I watched this on Anderson Cooper AC360 last night (on CNN):
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/10/acd.01.html
COOPER: Well, four wounded by gunfire at a high school in Cleveland before the shooter, a student there, killed himself.
Now, we may never fully know why he did what he did today. The same can be said for Dylan Klebold and all the other shooters who have ultimately turned the guns on themselves.
In the case of Evan Ramsey, however, the answers come from the killer himself. Ten years ago, 16-year-old Evan entered his high school in Bethel, Alaska. He pulled out a .12-gauge shotgun and he murdered a student and the principal.
Today, he's serving a prison sentence of 198 years at the Florence Corrections Facility in Arizona, where I met with him face to face.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Let's just start from the day. How long in advance -- when did you start planning it? How long in advance of the shooting did you actually seriously start planning it?
EVAN RAMSEY, CONVICTED SCHOOL SHOOTER: About two weeks.
COOPER: What was the initial thought? I mean, when you first thought of it, what was the idea?
RAMSEY: I told myself I have to do something to get everybody to leave me alone. The first thing -- that thought that came to mind, and I took it and ran with it.
COOPER: To leave you alone because they had been picking on you?
RAMSEY: Yes.
COOPER: How were they picking on you?
RAMSEY: I have gotten beat up. I have been spit on, and I have been called names. I have had things thrown at me.
COOPER: When you walked into the school in the morning with that gun, did you have a list in your head of who you wanted to get, who you wanted to kill?
RAMSEY: There was a list of people that I wanted to shoot at. Keep in mind that I didn't understand how life worked at the time. I didn't know that, when you shoot somebody, they don't just get back up.
COOPER: What do you mean?
RAMSEY: I did not understand that if I -- like using myself in using an example, if I pull out a gun and shoot you, there's a good chance that you're not getting back up. You're going to bleed to death and die either right there or on the way to the hospital. And that part of reality didn't click, for whatever reason.
COOPER: I don't know. I think it's just probably hard for some people to believe that you didn't know, you know, dead is dead.
RAMSEY: I -- I based a lot of my knowledge solely on video games.
You shoot a guy in "Doom," and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in "Doom" eight or nine times before it dies. And I went with that concept on -- with -- from the video game and added it to life.
COOPER: What did it feel like to pull the trigger?
RAMSEY: I'm going to get what I want. These people -- I'm going to scare these people away. Nobody's going to pick on me. There won't be any more verbal or physical abuse from anybody.
COOPER: So, it felt like relief?
RAMSEY: Yes. There was great relief.
COOPER: What do you want people to know?
RAMSEY: What kids are going through, it's not that bad. I saw my treatment as so bad.
If I would have had somebody to sit down with and say, it's not that bad, you don't have to react this way, there's other means, that it might help somebody. It can always be worse, and it's always going to get better.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0710/10/acd.01.html
COOPER: Well, four wounded by gunfire at a high school in Cleveland before the shooter, a student there, killed himself.
Now, we may never fully know why he did what he did today. The same can be said for Dylan Klebold and all the other shooters who have ultimately turned the guns on themselves.
In the case of Evan Ramsey, however, the answers come from the killer himself. Ten years ago, 16-year-old Evan entered his high school in Bethel, Alaska. He pulled out a .12-gauge shotgun and he murdered a student and the principal.
Today, he's serving a prison sentence of 198 years at the Florence Corrections Facility in Arizona, where I met with him face to face.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Let's just start from the day. How long in advance -- when did you start planning it? How long in advance of the shooting did you actually seriously start planning it?
EVAN RAMSEY, CONVICTED SCHOOL SHOOTER: About two weeks.
COOPER: What was the initial thought? I mean, when you first thought of it, what was the idea?
RAMSEY: I told myself I have to do something to get everybody to leave me alone. The first thing -- that thought that came to mind, and I took it and ran with it.
COOPER: To leave you alone because they had been picking on you?
RAMSEY: Yes.
COOPER: How were they picking on you?
RAMSEY: I have gotten beat up. I have been spit on, and I have been called names. I have had things thrown at me.
COOPER: When you walked into the school in the morning with that gun, did you have a list in your head of who you wanted to get, who you wanted to kill?
RAMSEY: There was a list of people that I wanted to shoot at. Keep in mind that I didn't understand how life worked at the time. I didn't know that, when you shoot somebody, they don't just get back up.
COOPER: What do you mean?
RAMSEY: I did not understand that if I -- like using myself in using an example, if I pull out a gun and shoot you, there's a good chance that you're not getting back up. You're going to bleed to death and die either right there or on the way to the hospital. And that part of reality didn't click, for whatever reason.
COOPER: I don't know. I think it's just probably hard for some people to believe that you didn't know, you know, dead is dead.
RAMSEY: I -- I based a lot of my knowledge solely on video games.
You shoot a guy in "Doom," and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in "Doom" eight or nine times before it dies. And I went with that concept on -- with -- from the video game and added it to life.
COOPER: What did it feel like to pull the trigger?
RAMSEY: I'm going to get what I want. These people -- I'm going to scare these people away. Nobody's going to pick on me. There won't be any more verbal or physical abuse from anybody.
COOPER: So, it felt like relief?
RAMSEY: Yes. There was great relief.
COOPER: What do you want people to know?
RAMSEY: What kids are going through, it's not that bad. I saw my treatment as so bad.
If I would have had somebody to sit down with and say, it's not that bad, you don't have to react this way, there's other means, that it might help somebody. It can always be worse, and it's always going to get better.
Yeah, a 16 year old doesn't know that shooting someone could kill them.
ing learn by now that no matter how good it makes you feel, you don't continuously torment other kids. You can only push people so far before they snap and lose all connection with society. They just quit caring and they want to make everyone else suffer as badly as themselves.
