Andrew Golden (born May 25, 1986) was, at age 11, one of two shooters in the Jonesboro, Arkansas school shooting. The other was Mitchell Johnson. Those who had known the two youths do not remember them being particularly close friends. Most of the firearms used in the offense were stolen from Andrew's grandfather Doug Golden. A witness said that Andrew had pulled a fire alarm inside the school and that when teachers and students filed outside, he and Mitchell opened fire. An M1 rifle was taken from Andrew after his capture. Ballistics tests proved that it was the weapon that had killed two of the children and injured a third. By all accounts, Andrew's parents were warm and loving. He was also very close to his grandparents and often stopped by their house on his way to school. Some people were troubled, however, by the fact that the boy was raised to be familiar with guns and their use at an early age. Andrew was given his first firearm when he was only six. Andrew's schoolmates described him as a bully who was very quick to pick fights. They also said he used very filthy language for a child. A classmate once accused him of killing her cat with a BB gun. She had found the animal dead in a trash can. Owing to his age at the time of the shooting, Golden was originally to be released on his 18th birthday; due to federal gun charges, however, he was kept in confinement for another three years and released on his twenty-first birthday, May 25, 2007.
