[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 14 (Monday, April 6, 1998)]
[Pages 555-558]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With Sam Donaldson of ABC News for ``Prime Time Live'' in 
Dakar

April 1, 1998

Jonesboro Incident

    Mr. Donaldson. Mr. President, thanks very much for coming. Why do 
you think it happened the other day in Jonesboro? I mean, the police 
have taken into custody two young boys, 13 and 11, and that's just 
stunning.
    The President. I don't know why it happened. And I think we're going 
to have to wait until we hear something from those young men or their 
spokespeople, their lawyers or their parents or somebody, to know more 
than we now know.
    But it is troubling that this has happened, this school-related 
violence now, 3 times in three States, resulting in the deaths of 
children in the last few months. For me, this was especially hard 
because I spent a lot of time in my life in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and the 
people there have been very good to me, and we've done a lot of things 
together.
    I could barely look at that service in the convocation center, 
because that convocation center was built as a place of joy and 
celebration. When I was Governor, it was one of the biggest issues in my 
campaign in 1982 that I would build that convocation center. And to see 
it housing all those people in all their grief, it was very sad.
    But I think we have to work on two things. I think we have to first 
of all support the people there, moving from their heartbreak to healing 
and to getting their hope back. And then I think the Attorney General 
and the Secretary of Education have got to get all the available 
information on these three incidents and any others like it, and then 
see if there is a pattern and whether, from that pattern, we can draw 
some conclusions about what we should do.
    Mr. Donaldson. When I was a little kid I can remember I'd get angry, 
and maybe you did too, in the schoolyard or something,

[[Page 556]]

but it never occurred to me to plan something like that.
    The President. No. That's why I think we can't know. I mean, there 
is all kinds of speculation. I think it's just too early to assign 
blame, but I think everyone should examine the issues. I think every 
parent should

redouble his or her efforts to teach their children right from wrong and to 
warn them about the dangers of guns, I think not only in the South but 
throughout the country where there are a lot of guns because people like to 
hunt and enjoy it and regularly teach their children at a fairly early age. 
I think I was 12 the first time I fired a .22.

    Mr. Donaldson. And you're a hunter?
    The President. Yes. I don't do it much anymore, but I think I was 
about 12 years old. But you know, there has to be some extra care taken, 
where children are hunting, to make sure they understand gun safety and 
also the profound dangers of it.
    And finally I think all this effort that's been made in the last few 
years to get the television ratings on violence and have movies 
evaluated for violence, I think we maybe even need to go underneath that 
and examine whether, in scenes of violence in movies and television, we 
have to be very careful not to either glorify it or minimize it, make it 
look almost cartoon-like.
    I'll never forget what the principal at Jonesboro told me when we 
talked after I called her. She said, ``You know, when I went out there 
and I saw those children lying on the ground and I saw one of them 
horribly disfigured and all those people gushing blood, it was very 
different from what I see in the movies,'' she said.
    Mr. Donaldson. Well, we have movies that are violent and--``L.A. 
Confidential'' has won a lot of awards; remember a few years ago, 
``Fargo''--and television programs on the networks are violent. Do you 
think there would be something to just saying to Hollywood and to 
everybody involved, ``Guys, cut it out, or at least cut it down?''
    The President. Well, what I think about the violence is--and again, 
I'm not an expert, which is one reason I'd like to see them review all 
the literature--I think the sheer volume of things to which children at 
an early age are exposed tends to numb their feelings about it. We do 
have studies on that. So maybe cutting it down is one good thing.
    The other thing, I think, is if--a lot of these stories require the 
presentation of some violence, and it is a part of life. It's a part of 
a lot of the stories. If a story line requires the presentation of 
violence, then I think it ought not to either be glorified or 
cartoonized if you will. People need to understand it's a serious thing 
with horrible consequences, because one of the problems with children, 
of course, and one of the reasons we assign different levels of 
responsibility to people as they get older, for their actions, is they 
can't often fully understand the consequences of their actions.
    So you have to bend over backwards to make sure--we adults do--that 
we've done everything we can to make sure they do understand the 
consequences of certain actions as we present those consequences to 
them.
    Mr. Donaldson. On that point, it's said that one of these little 
boys is just now devastated, frightened, said to be frightened, calling 
for his mother. It's as if suddenly his eyes came open, and he was 
horrified with what he saw.
    The President. Well, as I said, we don't know enough about that. 
That may well be true. But these children that have been arrested, there 
will have to be psychological profiles done on them. We'll have to have 
a lot more facts before we can draw any conclusions. I've tried to be 
real careful about that. I think all Americans should.
    But we know generally we need to make sure there are no guns in 
schools. We need to enforce the Youth Handgun Act we passed in 1994. And 
we need to do everything we can to teach the kids right from wrong. And 
in the places where hunting is a part of the culture and where there are 
guns around the house, those of us who have been a part of that culture, 
and those who are, have a special responsibility to make sure that the 
guns are kept out of reach of people who shouldn't have them. And we 
need to get these child safety locks on all these handguns and other 
guns that we can. And we need to support constant drilling about safe 
use and what the consequences are, because this is a tragedy that will 
take a long time to get over.

[[Page 557]]

    Mr. Donaldson. You know, in Arkansas as well as several other 
States, these two young boys, if in fact they happened to have been, as 
the police believe, involved in this and are charged, cannot be tried as 
adults, which would mean that they will get out, if they're 
incarcerated, at age 18 or 21 at the latest. And already some of the 
relatives are saying that wouldn't be justice. What do you say?
    The President. Well, that's something of course we'll have to 
review. But most States have lowered the age at which people at least 
can be tried as adults. In our State, in Arkansas, the way it works is a 
determination can be made--the prosecutor can ask and then a court can 
decide that a young person under the age of 18, but 14 or over, could be 
tried as adults if the circumstances warranted.
    It looks to me like one of the things this case will do is probably 
launch a debate in America about whether there should be some 
intermediate step. That is: Okay, maybe people below a certain age 
shouldn't be tried as adults, but should there be some means of keeping 
them incarcerated after their 18th or their 20th birthday if the 
circumstances warrant that, either the severity of the crime or concern 
about their mental condition and stability, should they be released?
    Again, I'll make no judgment on the facts of this case, but I think 
that there will be a serious debate about that.
    But the real thing is, I'll say again, is to try to prevent things 
like this from happening in the first place. You just have to--we have 
to work very, very hard at hammering home to our children what the 
consequences of using guns are. We have to keep the guns out of the 
hands of the kids that shouldn't--when they shouldn't have them. We need 
to make sure that the gun safety practices are very strong. They need to 
be kept out of the hands of kids. The child safety locks ought to be on 
them wherever possible.
    And then, again, I'm hopeful that the Attorney General and the 
Secretary of Education, when they get all the facts of the these three 
cases and, as I said, any others, if there are others out there, that 
they will show a pattern--practice maybe that will tell us something 
else we can do, if not legislation, then practice, that will reduce the 
chances that this will happen.
    Mr. Donaldson. What is your hunch? Do you think we're in for an 
epidemic? I mean, there are copycat crimes, as you know. Until these 
three incidents that you referred to, I don't recall another one.
    The President. Well, I don't know. I hope they're--I hope not. I 
think, actually, that the kind of publicity that this incident is 
getting, and the fact that it's now kind of--America is now aware that 
this is the third of three such incidents, may break whatever spell 
there might be out there for copycats.
    I know we were concerned several years ago, when I was Governor of 
Arkansas, when we had some children commit suicide in a small community 
like Jonesboro, deeply religious, hard-working community. And there 
seemed to be a little rash around America at the time of children 
killing themselves. So everybody got together and worked on it, tried to 
highlight it.
    I would be surprised if there is a rash of this, but I would also be 
surprised if there is not a real effort now on the part of individuals 
and communities and schools to take actions that will reduce the chance 
that it will happen again. I also think that in the community at large 
and in our schoolrooms, in our churches, in our homes now, everybody is 
going to be a little more sensitive for children that seem to be 
withdrawing, seem to be troubled, that seem to be confused.
    Again I say, the only really satisfactory response to all this is to 
try to do those things which will prevent these things from happening in 
the first place. Once they happen, you do the best you can to do justice 
in the particular case, but that's not nearly as good as trying to do 
those things which will keep them from happening again.
    Mr. Donaldson. You're on a very important trip, as you see it, to 
Africa, and a lot of other people agree with you, but did you consider 
at all perhaps going back for the service?
    The President. I thought about it. But when I realized that they--
when I understood that they were willing to--wanted me to present a 
videotape, I thought it was the responsible thing to do, because I 
thought

[[Page 558]]

I could do more good for the country by finishing this trip, and I think 
that was the right decision.
    I wanted to be there, not only because it was in my home State and 
it was a heartbreaking, mammoth, awful thing, but I have spent an 
inordinate amount of time in that part of Arkansas. The mayor in the 
town has been my friend a long time--the county judge and all these 
people that I've known forever. I just--it was an awful thing for me 
personally, and I just grieve for those people.
    Mr. Donaldson. What can you say to them? What do you say to parents 
who have lost a child this way, or to the relatives of the teacher who 
was killed? Is there anything that can be said?
    The President. I don't have anything to say other than what I said 
in my message to them right now. I think that their friends need to hold 
them close, and they need to just--it takes a long time to heal. And one 
of the things that I have learned even more since I've been President is 
that a lot of things happen in this life that cannot be explained or 
justified, and lot of living is overcoming the unjustifiable, the 
madness, and somehow going on.
    I would say that I believe the children who perished and the teacher 
who perished, from all reports, had lived extremely good lives and were 
extremely good people, and they would want their parents, their 
siblings, the spouses--the young teacher's husband--they would want them 
to go on living, to look for positive things to live for, to be grateful 
for the time they had with the children and the teacher.
    And at some point you have to lay down the loss. You can never give 
it up. You can never stop hurting. You can never stop missing. But a 
choice has to be made to go on and to make the most of whatever is left 
in life. And I think that's what most people--most good people who die 
too young in an unfair way, if they could speak across space and time to 
their loved ones, would try to lift them up and ease their pain. They 
wouldn't want them to stay in the grip of hatred. They wouldn't want 
them to be paralyzed by grief. So I hope they'll be able to find peace 
and healing and go on.

President's Trip to Africa

    Mr. Donaldson. Finally, Mr. President, are you happy to be going 
tomorrow?
    The President. You bet. I'm really glad--I'm getting tired now. 
We've worked very hard on this trip. But it's been a good thing for our 
country, I think. It certainly has been an enlightening experience, I 
believe, for everyone on this trip. I've been immensely impressed by the 
energy, the intelligence, the passion of the people I've met in 
positions of power and in the small villages in the countryside.
    And I think that we can make a strong partnership with people in 
Africa that we will need in the 21st century. Among other things, I 
think most Americans were surprised to learn that American investment in 
Africa earns a return of 30 percent a year, which is higher than 
investment on any other continent. We can do well for ourselves by 
making a good partnership with Africa, and I hope as we go home there 
will be broad bipartisan support for continuing to deepen this 
partnership. And I hope it will be followed by a lot of private 
citizens, business people, and others coming over here and getting 
involved.
    There is a lot to be done here and a great future here, and I want 
us to be a part of it.
    Mr. Donaldson. Thank you, Mr. President. Thanks for sitting down 
with us.
    The President. Thank you, Sam.

Note: The interview began at 8:45 p.m. at Le Meridien President Hotel. 
In his remarks, he referred to Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 
13, accused killers in the Jonesboro, Arkansas, middle school murders; 
Karen Curtner, principal, Westside Middle School; Mayor Hubert A. 
Brodell of Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Roy (Red) Bearden, Craighead County 
judge. A tape was not available for verification of the content of this 
interview.