When I knew James Holmes, the Colorado shooter, he was Jimmy. I was his fifth-grade teacher.
Back then, in 1998-1999, Holmes lived in Castroville, Calif., a tiny town of 5,000. Since Saturday, I’ve talked about Jimmy with one of his former classmates, let’s call him Chris.
Jimmy was well-dressed, neat, wore glasses, liked to read and excelled in all academic areas. He had two really good friends, both sharp like him — in fact, top of the class.
I trusted James Holmes so much that when he finished his assignments, I let him and another student create a class Web site. Mind you, this was 1998 and our computers were primitive; we had to write lines and lines of code to do anything. Jimmy worked on this independently, and he did it well.
Chris reminded me how I’d race students in the field behind the school: “Only two kids beat you in our year, and James was one of them.” He continued, “Mr. Karrer, those were the best years of my school years — fifth grade.”
Then a pause, and: “What do you think happened to him?”
What happened to him? James had everything going for him. He lived in the wealthy part of town; I’m pretty sure both of his parents had white-collar jobs.
Yet Chris, who was asking the question, had been poked in the eyes by fate. His mom died before fifth grade, but he kept up with school and plugged away. He was, and still is, a sweet, lovable, huge kid.
His dad was a Vietnam vet who worked day and night at their restaurant to make ends meet. The dad confided in me a few years ago that he had cancer — but, “Cancer isn’t mean enough to get me.” And he beat it: He’s still plugging away at that restaurant six years later.
So in the end, Chris turned out A-OK . . . and Jimmy didn’t.
“How can we know?” I answered Chris. “Perhaps he became psychotic. It shows up in people in their 20s. Maybe he used wicked sanity-eating drugs like OxyContin, meth, crack, and it destroyed his mind. I don’t know.
“Perhaps he just turned to the dark side? I don’t know . . . don’t know.”
I do know a few things, though. James (Jimmy) Eagan Holmes has committed a brutal, evil and, it seems, very premeditated, horrible act.
Some people will always snap. They’ll commit crimes of passion, commit dark acts under the influence of drugs, anger, lust, misperception, racism, ignorance and poor or wrong decision making.
And I think as a civilized society all we can do is try to minimize the impact these individuals have upon us. No civilian should have or own a military-style weapon. No civilian should be able to purchase body armor. And I say this as a gun owner.
Finally, I wonder: James Eagan Holmes passed through my life for one year. Could I have done anything else to lead to a different outcome? Probably not.
But I also fear that in schools somewhere out there, more James Holmes are festering.
To the people of Aurora, I’m very, very, very, sorry.
And to Chris, I’m so proud of you and your dad.
Paul Karrer teaches elementary school in Castroville, Calif.