Officials wonder why good student went on rampage
“I’m not criticizing anybody, but it would have taken a different route,” said Pike County schools Superintendent Frank Welch, who spent Wednesday at East Ridge High School helping faculty and students cope with the aftermath of the deaths a day earlier.
Kentucky State Police said Hackney, 17, of Elkhorn Creek, a senior with a 3.8 grade-point average, fatally shot his parents and grandmother Tuesday, and then crashed his pickup truck into oncoming traffic, killing himself and another driver, while fleeing from police.
The scope of the tragedy has grabbed attention in eastern Kentucky, a region caught in the grips of a drug-abuse epidemic known for taking its victims one at a time, through overdoses or traffic crashes. Welch said this week’s events highlight the devastating effects of drugs.
“We’re all going to have to put our heads together and try to do something about slowing it down and putting an end to it,” he said. “If we don’t, it’s going to destroy our country.”
State police Lt. Bobby Johnson, who is overseeing the investigation, said Hackney was under the influence of drugs, but he stopped short of saying those drugs caused him to go on the rampage.
“Drugs cause a lot of different behaviors,” he said. “We haven’t established a motive. I can’t say, ‘Because he was on drugs, he did this.’ I can’t rule it out either.”
Welch said the teen told an assistant principal that he had taken five Ultrams, a prescription painkiller. “I don’t think at this point in time they know exactly where he got them,” Welch said.
East Ridge Principal Ralph Kilgore said he recommended Hackney be taken into custody after he and other administrators called state police to the school about 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday. Johnson said juvenile court officials opted instead to send the teen home with his mother.
Kilgore said he recommended Hackney be taken into custody because he felt the teen should be monitored for health reasons.
“I had never seen the child be a discipline problem,” Kilgore said. “We were alarmed.”
The juvenile court worker in Pike County, Sara Bailey, and the trial commissioner who recommended releasing the teen to his parents, Fred Hatfield, declined to comment on the case.
Scott Surkin, general counsel to the Administrative Office of the Courts in Frankfort, said under Kentucky law, juvenile cases are confidential and that he cannot specifically discuss Hackney’s case. However, Surkin said, is such cases, a law enforcement officer would call the juvenile court worker, and the juvenile court worker would contact a judge, who would decide whether to release the teen to his parents’ custody.
In this case, Surkin said, the judges were out of town and the trial commissioner made the decision. Surkin said his office is reviewing the Pike County case.
“If there is any breach of protocol, that would be addressed,” he said. “Our review so far has showed no breach of protocol.”
Johnson said it’s not unusual for state police to be called to high schools on drug complaints. And, he said, it’s not usual for students to be cited and released to the custody of parents. That, he said, isn’t a call that police officers make.
Johnson said the teen was cited for public intoxication at the school, and that his mother drove him home shortly after 11 a.m. Tuesday. Shortly after 3 p.m., Johnson said state police received a call from Christa Coleman, a pizza restaurant employee who said Hackney told her he had killed his parents and grandmother.
Coleman alerted authorities after Hackney left the restaurant.
Johnson said state police troopers, responding to the call, found Hackney westbound on U.S. 460 and attempted to stop the vehicle. Hackney lost control and struck a pickup truck, killing himself and Terry A. Taylor, 41, of Elkhorn City.
At the teen’s home, state police found the bodies of Ivan Hackney, 47, Shirley Hackney, 44, and Wilma Hackney, 63.
Johnson said the shooting victims were outside the home. A paramedic said all had been shot multiple times, apparently with a high-caliber rifle. Autopsies were being done by the state medical examiner Wednesday on the four victims and suspect.
Kilgore said Hackney, who played in the high school band and worked after school at a local grocery store, had never been a discipline problem. He described the teen as a model student. Welch said counselors had been called to East Ridge from other schools throughout the rural district in the easternmost corner of Kentucky.
It’s just a tragedy,” Welch said. “When you talk to the teachers and the people who knew him, they say there wasn’t a better student who ever went through that school than him.”
Pike County has a drug education program and does random drug testing of students who are engaged in extracurricular activities or who drive automobiles to school. Welch said the school board is considering extending the drug tests to faculty and staff as well.
That option was being weighed after an elementary school principal was arrested on drug-related charges last week after allegedly giving drugs to a 17-year-old. The teen was treated for a possible overdose at Pikeville Medical Center.
Kyle Tackett, principal of G.F. Johnson Elementary School in Virgie, was arrested Sunday. He has been suspended from his job without pay since Monday. Tackett was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, possession of a controlled substance and unlawful transaction with a minor. He is free on $10,000 bond.
Welch said communities throughout eastern Kentucky have been wrestling with prescription drug abuse for years, and schools are not immune to the problem.
“Every school has them, but some have a higher degree than others,” he said. “If you’ve got it in society, it’s going to touch your schools.”