Shooting victims tell their stories

CLOVIS - In a full courtroom across the street from where a deadly library shooting shook the community less than 18 months earlier, prosecutors and victims asked that a judge have Nathaniel Jouett serve the rest of his life in prison.

That is what the state's request would amount to, anyway. District Attorney Andrea Reeb requested Chaves County Judge James Hudson give Jouett, now 18, a term of 96 years. That sum comes from the 30 felony counts to which he pleaded guilty last year: 30 years each for the two lives he took, three years each for the four other individuals he shot and injured, and a year each for 24 others terrorized inside the Clovis-Carver Public Library on Aug. 28, 2017.

Defense attorney Stephen Taylor did not specify Monday what sentence he was requesting of the judge, who has discretion in the convicted shooter's ultimate exposure. However, if Hudson takes Reeb's request and finds the charges to be serious violent offenses, then it will be approximately 82 years before Jouett is eligible for release.

Taylor argued Monday that it violated case law for Jouett, who was arrested without further incident after the shooting, then 16 when arrested, to not at least have an opportunity for some period of life outside bars.

"I'm sure you're going to hear from a lot of victims who want more or less time," Reeb said. Indeed, over a dozen victim impact statements presented to the court asked Hudson give Jouett the maximum sentence possible, which is two life terms plus 96 years. If the victims have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of their lives, they said, so too should he.

Victor Molina, whose daughter Alexis and 10-year old son Noah were each shot and injured, spoke strongly Monday afternoon and wished Jouett to death row for his "heinous act." In his own military service across numerous deployments in hostile environments, "It should have been me who got shot, not my children," he said.

"We're reminded daily," said their mother, Denise Madrid. "We're left to pick up the pieces. Alexis and Noah are left with pain, nightmares and scars."

Eight scars for Alexis Molina, as she told the court. Eight reminders of praying to God to save her and her brother from the gunman who she'd smiled at and made eye contact with just moments earlier that Monday afternoon.

"He thinks it's a game and it's funny," she said.

Jouett may have laughed at the time, as witnesses stated, but he cried Monday in court while listening to impact statements. Months earlier he had to be escorted weeping from a hearing in which the surveillance video from the incident was replayed, but on Monday it was a victim who had to leave the court in tears when the video played again.

"He was resistant to even looking at that (video)," clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Ned Siegel told the court Monday of a clinical interview he conducted last month with Jouett. "There were some things he clearly did not want to discuss. ... There was a great deal of 'I don't remember' and 'I don't know.'"

Those answers are similar to what Jouett told police immediately following the incident as to his motives. He had demonstrated some interest in mass shooters, and he was "mad at the world," and a so-called manifesto video he filmed shortly before the shooting seems to come as close as anything else in offering an explanation.

"I'm not doing this for attention or anything like that. I'm just doing this because I got some weird mental stuff," he says in the video played Monday for the court, speaking through a sniffle while lacing his shoes. "There wasn't a really set reason why."

In that video, Jouett apologized to his family, his girlfriend, and "anyone that's going to be affected by this." He said he felt there was no other way, that he was "angry at the world, and I have so much anger and frustration and hopelessness, it just, it needed to happen."

Jouett said he originally considered targeting the high school and wasn't sure why he walked to the library instead. He had been suspended from school the Friday earlier for his role in a fight, which was only captured on video from the point another boy had him in a headlock.

"He felt that he was being bullied," said Clovis Police Det. Rick Smith.

Smith was among officers detailing facts from the incident. He and CPD investigator Travis Loomis said Jouett used two handguns from his father's safe, first 14 shots from a .380 caliber followed by six with a .45 caliber.

"He hit five people immediately," Smith said. "That's good shooting, unfortunately."

Those gunshots are still heavy in the minds of other victims, and in some cases in their person. Both Alexis Molina and Jessica Thron, a library worker at the time, have bullet fragments still lodged in bone, they said in court.

Thron said she is wary of fireworks and has a large scar on her upper left arm, but that the physical injuries are "nothing compared to the piece of my heart that was taken."

Family members of both of the slain library employees spoke in Monday's hearing. Siblings of children's librarian Kristina Carter called to the court by speakerphone; the daughter of circulation assistant Wanda Walters addressed the judge in person Monday afternoon.

Scott Jones, who was working in the library at the time, said that during the shooting "part of me shut down ... and I don't think that part has ever come back."

"A lot of people say, 'I wish he had just died,' and I understand that's gut reaction," Jones continued. "I don't wish for him to die because I do value life. ... I do believe it's in my best interest to forgive him at some point ... but he does have to be held accountable for his actions."

Speaking on behalf of law enforcement and other first responders, Clovis Police Capt. Roman Romero asked Hudson to give Jouett the maximum sentence.

"I never wanted to treat any situation in my community like a combat zone. That day, we did," he said. "Our community was changed that day. Our department was changed that day. ... Our innocence as a community was lost."

The sentencing hearing continued Tuesday with statements from Jouett's family and testimony from the therapist seeing Jouett in the past several months. Attorneys expect Hudson to make a decision by the end of the week.