State Buys Prison to Keep School Snipers

The state of Arkansas will be able to keep the two Jonesboro school snipers in custody past their 18th birthdays after buying a former county prison, officials said. By taking over the former juvenile facility in southeast Arkansas, the state will be able to fulfill its legal requirement to keep the boys separate from younger offenders when they turn 18, but not send them to an adult prison. Andrew Golden was 11 and Mitchell Johnson was 13 when they fired on a crowd of classmates at Jonesboro’s West Side Middle School on March 24, 1998, killing a teacher and four students and wounding 10 other people.