Serving Central Oregon since 1903 • $1.50
Monday • June 14, 2021
‘Tremendous shame and guilt’
Kip Kinkel, 1998 Oregon school shooter, gives first interview from prison
Associated Press
SALEM — Kip Kinkel, who killed his par-
ents before going on a shooting rampage at his
Oregon high school in 1998, killing two class-
mates and injuring 25 more, has given his first
news interview, telling HuffPost he feels “tre-
mendous, tremendous shame and guilt.”
Kinkel, now 38, is serving a de facto life sen-
tence at the Oregon State Correctional Institu-
tion. He spoke with the news site by phone for
about 20 hours over 10 months.
He said he felt guilty not just for what he did
as a 15-year-old suffering from then-undiag-
nosed paranoid schizophrenia, but the effect his
crime has had on other juvenile offenders sen-
tenced to life terms: His case has been held up
by some of his victims and by others as a reason
to oppose juvenile justice reform in the state.
While he has not previously given interviews
because he did not want to further trauma-
tize his victims, he said, he also began to feel
that his silence was preventing those offenders
from getting a second chance.
“I have responsibility for the harm that I
caused when I was 15,” Kinkel said. “But I also
have responsibility for the harm that I am caus-
ing now as I’m 38 because of what I did at 15.”
‘My whole world blew up’
Kinkel described how he had been hearing
voices since age 12 and how he became ob-
sessed with knives, guns and explosives, be-
lieving China was going to invade the U.S. and
that the government and the Walt Disney Co.
had implanted a microchip in his head.
When he was caught at Thurston High
School in Springfield with a stolen handgun
he bought from another student on May 19,
1998, “My whole world blew up,” he said. “All
the feelings of safety and security — of being
able to take control over a threat — disap-
peared.”
Facing expulsion, a possible felony charge
and an enormous sense of shame, he said, the
voices in his head made him believe he had to
kill his parents and then return to school to
“kill everybody.”
See Kinkel / A10
Don Ryan/AP file
Thurston High School student Kip Kinkel, then 15, is led
to his arraignment in Eugene in May 1998. Kinkel killed
his parents before going on a shooting rampage at the
Springfield school, killing two there and injuring 25.
WEEKEND OF ADVENTURE
Family photo
Peter ansoff, a vexillologist — someone who studies
flags — holds a replica of a U.S. flag that was flown
on a British warship after it was captured in 1779.
A salute to flag
history, and to
today’s ‘holiday’
By MaRyLoU ToUSIGnanT
Special To The Washington Post
Monday is Flag Day, an event marking the day
in 1777 when the Second Continental Congress
approved a design for the first United States flag.
Thirteen stars, white on blue. Thirteen stripes, al-
ternating red and white. Sound familiar?
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson called the
U.S. flag “the emblem of our unity, our power, our
thought and purpose as a nation.” He asked that
June 14 be celebrated each year as Flag Day, a day
to think about the country’s ideals and principles.
Although Congress made Flag Day a national
event in 1949, it is not an official federal holi-
day. Sandwiched between Memorial Day and the
Fourth of July, which are federal holidays, it often
gets overlooked.
But not at Peter Ansoff’s
house. He’ll be hoisting some
of the more than 100 flags he
The number of
owns up the three flagpoles
official American
in his Annandale front yard.
flags since 1777.
Ansoff is a vexillologist
See more flag facts
(pronounced
vex-ill-LOLL-
on a4
oh-gist), a person who stud-
ies the history and meaning
of flags. As president of the 700-member North
American Vexillological Association, he enjoys
sharing his knowledge and love of flags.
While some people see flags as just colorful
pieces of cloth, Ansoff says there are others who
are excited about what they represent. His own
excitement started when he was a kid and came
across colorful pictures of flags in an encyclopedia.
“Our neighbors had a flagpole, and I told my
dad I wanted one, too,” he recalled. His mother
bought him his first flag and sewed others for him.
Ansoff doesn’t call himself a collector. He does
have a few rare flags, but mostly “I buy them to fly
them,” he said.
Some are copies of the 27 official flags the U.S.
has had since 1777. Ansoff also has several unoffi-
cial U.S. flags, ensigns flown by American and Brit-
ish merchant ships, and flags of other countries.
On July 1, a national holiday in Canada, he hoists
its red-and-white maple-leaf banner. If it’s a cold
winter day in Northern Virginia, he’ll warm things
up by flying the flag of a toasty South Pacific island.
Ansoff can’t (or won’t) pick one flag as his fa-
vorite. For a posed photo, he chose a replica of the
Serapis (sir-APE-us) ensign, named for the British
warship that American naval hero John Paul Jones
captured off the coast of England in 1779.
The original Serapis banner is lost to history.
But vexillologists such as Ansoff keep its mem-
ory aloft.
27
TODAY’S
WEATHER
Matt Biller leads the way as his father, Jim Biller, both of Portland, follows closely behind while paddling on Sparks Lake early Saturday. The pair spent the weekend
exploring sights and outdoor activities around oregon as part of a Christmas gift from son to father last year. The two said they had already visited the Painted Hills
and a few waterfalls on the way to Central oregon and planned on mountain biking around the Phil’s Trail complex after the early morning paddle.
INDEX
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A8
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A10
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