'As A Matter of Fact, It Was Everybody Like You That Inspired Me To Change'

Exactly two years ago today, I wrote an angry post titled The Poconos' Sick Obsession With Guns.

The crux of the post was that it is illegal in the Poconos and in Pennsylvania to smoke or have drugs on school property, but it is legal to have guns on or near school property.

This laissez faire attitude about guns contributed to a lockdown of Stroudsburg High School because of fears that a Columbine or Nickel Mines-type shooting incident might be in the offing. This is because two students seen with .22-caliber rifles left a message with some ambiguous but possibly threatening language on an Internet instant message board and then disappeared.

One of those students has now responded to my post:

My name is Alex Camaerei, yes the real Alex Camaerei. The one who was wrongly accused of shooting up the school two years ago. I was just extremely bored and decided to search my name in the Yahoo search engine and came across your little blog.

I thought it was pretty amusing how you seem to think that you have all of the facts in the situation. I'll tell you a brief summary of what really happened, okay? You see I was only 16 years old. My parents are good parents. Very good. They gave me everything I ever wanted. The only problem was, well, me. I was a bad kid. A bad student, a bad influence, a bad person. I would steal, I would fight, and I would skip school. As a matter of fact, for the two weeks before we ran away, I skipped school everyday. And I would come home everyday around the time I would get off the bus and nobody would know any different.

It was my idea to run away, and mine alone. I wanted Matt to come with me because we did everything together. We had the whole thing planned out very well. We assembled all of our camping gear and brought guns because, well how were we going to eat?

The funny thing was, the place we camped at was about 12 miles from Stroudsburg High School. We spent our whole first day cutting down tree branches and making a hut that we could sleep in. Basically we put a tent up that Matt brought, and then took large limbs and covered the tent. Then we took pine tree twigs and leaves and tied them to the branches. Keep in mind that we had no idea of what was going to transpire that day and the next. All we were doing was hunting and camping.

After my parents realized I was not coming home that day, they started to freak out (excuse them!). They called the school to see if I was there. That's when they found out I wasn't there for the last two weeks. Then the school called Matt's mom. She said that she noticed that Matt's hunting rifle was missing. She mentioned it to the school. A few minutes later my mom tried to contact the school and when she finally got a hold of the guidance counselor, he asked her if I had a gun.

Meanwhile, at our camp site, my cell phone was off. I had no idea any of this was happening. The school then went on lock down and all of the chaos ensued. After we found out about everything, we came out of the woods and met our fate. A life filled with looks, whispers, and regret. I screwed my parents over, they were never bad to me.

I resent the fact that you went and wrote a blog about me not knowing anything but what you read. I would like you to know that I broke no laws at all. I was of age to carry a gun, I did nothing to the school. The only thing I did with my gun was kill a squirrel. This incident came to be because of word-of-mouth. Everybody's he-said-she-said games turned me into a criminal and ruined my relationships with many people.

I would just like you to know that after all this transpired, I left Stroudsburg High. They wanted to prove that this was all my fault. They went on my MySpace and said I was demonic and in a cult. I never knew that MySpace was a way to draw conclusions on people. Hell, if they looked up half the minors in that school they could see pictures of them smoking weed and drinking. I went to a different school, brought my GPA up to a 3.4 and during the fall 2009 semester I will attend the Pennsylvania State University.

I read the last few lines in this blog when you said that nothing was learned from this incident, and it inspired me to write this. As a matter of fact it was everybody like you that inspired me to change. All the people who said I was a freak, who said I would always be a loser, you inspired me, so I thank you.

Love, Alex Vyto Camaerei

Thank you Alex, and best of luck.