by Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times: After two middle-school boys in camouflage gear shot and killed four classmates and a teacher here, leaving 10 others wounded and a community shattered, it seemed inevitable that someone would see opportunity in the tragedy for a book deal.Indeed, within days a publisher agreed to pay $25,000 to an Arkansas writer to produce a book on youth violence.Victims' families were outraged. They called the payment blood money and said the author was cashing in on their pain. They demanded that the money go to the school, victims' relatives or scholarships for the wounded, not to the writer's personal bank account. He refused. That the author was Mike Huckabee, Arkansas' governor at the time, made their resentment all the stronger." He took advantage of us," said Pam Herring, whose daughter, Paige Ann, had just turned 12 when she was shot to death. . . .
But when the book was rushed to print a month after the shootings, it was titled "Kids Who Kill." The cover is a photo of a boy about the age of the Jonesboro killers pointing a gun at the reader. The back cover promo states: "The quest for quick answers has robbed us of the truth" about Jonesboro. "Until now."The opening pages begin: "Just after lunch on March 24, 1998, a sudden burst of gunfire cut through the crowded schoolyard of Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas." . . .
Huckabee again vowed it would be "blood money" for the shooters, with Huckabee adding this time: "No one should profit."Then, ten days after the shooting, it was announced that Huckabee had signed his own book deal, to be written with George Grant, a prolific author of Christian books. . . . [Read More]
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