Boy With A Knife. Jean Trounstine
crew, a boy whom Gator had disliked ever since Jason had gotten into a fight with another friend of his a few years back. Karter did not know that Jason played football, soccer, and basketball, had a sister and a brother, and had just bought a Chevy with money he made as a busboy at the University of Massachusetts resident dining hall.50 He did not know that Jason was the son of Elaine and Burt, stepson of Cherylann, all lifelong residents of Dartmouth.51
Gator started down the row of seats toward Jason, wielding the bat in the air, reportedly saying, “Oh, Robinson, you messed with my boy; you’re dead.”52 As Mr. Murphy told Gator to get out, Jason bolted from his seat. Suddenly, Karter felt someone come up behind him, and he held up his hands, then surrendered the pipe he had been holding to Vice Principal Porter, who had come running into the room.
By now, Gator was chasing Jason around the room, the two knocking against desks as if in a pinball game. Jason ran toward the windows, and Karter heard him yell back at Gator: “Fuck you. I didn’t touch your boy. I didn’t touch him.”
Vice Principal Porter pushed Karter aside, shoving him into an alcove in the room.53 Believing that Karter was being restrained by others, Porter started after Gator. The class erupted. Students were out of their seats chasing Gator, yelling, making threats that Gator was about to be hurt, “wrecked,” “fucked up.”54 Karter said he considered trying to leave the room through a different exit, but when he looked around, he saw that it was blocked by students. He just stood there and watched Jason’s pink shirt flash by. Mr. Murphy finally grabbed Gator, and the bat went flying into a corner. Along with his colleagues, Mr. Murphy wrestled Gator to the floor.
By now the tumult was intense. More teachers and students had entered the hallways. Karter began to panic. He said he felt that things were spinning out of control. He was again standing inert, desperately wanting to do something but desperately unable to. He felt an obligation to his friends. He had to act. He headed toward Jason, who was a few feet away.
As the blur of the past built up inside him, and as the shoulder of Jason Robinson pressed against his, Karter reached in his pocket for the knife. He never looked at Jason’s face. He did not think about seeking revenge. All he knew was that he must not back down. In one fell swoop, he pulled out the weapon and, as cleanly and swiftly as his sixteen-year-old hand could manage, stabbed Jason Robinson in the stomach.
Karter said he didn’t remember how the knife got back inside his pocket. In 2008 he wrote that in the next moment: “I was pinned against the wall with teachers kicking me, screaming, ‘Drop the knife,’ until they realized I didn’t have anything in my hands. I knew I was in trouble but I wasn’t thinking about courts or jail. . . . I was thinking that I’d be a hero to my friends.”
II
Though justice be thy plea, consider this—That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation.
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Because he could not fit into the back of the squad car with his wrists cuffed behind him, Karter had to ride from the high school to the police station face down on the seat. At that point, he was unsure what he had been arrested for. He reported this exchange with a police officer to Armand Fernandes, his court-appointed attorney, who unsuccessfully challenged it at the trial.
Karter asked the officer if he could use the bathroom.
“Why? Did you shit yourself?”
“Yes. . . . What do you think the charge will be?”
“Attempted murder.”
“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t try to kill Jason. If you want to kill someone, you stab them in the chest or head.”
“What do you think you will be charged with?”
“Assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Well, it could be dropped to that.”
At the Dartmouth police station, a two-story brick building not far from the high school, Karter was booked for trespassing and placed in a solitary cell. He felt humiliated that his pants were soiled—he had lost control of his bowels the moment he stabbed Jason Robinson—and he washed them out as best he could by flushing them in the toilet. All he could think about was if he would get locked up and have to stay back a year in school. He also worried about what his mother would say. After a few hours, an officer came to his cell to tell him that Jason Robinson was dead. Karter collapsed onto the floor. At the trial, a medical examiner said that Jason had died from a deep puncture wound in the center of his abdomen, two inches above his belly button.1
When Sharon Reed came home that morning to her slate-colored house on Hillman Street after helping a friend move, she discovered two messages on her answering machine. The details were fuzzy but she understood that her son was in custody, and it had something to do with Dartmouth High School. Frantically, Sharon dialed the number left by a police officer several times, each time getting a busy signal. She knew the message was from that morning because her machine told her the date and time, but that made no sense, since Karter should have been in school at the Voke. Not owning a car, she called Rosie, Karter’s godmother, and was relieved to find her at home. Rosie agreed to give her a ride to the station.
Rosie, her husband, and Sharon drove down the narrow streets, passing shuttered homes and others that looked as if they had been ravaged by fire. Paint was peeling off buildings as it was in many neighborhoods throughout New Bedford. As they drove down Route 6, passing gas stations, tire stores, the old Bristol city jail, and a Dunkin’ Donuts, the crowded streets gave way to open spaces. They entered Dartmouth with its sprawling houses, lawns checkered with evaporating snow, and frosted trees. When they reached the police station at 12:45 p.m., Sharon was told that Karter had been arrested for trespassing.2 Hearing the news of this relatively minor infraction relaxed her a little, and she remembered thinking to herself, I’m kicking his ass for skipping school.3 She asked to see her son and was told it would be awhile. Nearly two hours later, Sharon was led from the reception area to another room at the station and informed that her son was now being charged with murder.
That Monday afternoon, Derek Reed was stretched out on a bunk watching his cellmate’s TV at MCI-Norfolk, a state prison just south of Boston. A “Breaking News in Dartmouth” banner blasted across the screen, showing Karter, Gator, and Nigel in custody while an announcer claimed the boys had been accused of killing Jason Robinson in a school stabbing. Derek stared at the TV, thinking, No way. I’m the one who gets in fights, not Karter. He bolted out of the room to the hallway phone to call Sharon.4
Of course, Sharon was not at home. She and Karter had been brought separately to a smaller room at the police station, one that looked like a library, with bookshelves lining the walls. “Why, Karter?” she said when she saw her son. “Why would you do something like this?” They both cried, then sat in disbelief while they listened to the charges. Along with trespassing, Karter was being charged with two counts of carrying a dangerous weapon, disturbing the peace while armed, conspiracy to commit a crime, and murder.5 He could not stop shaking.
When I wrote to Karter in 2008 to ask why, at age sixteen, he gave a statement to the police without a lawyer present, he responded that he had been told by the police that things would go better for him if he cooperated, and he believed that telling the truth would win out. Not only did he know nothing about the juvenile system, he’d had minimal dealings with the police. He had no idea that anything he said could be used against him. He was so naive that, after the stabbing, he asked the police officer who drove him to the station if she thought he would end up on the TV show Cops. He had no idea how to proceed, and so, before even seeing his mother, he agreed to give a statement.
This situation is not atypical; teens in custody routinely waive their Miranda rights.6 Fear of the unknown, or of something bad happening to them, as well as the fact that many are not yet capable of understanding the