthney Varner, 11, all died of their wounds.

The federal government had held Johnson and Golden until age 21 after the Jonesboro shootings. At the time of the schoolyard massacre, Arkansas had the means only to hold Johnson and Golden until age 18.

After his release, Johnson spent time in several states before returning to Arkansas to work at a Wal-Mart. The night of his traffic-stop arrest, he told deputies he planned on moving to California to start his life over.