Nineteen Minutes: Part 2, Chapter 3: Five Months After Summary & Analysis

While Patrick is giving his testimony, he is forced to relive “the worst day of his life.” Diana pulls up the surveillance footage from the day of the shooting. It shows Peter coming into the cafeteria and shooting, eating the bowl of Rice Krispies, reloading his gun, and leaving again. In the courtroom, Diana holds up the Rice Krispies box, and Patrick explains that he found it in the cafeteria. Diana then shows the two handguns Peter used to commit the shooting, Gun A and Gun B. She plays footage of Matt lying on the ground of the locker room with half his head blown off. Diana asks about the fingerprints on the guns, and Patrick explains that the prints on Gun A match Peter’s.

Patrick explains that there is a partial print on Gun B that is inconclusive; it might belong to Peter, but there is no way to tell for sure. He then explains that it is clear that Gun B was fired, but that the bullet has never been recovered. After Patrick gives his testimony, court is done for the day. The press rush to interview parents on their way out. In order to avoid the crowd, Patrick sits down in the empty courtroom, where Alex finds him. They embrace. Jordan, meanwhile, is having a distressing day. His cross-examination of Patrick revealed that on the day of the shooting Peter cried and asked for his mother, as well as the fact that Peter claimed, “They started it.”

A forensic psychiatrist named Curtis Uppergate is the next to be interviewed. He is highly esteemed, with three Ivy League degrees. While being questioned by Diana, he explains that he’s worked with the FBI on other school shooting cases, including Columbine. He believes Peter was not suffering from mental illness on the day of the shooting, and that there is evidence he deliberately planned the attack. He also claims that, while Peter was evidently bullied, school shooters tend to exaggerate their experience of bullying. When Jordan questions Uppergate, he points out that Uppergate hasn’t even met Peter, which makes his evaluation baseless.

While they are on break, Jordan brings Peter a sandwich that Peter says he doesn’t want to eat, because he doesn’t like turkey. Peter asks how much Jordan is paid, then asks if he will be paid the same regardless of whether Peter wins or loses. He then accuses Jordan of not caring about winning the trial. Jordan responds that such reasoning would make Peter a good lawyer. Back in court, King Wah is called to the stand. He explains that he spent ten hours interviewing Peter in order to make his evaluation; he also spoke with Peter’s parents and examined Peter’s school and medical records. He also examined MRI scans of Peter’s brain, which reveal that he is less mature than similar adolescents his age. 

All this indicates that Peter is not yet capable of making particularly rational, calculated decisions. While interviewing Peter, Wah was struck by his lack of emotion. He notes the vast and brutal extent of the bullying to which Peter was subjected and adds that it was difficult to deal with the expectations that came with being Joey’s brother, particularly after Joey’s death. Wah says he is certain that Peter is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that he was in a dissociative state when he committed the mass shooting. He argues that this was triggered by seeing the email that he connected with the traumatic memory of having his pants pulled down in front of the whole school.

Wah explains that the computer was supposed to be a “safe haven” for Peter, which is why this incident was particularly horrifying. He also notes that PTSD can be triggered by seemingly minor, innocuous events. He compares Peter’s state to battered woman syndrome, and he says that Peter was probably accustomed to dissociating while being bullied. On the morning he committed the shooting, he dissociated after being triggered by the memory of being bullied. Wah argues that the fact that Peter ate the Rice Krispies proves he was dissociating and barely aware of the fact that he had killed and injured many of his classmates. This also explains why he shot random people, not just his bullies.

Wah says that Peter only returned to a somewhat normal state after he was taken into custody, when he cried and asked for his mother. Finally, Wah also places some blame of the culture of violence in which Peter—and everyone present—lives, a culture in which violence is often glorified in music and video games. 

Although no one knows, Josie once broke up with Matt. They were at a party, and Josie had gone to the bathroom when a boy spilled his drink on her. The boy helped her clean up, but Matt immediately appeared and punched him in the face. Matt then dragged her out to the car and, as he was backing out of the driveway, asked if she wanted to stay at the party and “be a slut.” He drove in a fast and erratic manner, and when they got to Josie’s house she told him she wanted to break up with him. He replied that he didn’t want to date a “fucking whore,” and Josie went inside. At 3 A.M., Matt called and told her he couldn’t live without her.

Josie immediately cycled to Matt’s house, where she found him next to a bottle of Tylenol and a bottle of Jim Beam. She clung to him and apologized, yet felt trapped. Back in the courthouse, Diana is now questioning Dr. Wah. She suggests that Peter could have lied in his interviews with Wah, and she raises doubts about the fact that Wah’s entire opinion is based on things that Peter himself told him. She asks why—if Peter was indeed suicidal—he didn’t kill himself on the day of the shooting. Diana continues to interrogate him, poking holes in his argument. After she is done, Jordan briefly questions Wah, but Diana then gets up again. She points out that each place Peter went on the day of the shooting was a location in which he’d been bullied.

Back in jail that night, Peter is given a letter from one of the students he shot, Angela Phlug. She explains that she couldn’t bear to stay in Sterling anymore, and thus has moved to Minnesota. She says that she doesn’t feel like a person anymore, outside of her status as a victim. She is depressed and suffers from insomnia. She says she thinks Peter should go to prison, because it would be “fair.” She says she used to sit behind him in French and always liked his smile. She ends her letter by saying that she “would have liked to be [his] friend.” Peter reads the letter all night, until he has it memorized.

Lacy dresses in a way that Peter likes or that reminds her of him somehow. When she sees him in court, she kisses his forehead before going up to the witness stand. When Jordan asks her about her relationship with Peter, she explains that he is the more “sensitive” of her sons, but that she feels she has a special bond with him, whereas Lewis was closer to Joey. She says she knew that the very qualities Peter was bullied for would be assets when he became an adult, yet she was helpless to accelerate Peter’s life to that point. She describes how Joey was charming, popular, and adored, and how this created unimaginably high expectations for Peter to meet.

Lacy explains that when Joey died, she and Lewis were too absorbed by their own grief to support Peter. When Jordan asks if Lacy ever imagined Peter could be capable of committing the act he did, Lacy explains that she didn’t, as all she could see was her own love and hopes for him. She admits that after Joey died, she “wanted [Peter] to be a child forever.” At this moment, a man who soon reveals himself as Maddie’s father gets up and shouts, calling Peter a “monster” before being dragged out of the courtroom. Lacy breaks down in tears. At the next recess, Jordan tells Judge Wagner that he wants to move for a mistrial based on Maddie’s father’s outburst. Wagner doesn’t grant it.

Selena, meanwhile, tries to comfort Lacy before she has to go back on the witness stand for the cross-examination. Alex joins them, bringing Lacy coffee. Alex tells Lacy to look at her for reassurance during the cross-examination. She also observes that, although people fixate on making mistakes in youth, she doesn’t believe that people make fewer mistakes when they get older. Meanwhile, Jordan tries to reassure Peter, who remains pessimistic. He says that, considering he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, he would like to be able to first tell his version of what happened. Diana decides not to cross-examine Lacy, and after she announces this, Jordan calls Peter to the stand.

Peter admits to all the acts that he stands accused of, and when Jordan asks why he committed them, Peter says, “They started it.” Jordan asks if Peter intended to kill ten people; they have planned for Peter to say that he didn’t, but now Peter says, “When I did it in the game […] I won.” Horrified, Jordan notes that it’s clear now there aren’t any “winners,” but Peter replies, “The game’s not over yet, right?” Jordan panics, realizing that Peter is once again being brought down by his fatal flaw—his total lack of understanding about how he appears to others. He ends his questioning, and Diana gets up to begin hers. However, she then decides to announce that she has no questions.

That night at home, Jordan expresses his horror to Selena that the case is ending this way. In desperation, he proposes calling Josie as a witness. Jordan had previously promised not to call Josie because she didn’t remember anything, but he now realizes if she can say even one kind thing about Peter, it would be the last hope of a different outcome. Selena informs Alex that Jordan has subpoenaed Josie to testify. Josie immediately panics, but Selena gently says she has no choice; Jordan will be calling on her. Patrick observes that this is Jordan’s last-ditch attempt to save the case.

When Josie and Alex go to see Jordan, he apologizes for what he’s doing. At this moment Sam’s diaper bag falls and Josie breaks down again, reminded of the moment that one of the guns dropped out of Peter’s bag. She says that Matt tried to fire at Peter and missed, and this is when Peter shot Matt. Jordan realizes that she’s a perfect manifestation of the argument he’s been making—that the most minor things can trigger PTSD. Later, when they are alone, Alex asks why Josie never admitted that she did have memories of the shooting, and Josie replies that she didn’t want to testify in court and “see Peter again.” 

That night after Josie falls asleep, Patrick comes over and Alex explains that Josie revealed that Matt shot at Peter first in the locker room. Patrick assures Alex that Josie will be fine, that she is a “survivor.” He then says he has to leave because he has some work to do. Alex knows that Patrick will have to tell Diana the new detail of Matt shooting first. Yet he is also troubled by the fact that, if this were true, there would have been a bullet in the locker room, and there wasn’t one. He scrutinizes Josie’s new story, turning over every part in his mind, and feels that it doesn’t add up. He calls Diana and tells her not to let the trial start the next day.

The next morning, Diana requests that the session not begin until Patrick can get there, as he has important evidence to add to the case that may be “exculpatory.” She admits that she’s called him, but he’s not picking up. Jordan insists on pressing ahead, surprising Diana by calling Josie to the witness stand. Alex squeezes Josie’s hand, telling her everything will be alright as long as she tells the truth. Jordan begins by asking the same simple questions he asked all the witnesses, such as Josie’s age and her grade in school. Then she describes the moments leading up to when Peter murdered Matt, including when Peter shot Drew as he was trying to escape.