School shooter unnoticed until weapon permit filing

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Andrew Golden, who sat silently as a juvenile judge sentenced him into state custody for the deaths of four students and a teacher in a 1998 Jonesboro middle school shooting, disappeared just as quietly after a federal prison released him at age 21.

While co-defendant Mitchell Johnson found himself in trouble with police within a year a half of his release, Golden went to Cape Girardeau, registering for a driver's license and beginning a new life. He caught the attention of police only once, after losing control of a motorcycle along a rural two-lane state highway in northern Arkansas this spring. But by then, he was Drew Douglas Grant, a student at a Batesville community college.

Then he applied for a state concealed-weapons permit.

"It just doesn't sit real good," said Craighead County Sheriff Jack McCann, who investigated the school shooting a decade ago and knew Golden's family long before it. "He hasn't been in any trouble since he got out and hopefully he won't be. But still, he shouldn't be allowed to carry a firearm."

Golden applied for the permit Oct. 7, noting the seven hours of training he had taken on handgun fundamentals, ammunition, self defense and the law, and target shooting on a firing range. Golden passed the classes.

But during the background check, regulators with the Arkansas State Police matched the fingerprints he provided to those taken after his arrest for the March 24, 1998, shooting at Jonesboro Westside Middle School.

Golden's application was rejected.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler said Golden has 10 days to appeal the rejection.