Why is the Columbine school shooting the most remembered, notorious school shooting?

The extensive news and security footage, plus the entire 'blame Marilyn Manson' outrage afterward kept it going.

It was the largest school shooting at that point other than the Bath Michigan in 1927.

It involved high school students, both victims and perpetrators.

It occurred at the height of TV news dominance and the 24-hour news cycle before the internet became the primary source of news and information. Live coverage as it happened was broadcast around the world.

The perps used automatic weapons.

The perps wrote extensive journals and large amounts of information on the planning was found. However, their videos were never released and that created a mystery and the inevitable conspiracy theories.

Video inside the school captured a significant amount of live footage.

1. Hitler's birthday

2. 420 = smoking pot

3. 24-hour news cycle was still a little bit new.

I always appreciated Marilyn Manson's eloquent and thoughtful response to being scapegoated as one of the causes of the killers' rampage.

It had video.

I remember everyone being paranoid of all the goth/loner/trenchcoat kids afterwards.

Interestingly, it does not have the deniers like Sandy Hook does. Maybe because of less video coverage, but there are still nuts out there who swear it was made up.

Lest anyone forget, that was all Fox News and Bill O'Reilly who lead the charge at scapegoating Marilyn Manson for the massacre. (The beginning of the idiocracy that is Fox News).

Nevermind the absentee, uninvolved parents who let their kids build bombs in the room and the access that teenagers have to automatic weapons...

I forgot that interview.

Was anybody on DL in 1999?

I am certain there must have been a rather epic thread on the topic, just like the 9/11 one.

The HS jock and mean girl crew got theirs for a change.

It was one of the first times the "b word," Bullying, really entered the national discourse.

[quote] The HS jock and mean girl crew got theirs for a change.

Yeah, well for supposedly targeting the jocks and cheerleaders, they sure did a shit job of it.

Why would they target this boy, for instance, who was in the library only because he had no friends to eat lunch with?

Those were some pretty resilient kids. Two weeks after the massacre, all of the Columbine kids were returned back to school.

Amateurs

Personally I don't buy that there wasn't any security footage in the library. Why would the cafeteria have security cameras but not the library?

I think the police withheld the tapes.

bump

I think it was because the victims and the perps were well to do white people.

If the exact thing had happened at a poor black high school in Selma Alabama, I would have been news for a few days.

Eric Harris was hot!

I think Sandy Hook was far worse.

OP is an idiot.

Video and cell phones - students could actual call in about what was happening.

R21, you post about Kid Rock becoming a next senator and you're calling people idiots?

Daniel Mauser always breaks my heart to hear about. He seemed like such a gentle person.

Didn't one of the mothers of the killers write a book a few years ago about what a loving son she had and how there were no signs of this pending tragedy. It was so unnerving to listen to her on the news hawking her book and going on about what a nice and loving son she thought she raised

[quote]It was the largest school shooting at that point other than the Bath Michigan in 1927

And why does nobody remember that? I looked it up in the Chicago Tribune and the day after it happened it was on the front page but not the main story. The next day it was relegated to a small section. It was basically last page news after that.

"And why does nobody remember that?"

Perhaps because most people who read newspapers in 1927 are dead?

Was Bath a shooting? I thought it was an explosion. I grew up in Michigan and never heard of it until after I'd left the state in my twenties.

R27, read an article about it. It was horrific and way beyond anything the US has seen since in terms of school tragedies. It remains the worst school massacre in US history.

To me, Sandy Hook was the most remembered.

Because Sandy Hook never happened. Just ask us.

IIRC, the stories about the shooters being bullied were found to be false.

I agree R24 - why kill such a harmless boy?

.. did not bully Eric and Dylan

Dave Cullen, who wrote the definitive book on Columbine, is gay and used to post here. According to him, the stories about Harris and Klebold being bullied, or their being unpopular, or goth, or part of the Trench Coat Mafia, are all media inventions. Harris was a textbook sociopath, and Klebold was an easily manipulated depressive. They didn't target anyone in particular, they just wanted to kill. They planted a bomb in the cafeteria, set to go off at the busiest time of the busiest lunch period, but it failed.

Because Eric and Dylan were having a BLAST!

[quote]If the exact thing had happened at a poor black high school in Selma Alabama, I would have been news for a few days.

Why? Why would you have been news for a few days, r18?

I think the Christian and right-wing media made a huge deal out of the story and kept harping on it for years, because of the rumor that the shooters were targeting Christian kids. Which was all debunked years ago, but they still keep repeating it as if it were fact.

Exactly R37- plus the media kept pushing the "Eric + Dylan were evil gay lovers!" narrative.

Christians love to be martyrs

R38, oh WHAT fucking planet? Planet fan fiction? They blamed KMFDM, they blamed Marilyn Manson, its when they read ALL of their journals did they realize these 2 had serious mental health issues. Narcissism, psychopathy, depression....thats all that I hear. The 2 shooters were victims...in their heads however it was stated by others kids they did get bullied and badly. HOWEVER Harris had the superiority complex/narcissism, thought he was better and more "evolved". NEVER heard about this gay narrative.

Dave's still cashing on on Columbine; plenty for you all to obsess about.

Then you were a fucking idiot with your head up your own asshole, stupid cunt R40.

I was in high school when this happened. The perps and the victims were all kids my own age. I remember this crime very well, idiot.

R36 Because I was where it happened, duh!

Unlike the usual crazy, angry or fanatical shooters, Eric Harris was something straight out of horror film. He was a real life Michael Myers. There was literally zero humanity in whatever he was. It was evil in the form of a human. The thought of a monster like that being in an ordinary high school is something people will remember forever.

The first real millennial-only trauma of the millennial generation.

[quote]Didn't one of the mothers of the killers write a book a few years ago about what a loving son she had and how there were no signs of this pending tragedy. It was so unnerving to listen to her on the news hawking her book and going on about what a nice and loving son she thought she raised

Yes. And she does talks about how her son was "brainwashed" by the "evil other one".

talks = public speaking events, etc.

If Eric and Dylan were still alive, they would have voted for Trump.

This is the only photo of the killers that the media should have ever released.

The media giving so much attention to the Harris & Klebold killings only enabled the Virginia Tech, James Holmes, Sandy Hook and Pulse shootings.

I agree it was the white, middle to upper middle class suburban background that gave it so much attention.

The setting was like from a John Hughes movies or those later 90's teen, white subarban angst movies. Except instead of getting the guy in the end, Molly Ringwald, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kirsten Dunst get their heads blown off.

R51 if only!

Fake news! False flag operation! LIZARD PEOPLE!!!!

This was the '90s true "fuck you!" to the next century.

MARY! me all you want, but there is still something incredibly sad about two 17 year old boys feeling such incredible rage, and killing themselves and others at a point when the best years of their lives were just about to begin.

It's all about branding.

15 Columbine crosses that included the killers.

Rich Petrone and Al Velasquez, fathers of 2 of the victims, took hatchets and saws and they cut down the two crosses dedicated to Eric and Dylan.

Overwhelmed ER.

Stampede.

It did get very show bizzy. I remember a music teacher or something wrote a song about it and two kids sang it. They were then on TV talking about how they were going to go to college but if anything comes up about a recording career they would pursue that.

Other things I remember:

The awful Katie Couric interview where one of the fathers just had to sit there and grieve on live TV. (she says it is her proudest moment)

The live coverage went on for weeks. Morning news shows were still live at the seen like 2 weeks later.

The whole thing how the one girl killed was supposedly asked if she believed in God and was then killed when she said yes turned out to have happened to another girl who lived.

The Rachel Scott (a victim who was just randomly shot from a distance as they were spraying bullets on their approach to the school) anyway her family tried to preach and play up the Christian angle too and her father for a while started saying she was asked if she believed in God also which was quickly disproved by the fact that she was shot at from a huge distance. Her brother tried parlaying the death into some Christian film making business.

Weeks prior.

Library.

Klebold's mother (the one who wrote the book) actually kept her hair appointment for the day or so after the shooting. I remember seeing the hairdresser on the news saying the mother said she just never saw any of this coming. (and then probably asked for a shampoo and maybe to retouch her highlights. Can you imagine? ) no wonder the kid turned out like he did.

A lot of these images I have not seen including the graphic picture of the dead gunman

The library was said to be were the worst shit went down, nobody knows what happened.

A boy shot, the aftermath

*where

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Another view.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Young Dyland Klebold.

Young Eric Harris

These pictures are chilling .

For as much as millennials get made fun of for "safe spaces," the kids in these pictures are all millennials who learned very quickly that safe spaces do not exist.

Daniel Rohrbough, killed in cold blood.

Daniel Mauser, the gentle boy who was killed only because he wore glasses in the library.

Pre-Y2K carefree attitude.

N'Sync visiting some of the victims.

Dylan Klebold's mom.

A lot of Cullen's armchair post-mortem psychoanalysis of Harris and Klebold is full of shit. He should not be held up as the definitive Columbine bible.

Father of Kyle Velasquez, one of 2 parents who chopped down the Klebold & Harris crosses.

Rich Petrone, another father who chopped down the killers' crosses.

Happier times.

Eric Harris parents

On the verge of graduating.

Good for the two dads who chopped down the killers' memorial crosses!

I would have done the same!

Parents had no clue....

Dylan Klebold's final message to his mother.

It fucking sucks that the police burnt the so called "underground tapes". Is the blooger mentioned above the one everyone suspects on being in on it but chickening out at the last minute? The underground tapes supposedly show another person talking when the crimes are being planned. I believe the Harris parents have never spoken to anyone.

Eric Harris was handsome and smart. He was less than two months shy of graduating.

Why couldn't he hold off and forever forget about Columbine and move on forward?

At least Susan Klebold has tried to publicly make amends for her role (or lack thereof) in this tragedy.

She is the only one of 4 parents to attempt this.

I suspect Eric Harris' military father was responsible for quite a portion of his son's fucked-up-ness.

Agreed R133. I suspect there was a whole lot of fuckery going on in the Harris household that we'll never know about.

All of the parents plus their sons.

[quote]The whole thing how the one girl killed was supposedly asked if she believed in God and was then killed when she said yes turned out to have happened to another girl who lived.

I remember when Cassie Bernall's parents wrote a book about that and went on their church/media tour. They lived moved to New Mexico a couple of years later. I was living there and in college around that time. They came and spoke to one of the Christian student unions at UNM and one of my friends attended a megachurch where they also held a huge speaking event. When the revelation about Valeen Schnurr being the one asked about God came out Cassie's father insisted that Valeen was lying.

It's rather telling that the Harris family has never released a single statement of apology in almost 20 years.

Dylan Klebold at prom.

Full security camera footage of the Columbine cafeteria.

Anne Marie Hochhalter who survived the shooting and is wheelchair bound wrote on Facebook about how sometime after the shooting, the Harris parents sent her a four sentence letter which she described as "cold and robotic". She said the Susan and Tom Klebold sent her a card that was genuine and personal cover the two pages of the card. She said that she supported Susan Klebold's book and efforts to speak out on mental illness.

The Harris family did send out letters to victims of the family.

[quote] The Harris family also sent letters to families of the victims, but they (foolishly, as it turned out) trusted them to the Jeffco Sheriff’s Office where they basically sat on them instead of delivering them to their intended recipients!

[quote] One letter, to injured victim Mark Taylor, read, “Please accept our heartfelt wishes for a full and speedy recovery from your injuries. There are no words to express the tragic events of that day. We would have given our lives to prevent them.

[quote] “May you have the strength and the support to continue your healing process.”

[quote] It was signed, “Sincerely, Wayne, Kathy and Kevin Harris.”

[quote] A lot of Cullen's armchair post-mortem psychoanalysis of Harris and Klebold is full of shit. He should not be held up as the definitive Columbine bible.

Because you say so. Unlike you, he has facts.

Kyle Velasquez father today.

A site celebrating the short life of Daniel Mauser, a 15 y/o boy who was the furthest thing from a bully that one could imagine.

No safe space allowed for Columbine kids.

Forced to return to school after less than 2 weeks.

Millennial kids forced back to classrooms after experiencing bloodshed.

Columbine was a military Intelligence operatia from the same psycopaths who brought you 911, on orders from the owners of the NY Federal Reserve bank.

Rich Petrone listens as he can't get the Klebold or Harris crosses removed.

He and Al Velasquez later remove the crosses themselves.

R13, you sound vile.

Weren't the little darlings also racist as fuck?

There was once a video floating around of Velasquez and Petrone chopping down the killers' crosses and stuffing the wood into the trash while the other families wept.

It was very raw, but satisfying to see some of the families get some sense of justice.

Comparing this to Sandy Hook, I've seen conspiracy people say that because they didn't see any pictures, like with Columbine, that's why it's being thought of as a hoax. No pictures = Didn't happen.

Apparently these people really wanted to see pictures of dead children.

Columbine millennials, having seen their classmates killed in cold blood, anything but "snowflakes."

Sue Klebold is a school counselor now? GTFOH... Dylan looked like he had Marfan's Syndrome (long face and height).

Why not, R155?

She saw her own son commit the worst acts possible. Maybe she has some special insight on how to correct her mistakes with boys who display similar behavior?

I can't think of a more inappropriate job for Sue Klebold. She will not say her son had some form of mental illness. She is adamant that it isn't mental illness but "mental sickness".

It's a special kind of hell to be a parent of a child who has caused so much pain that no one mourns their death.

Sure R156. I would think it would simply consist of stay in touch with your offspring enough to know whether they are building fucking bombs in the garage.

[quote] “The one thing, of course, that I want to say is I am so sorry for what my son did, yet I know that just saying ‘I’m sorry’ is such an inadequate response to all this suffering,” Klebold said. “There is never a day that goes by where I don’t think of the people that Dylan harmed.”

[quote] “You use the word ‘harmed,’” Sawyer observed.

[quote] “I think it’s easier for me to say harmed than killed,” Klebold continued. “And it’s still hard for me after all this time... it is very hard to live with the fact that someone you loved and raised has brutally killed people in such a horrific way.”

Well as long as it makes it easier for you, Sue.

[quote] Klebold was severely ridiculed for going to a hair appointment the day after the Columbine massacre. She told Sawyer she had a standing monthly appointment and her next one just happened to fall on that day. She decided to keep it because to her, it seemed like a chance to do something normal amidst the chaos around her.

[quote] “I was a wreck. I was a complete basket case. I could barely think. I could barely sit up. I could barely function,” Klebold told Sawyer. “I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I mean, I had nothing to do… I had this hair appointment, and I thought, ‘may as well go because it’ll get me out … of the house.’”

Klebold was fug, no great loss, but Eric Harris was a hottie! Too bad he had to kill himself.

I haven't read the full thread, so someone may already have pointed this out, but it really irritates me that so many people wrongly remember Columbine as an instance of students taking revenge on their bullies. There's nothing to indicate that Harris & Klebold targeted kids who had been cruel to them. (Even if they had, obviously it still wouldn't have been justified - being a high school bully doesn't warrant the death penalty.) Many of the victims were younger than them. They shot Isaiah Shoels because he was a "nigger". They also shot Kyle Velasquez, a boy who had learning disabilities. And anyway, Columbine was a failed bombing - they had planned to kill everyone in the school. In short, they were a pair of self-important little shits.

bump

I wonder why the media blamed Marilyn Manson when the killers wore Nine Inch Nails shirts.

To answer OP's question:

Some crimes just inexplicably resonate more with the American consciousness, and the media runs with it. The Manson murders, OJ Simpson, Columbine.

Frankly, I am surprised they haven't made an "American Crime" style TV show out of Columbine yet.

I know a lot of people blame the media for giving the killers too much press, but what were they supposed to do? Not cover this story? It was huge news back then.

I had never seen Eric's father before. He looked a bit old to be the dad of a 17 year old son. Must have had him late in life.. I wonder if that, plus his military background, contributed to the lack of communication with his son.

Eric had huge cock face. Well to be honest so did the elephant man kid.

One of the articles about Cassie Bernall gave the world this truly batshit paragraph:

[quote] “Millions have been ‘touched by a martyr,'” her pastor, the Rev. George Kirsten, told his congregation this past Sunday. He shared a vision youth pastor Dave McPherson received while ministering to the Bernalls: “I saw Cassie, and I saw Jesus, hand in hand. And they had just gotten married. They had just celebrated their marriage ceremony. And Cassie kind of winked over at me like, ‘Dave, I’d like to talk, but I’m so much in love.’ Her greatest prayer was to find the right guy. Don’t you think she did?” And while Kirsten works to console his grieving congregation over Cassie’s loss, he sees the girl’s murder as an opportunity to save more souls. “Pack that ark with as many people as possible,” he says.

The irony is that I'm pretty sure Cassie's religious conversion may well have been a ruse to get her parents off her back. She'd written in her journal about wanting to join a Satanic cult and kill her parents (which, given that they turned out to be the type of people who cashed in on their own daughter's death before her body was cold, was probably understandable). Her parents read it and freaked out. It wouldn't surprise me if she only started going to church in order to keep them off her back until she graduated and moved out. Sadly, she never got the chance.

Dave Cullen seems quite nice but also a little attention whore-y and needy.

Has anybody read Dave Cullen's book? Worth reading?

R168 He immediately called 911 to report his son when he heard something was happening at the school. The audio is on YouTube.

Two psychopaths found each other, I really do think it is as simple as that. Victims were largely white, perps were white and the media were in hog heaven.

Well, R162, subsequent shooters have mentioned Harris as an inspiration for their actions whereas Klebold never gets mentioned---so you are in good company in your admiration of Harris.

That must have been quite an awkward haircut between Sue Klebold and her hair stylist.

This is the tape of teacher Patti Neilson calling 911 from the library as the rampage occurs. You can hear Eric and Dylan shouting at the end. The entire call is much longer but authorities will never release it because it is supposedly too horrible.

The thing that is infuriating in its stupidity is the school security guard started firing at them as they were exiting the school. (They shot two kids and then tried to blow up the cafeteria.) When the bomb didn't work they are seen fiddling with it for a while and then seemingly they were going to leave the school.

The stupid guard (who at first bragged about this on TV) started firing at them as they were exiting and drove them back into the school. They then went to the library and shot most of their victims.

My most vivid memory of columbine was watching the breaking news and watching the one kid who was injured and bleeding from his leg slide out a window I think was the library and the trail of blood on the brick as the police grabbed him and lowered him down

Gus Van Zandt made that film "Elephant" which dramatizes it sort of. He didn't do his fellow gays a service when he added a kiss between the killers in a shower scene.

I remember all of the stupid copycat school shootings that followed in the months and 1-2 years that followed, until 9/11 took the spotlight away.

Destructive and paranoid times...

Columbine was intended to primarily be a deadly bombing. The fact that the bomb thankfully failed to detonate saved around 600 lives in the cafeteria.

For those morbidly interested in the case, here is a link to the official 11,000 page police report.

Thanks , R183

Wow, 11,000 pages! 😳

bump

Watch tom holland play one of the phsychos

It seemed like they were sitting ducks because the police and SWAT did not enter while it was going on which seemed hard to understand

R162= Ram Sweeney from HEATHERS

"Jesus God in Heaven, why'd you have to kill such hot snatch?"

R180: I had a bit role in that. Not going to say which one, because DL is nasty, and I don't need the reviews on a few seconds.

What was it like working on that film, R190?

[quote]Frankly, I am surprised they haven't made an "American Crime" style TV show out of Columbine yet.

And there won’t be. This is one of the few topics avoided like the plague.

People are too scared of a TV show "glorifying" this crime for a new generation of teenagers.

Columbine scared America shitless.

I was home that day and happened to turn on the tv just as it was being covered. It was a horror movie come to life. Some channel had someone hiding in a closet on a phone. I remember shouting at my tv, shut up and stay quiet!

I also remember them getting a bunch of students out and them all running down an L shaped sidewalk and one girl falling and me thinking how embarrassing for her. Like a little slip and fall would matter to someone who just escaped with her life.

As much as Eric Harris is blamed as the instigator, Dylan Klebold, by most accounts, was an absolute monster on the Basement Tapes and more cruel in the library.

Eric was relatively quiet in the library.

Dylan yelled and laughed as he shot people.

Those late 1990s gelled tips and plaid shirts unbuttoned to undershirts, though

R195. This is exactly my issue with Cullen's book. He finds a psychiatrist to armchair diagnose Eric as a psychopath (which hardly seems credible since said doctor never met Eric and is going almost entirely by the journals) and casts Dylan as a poor, sad, follower dupe. But if you read Dylan's own journals, he was dreaming about going "NBK" (Natural Born Killers) BEFORE Eric hatched the plan.

In his own way, Dylan was just as murderous but he wasn't a self-starter or a planner. He needed someone with follow-through and organizational skills (Eric's military upbringing again) to latch on to.

The 911 call from the teacher in the library was 26 minutes total.

Only 4 minutes of that audio has ever been released to the public, because the remaining 22 minutes captured screams, racial slurs and gun violence that was deemed too horrific for the general public to hear.

Nonetheless, a few short clips of the audio were leaked some years ago.

Here is one of them.

The content above is incredibly disturbing and explains why the 26 minute library 911 call and Basement Tapes have never been released.

I do not believe for one second that Eric Harris was the evil leader and Dylan Klebold was his conflicted follower.

Eric shows more relative compassion in his actions on the later tapes and on 4/20/99.

The library had an emergency exit leading to outdoors of the campus.

The panicked teacher demanding that students hide underneath desks, rather than escape, held the unintended consequence of 10 dead kids being open game.

Eric Harris's father made the 911 call saying he thought his son was involved, so he must have known he was capable of it.

From what I've read, I think Eric was the pure psychopath and Dylan was co-dependent or in love with Eric. It was Eric's garage where they had the arsenal - I guess his parents didn't give a shit.

And I think Columbine is more interesting than most school shootings -- or at least we have more details about it which makes it more interesting. Usually it's one pointless loser who goes apeshit one day.

The dad's call. Seems like he knew his son was fucked up for a while. Who the fuck would immediately suspect their kid of shooting up a school unless you knew something was coming?

Eric's asshole dad kept moving him from town to town, school to school, which certainly didn't help matters.

As much as I don't excuse Susan Klebold, at least she has tried to open dialogue about her role in the massacre, which is more than I can say about the Harris family.

Dylan was not gay, R204. He was desperately in love with some unnamed mystery girl.

I have always imagined Eric Harris' stern, military father to be like Wes Bentley's father in "American Beauty" (a very prescient film).

Watch this video, especially the section with Eric sitting at a cafeteria table. What I see here is a skinny awkward kid, with maybe some OCD tics, who is completely bored with/removed from his table-mates' banal typical dude bro conversations. Hardly the Heinrich Himmler he's portrayed as.

The Harris family wouldn't even talk to investigators unless they were granted immunity first.

Well, can you blame the Harris family when after seeing Susan Klebold getting raked through the coals, it is a lose-lose situation to speak out?

R209 Or Robert Duval in The Great Santini.

I can't believe how many parents don't know what the hell their kids are up to. I knew this kid in high school who was dealing drugs out of his parents' basement and they had no clue.

And btw, I am not saying Susan Klebold is some "mother of the year" or anything along those lines.... she missed huge, glaring clues and her negligence created so much disaster.

But I do appreciate that she is willing to put her voice and face out there and has tried to make amends of sorts.

Consider her husband and the 2 Harris parents.

The whole library massacre is on YouTube and the girl who is constantly screaming is unbearable. I am shaking I wished I never started it.

I read CUllen's book and it is excellent. Best analysis of true crime I've ever read. After reading it, I decided. They didn't do it out of rage. They did it for sport.

I think what fascinates about Columbine is the fact that there were two of them, who planned everything together for months and then actually went through with it. This dynamic.

You would have thought at least one of them would have chickened out, but no. It's hard for people to wrap their heads around that still.

One of them did chicken out.

It is folie à deux. A lot of notorious crimes are.

Was he really supposed to be a part of it, R219?

I am absolutely shocked that the incredibly graphic video of the killings in the library is on YouTube How the families of the victims must feels to know that the last minutes of their child's life is captured and available for anyone to watch is beyond me

If it were one of my kids I'd want it all out there. No burning journals, video tapes, 911 tapes, let it all out. When cops and other agencies do that shit it lays the groundwork for conspiracy theories and that would bother me more.

[quote]The dad's call. Seems like he knew his son was fucked up for a while. Who the fuck would immediately suspect their kid of shooting up a school unless you knew something was coming?

The police found the dad's journal. In the journal he talked about difficult incidents involving Eric. There was some kind of vandalism in the neighborhood a year or so before the shootings in their neighborhood and the dad suspected Eric was involved. Eric and Dylan were arrested for breaking into a van. IIRC, there was a report somewhere that the dad knew that Eric made pipe bombs and that he confronted Eric and they went off to some field to detonate a pipe bomb.

Did they all have journals in that town? The two killers did, too.

Well, Eric's father was a regulated military guy so he knew the value of a paper trail.

Dylan's wasn't really a formal "journal" -- just odds and ends of random thoughts scribbled in the margins of loose paper. "Writings" would be a better word.

But Eric, like his dad, kept a chronological journal, almost certainly with the intention of it being found after the attack. He was writing for an audience and crafting an image, a fact which few people take into account when talking about Eric's "psychotic" journal entries.

Dear Lord in Heaven!

None of this would have happened had I been around!

w&w R227.

In all seriousness though, people joke about Millennials having helicopter parents.. but these kids certainly did not. I wonder how much this incident contributed to the rise of "helicopter parenting" afterwards.

Question about the video from the Library because I had to stop watching. There is a boy who is seen pulling out a chair and putting his head down on the top of a table he looks like he is shot on his side and I think the gunnen walk by him and say are you Ok laughing

Were the Harris and Kleybold parents sued by the victims families?

r229, there is no video from the library. At least not any that has ever been released.

Did you mean the cafeteria footage?

The columbine video on live leeks that looks like the library to me

Do you have to be retarded to qualify as a 911 operator? Just about every 911 call I hear they sound like a bunch of morons.

233 posts and we haven't had the conspiracy theory that Erik was part of an MK-ULTRA experiment?

R232, I think you are referring to footage from the movie "Zero Day," which reenacts cctv footage of the Columbine shooting.

I think there is some that you can see of the library. I just looked.

Yes, that's from a movie and seems to get passed around as actual cctv footage by some trolls.

There is no actual video footage from the library that I'm aware of and a few years ago I actually spent quite some time researching Columbine.

Ok, R237, maybe that was what i saw

i used to think there was library video footage that was withheld by authorities, until I skimmed through the 11,000 page long Columbine police report. The cops spent at least 1,000 pages interviewing students who were in the library to ask what they heard and saw..

[quote]The first real millennial-only trauma of the millennial generation.

How is that possible when Columbine took place in 1999?

I still think Eric was gay or gay adjacent. Not that it had anything to do with the shooting or his mental illness. Dylan was just his hapless sidekick who got sucked into the whole thing.

[quote]I still think Eric was gay or gay adjacent.

Based on what??

[quote]Were the Harris and Kleybold parents sued by the victims families?

Yes, they were sued by some of the families. I recall some victims' families didn't sue because they felt money wasn't really going to help them.

[quote]How is that possible when Columbine took place in 1999?

You can't be serious. I'm not the poster you're responding to, but the Columbine kids were Millennials. Are you fucking retarded?

[quote]Klebold's mother (the one who wrote the book) actually kept her hair appointment for the day or so after the shooting.

She later stated that she was in a state of shock and it was the only thing she could do to try to feel normal.

Weird how there were so many school shootings in that era (remember Jonesboro) but this is the only one people know (inter)nationally.

Nonetheless, Eric and Dylan died having failed to accomplish their goal, which was to obliterate the entire school cafeteria with bombs.

I briefly met a Columbine survivor who remains paraplegic to this day because of those lunatics. He was very forthcoming about his experience and trauma that day.

I went to a large high school in the 1970s in conservative, well-to-do Orange County, California. There were plenty of cliques, bullying and ostracization. I was called faggot and made fun of a few times. Even the staff were of no help, considering it just a part of high school culture. But in those days we didn't have the means, technology and know-how to carry out a proper revenge scenario.

Remember the depiction of a Columbine-like scene in season one of American Horror Story? The Tate back story.

I kind of like the Harris family for keeping their big maws shut. It's kind of refreshing in this Oprah ready world.

R248 That was one of my favorite storylines of AHS. I liked that the ghosts of the victims confronted Tate. The ghost with the blown off face was quite creepy.

R250 yes! I was going to say it was my "favorite" but wasn't sure that was the right word to use? You know...

. Evan Todd, the 255-lb. defensive lineman who was wounded in the library, describes the climate this way: "Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects," Todd says of Klebold and Harris and their friends. "Most kids didn't want them there. They were into witchcraft. They were into voodoo dolls. Sure, we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It's not just jocks; the whole school's disgusted with them. They're a bunch of homos, grabbing each other's private parts. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease 'em. So the whole school would call them homos, and when they did something sick, we'd tell them, 'You're sick and that's wrong.'"

In the 11k Columbine report, there was a part where one student (a girl) recalled two boy members of the Trenchcoat Mafia (Stair and Dutro) kissing each other in front of some jocks in the Commons area.. leading to a fight. No, I don't remember if these boys were actually gay or just trying to provoke some type of reaction, but there you have it. That incident is detaed there somewhere in those 11,000 pages.

r252 Doug Stanhope, on school shootings

Goddam, you freaks are still obsessed with this slaughter? Sick.

The Harris family came off pretty badly in Dave Cullen's book. The father was a former military guy and seemed like a jerk.

I thought the book was excellent. Set the record straight as far as many of the rumors and myths that developed after the shooting.

The Klebolds have at least tried to face up to what happened and their role in ignoring so many red flags. They issued a statement apologizing and have met face to face with many of the parents who lost children to apologize and answer questions. Their only child was a mass murderer and I think they are desperatey trying to make sense of it. Obviously there isn't anything they can do about it now but I think their motives are sincere.

According to Dave Cullen's book, Harrises have refused to apologize nor have they ever been willing to speak or meet the families of victims.

Who received the royalties from Susan Klebold's book?

I tend to agree with you, R257. The Klebolds do have another son, however. The Harris family also had an older son. Both older brothers were 21 y/o at the time of the massacre.

R172. I thought the book was excellent. Very comprehensive. I couldn't put it down.

R258.

[quote]Through my Colorado public benefit corporation (PBC), Vention Resources, Inc., PBC, all author profits that I or my PBC would have ordinarily received from the publication of this book, after reasonable expenses, will be used to fund charitable organizations who share my goals and strive to address these concerns, including Mental Health America (MHA), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), American Association of Suicidology (AAS) and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. — SUE KLEBOLD

I can't imagine what life is like for the families of the shooters. I was thinking about Adam Lanza's brother as I read through this thread. After Adam killed their mother and then all those kids andteachers at Sandy hook, his father and his brother had to go on, to make sense of their lives. It's something they will never out run or escape.

Thanks R258 . It's been a while since I read the book and I forgot they had an older son.

Sorry I thought the live leek and the Zero Day videos were real and I was watching horrific video from the library where the killers are shooting the victims hiding under the tables in the library

[quote]Frankly, I am surprised they haven't made an "American Crime" style TV show out of Columbine yet.

At one point, Lifetime was developing a mini-series based on Cullen's book. It was announced back in early 2012. I think after the Sandy Hook shooting, Lifetime quietly dropped the project.

Was the principal, Frank DeAngelis, really as partial to the jocks as it was claimed?

whatever happened to the Trenchcoat Mafia associates? Frankly, a lot of them were lucky not to get prison time, too. Brooks Brown, Chris Morris, esp Robyn Anderson who bought guns for Eric

[quote]Was the principal, Frank DeAngelis, really as partial to the jocks as it was claimed?

It's been awhile since I have read Columbine. I do recall it being mentioned that DeAngelis had coached sports in his teaching career and was buddies with the teachers who coached and the jocks.

Brooks Brown has frequently complained about the jocks for years and he says they were the bullies. I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened and I followed a lot of media attention and the people who talked to the media. Brown said in interviews that DeAngelis and other teachers turned a blind eye to jocks being bullies. He said that he felt that if schools eliminated athletic programs that bullying would be reduced or eliminated. I thought that idea didn't sound that great. I get that sometimes jocks are giant asshole bullies and perhaps that was a huge issue at Columbine. But, at my high school most of the bullying was usually done at the time by bitchy girls and kids who were involved with gangs. Brown failed to see that not all schools have the same types of bullying problems and in some schools the jocks aren't the bullies. I never like Brooks Brown or his parents based on their interviews and dealings with the media.

The Harris brother. He's fat and bald now.

The brother was better looking than Eric... plus not a mass murderer and all of that good stuff

Imagine a 3 way with Eric and his brother, YUM!

bump

Columbine had a rash of suicide and suicide attempts for about a year prior to the shootings. The majority of those kids said they were bullied by the jocks and that the asshole principal DeAngelis ignored the jock bullying angle in nearly every instance.

[quote]Brooks Brown has frequently complained about the jocks for years and he says they were the bullies.

Brooks Brown is full of shit. So is his father.

According to the Columbine book, his mother is one of the few people who actually had Eric's number.

When she went to the Harris', Wayne's journals report that he completely dismissed what she said.

Never knew that, R272.

"Wayne's journals"

So creepy he is keeping journals on what, the town? Meanwhile his kid has an arsenal and shoots up the school. Think there was a lot bullying in that school and town.

R275. Why don't you do some reading up on Columbine besides this thread? Wayne was keeping a journal about Eric and his progress in the juvenile detention program, etc. It was like an ongoing progress report. It's all out there for public consumption, has been for years.

[quote] After Adam killed their mother and then all those kids andteachers at Sandy hook, his father and his brother had to go on, to make sense of their lives. It's something they will never out run or escape.

By all accounts, the father was an absentee dad anyway. If he's feeling guilt, then that only makes sense.

Looks like different handwriting in Wayne's diary.

I was actually in the process of reading the Columbine book when Sandy Hook took place. I had to put it down for about a month before I could start back up again.

This thread inspired me to get the Dave Cullen book on Amazon!

You should, it's great.

I read it all in basically a single sitting, I found it so engrossing.

bump

The media made a mistake blasting 24 hour news coverage all about the killers. Gave them an outcast "punk" allure that inspired a whole slew of psychopaths afterwards.

[quote] How is that possible when Columbine took place in 1999?

R240, you can't possibly be serious. Except for the one teacher, all of the parties involved, the perps, the victims, the Trenchcoat mafia, were all millennials.

Here is the face of Chris Morris, the founder and leader of the Trenchcoat Mafia, getting arrested on the day of the massacre.

Another Trenchcoat Mafia member who people at first suspected might have been involved but wasn't, Nate Dykeman.

Didn't people think there was a third shooter for awhile?

I thought there was. I thought the guy who helped them get guns was supposed to show up but never did. He bailed.

Some context to the photo at R93. All of the girls in this photo were sitting at two of the library tables where Eric and Dylan shot and killed people. The Asian girl in the middle was the only person at her table not to get shot.

R228, contrary to any form of helicopter parenting, the parents of a lot of these kids had absolutely no fucking clue or interest in whatever the hell was going on in their kids' lives.

The Columbine killers, their victims, and friends are older millennials who grew up a little bit different than the younger millennials. Older millennials weren't as coddled as much as younger millennials.

[quote]Brooks Brown is full of shit. So is his father.

I recall when did an AMA on reddit and claimed that it was idea for Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine documentary.

R266

What should Brooks Brown go to prison for? If I recall correctly he hadn't even been friends with Eric Harris for a while at the time of the shooting.

I read the book he wrote a few years ago ("No Easy Answers"). And while I agree that he seemed to have liked the spotlight a little too much, I don't see how he would have been involved in what happened.

Apparently people gave him shit for a while, because Harris sent him away before the shooting, saving his life and because of that the rumors started that he was part of the plan. That's hardly his fault though.

So many people seemed to have prior knowledge that Eric and Dylan planned a school massacre... did they just think they were joking around?

I wonder whatever happened to Robyn Anderson. Now that is somebody who got lucky not to get convicted of a crime. She bought Eric one of the guns, did she not?

Because the rich students and their parents started a massive campaign to prove they weren't to blame for the sadistic bullying that went on there, so they could go on to Harvard and Yale with clean records. They even got a gay guy (nice touch) to write a book erasing all blame on the psycho-bullies.

They even recruited the perp's parents. One mother brushed-off the fact her son had been pelted with ketchup-soaked tampons. Kids will be kids!

I know it's hard to remember a time when school shootings weren't commonplace, R295, but back then they weren't. In those days, those kind of threats were NOT taken seriously.

After Columbine, the pendulum swung in the extreme opposite direction. When I was a HS senior in 1990, I was a mostly-loner and part of the tiny nerd/artsy group in my school. I drew a comic strip for the school newspaper. The final installment before I graduated featured my little characters 'accidentally' blowing up the school in a chemistry experiment. No one batted an eyelash. After Columbine, I recall thinking that my comic probably would have landed me in jail in the late 90s/early 00s.

R297, I was in high school when Columbine happened (essentially the same age as all of the kids involved), and yes Columbine changed how everybody viewed the "outcasts" and loner kids. People started to feel suspicious of the moody kids in all black.. especially after there was a rash of copycat shootings.

Interestingly enough, nobody seems to remember the Jonesboro and Kip Kinkel school shootings which preceded Columbine about a year prior. The Jonesboro shooters have been released from prison now...

Maybe the first in what would become a commonplace event: October 1, 1997, at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi in Greater Jackson Metro Area. The gunman, 16-year-old Luke Woodham (born February 5, 1981), killed two students and injured seven others at his high school.

The worst school killing is still May 1927 in Bath Michigan - a 55 year old killed 38 elementary school children and 6 adults, partly because he was angry at property taxes being raised to build the school.

The police photos of Kip Kinkel still wearing his blood-soaked trenchcoat, right after his school shooting, are particularly disturbing.

Wasn't the school shooting in 1979 (I Don't Like Mondays) the first school shooting?

I was in the 7th grade when the Jonesboro shooting happened. It was big news for awhile and I recall my mom watching 20/20 or Dateline where they interviewed people who knew the shooters.

The next year was Columbine and it was a bigger thing. I remember when celebrities and musicians held fundraiser concerts for the victims. Also, MTV did documentary specials on some of the victims and one was Richard Castaldo who was left wheelchair bound due to his wounds.

[quote]Wasn't the school shooting in 1979 (I Don't Like Mondays) the first school shooting?

No, there other incidents before that.

Yes, but a shooting by a young person shooting just anyone, R304? A lot of those have one victim in mind, or were committed by an adult.

At least Kip Kinkel ended up being diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic at the time of his shooting.

Dylan and Eric had no such mental illness.

Did MTV eventually ban the Pearl Jam video, "Jeremy"?

R307 I think they might have just banned from their main channel. Sometime in the mid 2000s, I was up like at 2 or 3 am watching MTV2 and they played that video.

Didn't Stephen King demand that his publisher discontinue print and sale of one of his books because it dealt with a school shooter?

No, not Carrie, though I remember reading that King was not fond of that book either, following the rash of school shootings.

Rage. It was one of the books he published under his Bachman pseudonym.

It's the only one of his books that is out of print. Copies of it, and the now also-out-of-print Bachman omnibus, go for a lot of money on eBay.

Some of the used "mass market" omnibus books are still available at Amazon - one promises it has Rage and it's $20. Another purchaser (bought this month) said their mass-market book had Rage in it.

Columbine is remembered largely because of the cult status attached to Klebold, and especially Eric Harris. Unlike the other shooters before them who were shown as bullied, overweight, scrawny weaklings, the media played up the "cool," "rebel" factor of the two. They were part of a gang called the Trenchcoat Mafia; they listened to metal and played violent video games and blew things up with exposives; they were indie avengers taking revenge against the bullies of the school.

Now, I don't agree with any of this... but the media helped saturate people with this image.

A very ominous song.

Is it true that Eric was raped by officer Walsh in 1997? Because google says different things about that incident.

Why were the Basement Tapes destroyed?

What was so disturbing about them that they were never released?

The Basement Tapes were destroyed mainly because JeffCo was beyond inept in its handling of pretty much everything.

But the official reason given was that, if seen, the Tapes might inspire copycats.

Hunh??? What is R314 talking about??? A butt rape???

The whole " Cassie Bernall saying she believes in God" and then getting shot down was wrong. It was mistakenly attributed to her when, in fact, another girl said this: Valeen Schnurr (who was also shot but survived).

For R317

The Jonesboro shooting got alot of airtime. But over time I think it got lost in the minds of most people. I always think about it when Harris/Klebold discussions come up. In both cases you had a strong minded leader/follower dynamic.

As far as Columbine..the image that sticks with me is seeing students running across the campus with their arms up.

Those Jonesboro kids were so young - middle school, right? That's really more shocking, in a way.

[quote]The whole " Cassie Bernall saying she believes in God" and then getting shot down was wrong. It was mistakenly attributed to her when, in fact, another girl said this: Valeen Schnurr (who was also shot but survived).

Even after that revelation her parents kept trying to push it as "Cassie's story" and IIRC, the mother at one point accused Valeen of lying. The parents had done a bunch of speaking gigs at megachurches and sold some copies of their book. They briefly lived in New Mexico sometime after the shootings and I was in high school there at the time and they had booked gigs at several churches in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. I knew people who went to those speaking events and people really bought into their shit.

Rachel Scott's brother and father did similar things, but imo they were less sleazy about it. They at least set up their speaking gigs and programs as anti-bullying and anti-violence. Yes, they used Christianity in it. Still, they aren't and weren't as bad as the Bernalls. Last year, an independent movie about Rachel was made and released. I think the Bernalls were probably shopping a movie deal around, but the Valeen Schnurr revelation tainted their credibility. I know the Bernalls later divorced and the mother lives in North Carolina. I felt sorry as they lost child. But, they were assholes with how they cashed in.

[quote]The Columbine killers, their victims, and friends are older millennials who grew up a little bit different than the younger millennials. Older millennials weren't as coddled as much as younger millennials.

I'm 32 and I was in the 8th grade when Columbine happened and things were different for older millennials who were teens in the late 90s/early 00s. Things were less politically correct back then. There were things that went on in my middle school and high school years and that would have been considered controversial today. For example, during my freshman year of high school in 1999 we had a dress up week leading up to homecoming. Each day there was a theme like "pajama day" "Hawaiian" day etc. There was an alien day and one guy dressed up in a serape and Mexico cap and said that he was dressed as an "illegal alien" Most teachers and students were fine with it and even laughed. If something like that happened today a student would be suspended and probably ripped apart all over social media.

There were downsides back then. Forms of bullying sometimes weren't take seriously and I remember teachers in my middle school and high school encouraging homophobia and as a closeted teen back then I felt like shit at times. In a way I do appreciate that attitudes and bullying policies have changed for the sake of gay and lesbian teens. It does bug me a bit when people go rants about "millennials and their safe spaces". Not all millennials had safe spaces in high school and college. Some older millennials who are in the age range of 30-35 aren't as PC as the younger ones and they actually think the safe spaces and the millennial SJWs trying to tear down statues are annoying.

I forgot about the Jonesboro killings, so I googled it and when I saw their photos I started to remember, then remembered more when I went to the Wiki page. I remember thinking they were brats. Of course their ages was the disgusting part and the access to guns etc as usual. They only got 7 and 9 years for killing 5 people. And it was almost less time.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Columbine shooters were inspired by them (in addition to many other things) since it was kind of close in time

One would think, R324, but the Columbine killers actually had contempt for the shooters who preceded them, calling them "weaklings" and they didn't want to be mistaken for copying them. If I find my source, I'll post it later.

They may have called them weaklings...but they were aware of them. They thought - we can do better than them. An inspiration of sorts.

One of the overlooked details of this crime was that Columbine was originally intended to be primarily a bombing on the level of the Oklahoma City bombing. They wanted to blow up the school cafeteria and kill upwards of 600 students, eclipsing Timothy McVeigh. Only when they failed, did they resort to primarily shooting their victims.

Those nasty little shits sure put a lot of thought and pre-planning into their little massacre.

Nonetheless, they failed to accomplish what they really wanted.

[quote] I'm 32 and I was in the 8th grade when Columbine happened and things were different for older millennials who were teens in the late 90s/early 00s.

I really do believe that Columbine was the impetus for the onslaught of "helicopter parenting" that would come afterwards.

Older millennials tended to have older Boomer parents who were self-involved in their own issues and had little clue and minimal involves as to what was going on in their teen's personal lives.

"minimal involvement"

I saw helicopter parenting for the first time back in 1981. These pushy parents had intruded and were trying to get little Schlomo a better room than he had scored in the college's housing lottery. All witnesses were shocked and disgusted, but none realized then that they were the first to witness the future.

Well, the Columbine parents were the opposite of overly involved, and not just Eric and Dylan. Their kids were off vandalizing houses, making pipe bombs, and buying guns and rifles, and nobody had a clue? How clueless were they?

[quote]Well, the Columbine parents were

WASP.

Jewish and other also-ran cultures intrude on their kids. One might use Columbine as a reason the dusky way is superior, but that is a cheap, also-ran argument

You're wrong R332, the parents DID have a clue. Not about the guns, but about everything else. Look upthread -- Wayne Harris kept a progress report on Eric's juvie activities, read Sue Klebold's book, they sounded like very involved, albeit hippie-dippie, parents.

But society was different then. People didn't automatically make the deductive leap from "my kid builds pipe bombs" to "and so he'll use them to blow up his school" in those days. Eric and Dylan changed the landscape forever afterward, though. And is everyone here so old that they have no memories of being a teen? I interacted with my parents every day, ate dinner with my family, all of that crap, but they had NO idea of my interior life, and that's how I wanted it.

R333. Susan Klebold is Jewish, you dumb Nazi cunt.

Ignore the schizophrenic freak at R333, R334. He is the "Jews troll" and one of our more foul, mentally ill trolls, and he has actual paranoid schizophrenia (no joke).

Moving on, didn't Sue recall an incident where Dylan arrived home from school, angry, with his clothes dirty from ketchup? Apparently, some of the jocks had pelted tampons soaked in ketchup at him in the cafeteria. I am the same age as the Columbine kids, and my parents were far from helicopter parents, but even they would have pried a little harder if I came home angry and soaked in ketchup..

[quote]he has actual paranoid schizophrenia (no joke)

Are you a doctor?

What's strange about this is they didn't really do as much shooting as they could have done. Towards the end they were just walking around with their guns. Maybe direct killing was harder than they thought and when the bombs didn't work they gave up.

I still have questions as to how the parents knew nothing of what was going on in there kid's rooms. My mom would come through our rooms to at least get laundry and probably snoop some too. I know she found my weed stash once. She didn't say anything she just took it.

R335. The ketchup incident, from Sue's book:

"On day, Dylan came home, his shirt spotted with ketchup. He refused to tell me what had happened, only that he'd had "the worst day of his life." I pressed, but Dylan downplayed it, and I let him. 'Kids have disagreements,' I thought. 'Whatever it is, it'll blow over - and if it doesn't, I'll know.' There has been reporting that the incident was more serious than I ever could have imagined: a circle of boys taunting Dylan and Eric, shoving the, spraying them with ketchup, and suggesting they were gay. That incident alone may not explain the deadly kinship forged between the boys, but it is the kind of shared humiliation in which a bond is formed."

At work here we see Sue's basically Pollyanna-ish personality, which in retrospect was a contributing factor (but she does hold herself accountable in that regard.) She always gave the benefit of the doubt, was loathe to see the worst in people, assumed that things would work out, etc etc. I think the more glaring point is -- where was the school?? It shouldn't have been up to Dylan to explain this incident. We know that there were cameras in the cafeteria; if a nasty fracas like this went down at lunch, the school should have called every parent of every kid involved and told them what happened. That that didn't happen is evidence for the pro-jock, pro-bullying atmosphere at Columbine.

I blame Columbine for being the inspiration of so many terrible shooters afterwards.

On that related note, I just the most disturbing photo of James Holmes, the Aurora Batman movie theater shooter, where he is wearing all black contact lenses, wearing military armor and laughing at the camera with a rifle in his hand. Really disturbing stuff. Colorado has had a rough go of it with these mass shooters.

R323, there is absolutely something to us older millennials not being coddled with safe spaces or participation ribbons. We grew up with school shootings and 9/11 and fighting the war on terror.

By the time helicopter parenting became en vogue, we were long out of school.

Horrific.

It's how the media chooses to portray something. Always. The media wouldn't lie about something that truly happened, right? So why not make it into a full blown circus, by including the

[bold]FUCKWITS[/bold] that lift their fucking cell phones up to record every horror.

Welcome to adulthood for millennials of a certain age.

Firsthand, I've witnessed how fucking insensitive people are when I witnessed an accident happen in front of me, about a year ago. The sidewalk was empty. All of a sudden people were getting out of vehicles, and coming out of stores holding their cell phones high.

[quote] So why not make it into a full blown circus, by including the FUCKWITS that lift their fucking cell phones up to record every horror.

Crude cellphones existed in 1999. They were rare, but amongst the affluent, these primitive phones were around. Nonetheless, they were not common. And those that did exist were not capable of texting or taking or streaming videos.

R343, R345, are you suggesting that people taking videos or even simple camera photos on cellphones were common in 1999?

The disturbing James Holmes photo.

No, I'm not suggesting cell pics were common in 1999.

It was more common to see the folding phones take pics and the people running to their local tv station with it.

This footage seems all so grainy and primitive compared to now.

Jesus, r348 is going to give me nightmares

R352:

The release of the photos below makes me wonder what was so horrible about the Columbine Basement tapes that they had to be destroyed?

Thanks for the nightmares, R353

Some people, for whatever reason say they weren't bullied, but it is mentioned at R342 and R344. Didn't give them the right to kill people of course.

I noticed that the female reporter is wearing professional clothing, unlike the sleeveless cleavage stuff that is mandatory today.

James Holmes is no social skills plus goth turned into freaky psyho stuff via the internet.

They were all inspired by video game killing fantasies, too, but you are not allowed to say that.

I don't get how it too so long for SWAT etc to go in when they all had weapons and training. The students and teachers were sitting ducks for hours.

The protocol at the time was to establish a perimeter and try to negotiate. Since Columbine, if the shooter is actively killing people and not holding hostages, the rule is to storm the building to take him out.

It was cops who saw what happened at Columbine who devised the "active shooter" scenario. Cops around the nation were screaming when they saw the Columbine SWAT team standing around in the parking lot while many were still trapped and dying from wounds.

Cops also left the bodies of Danny Rohrbough and Rachel Scott outside on the cold Columbine lawn for nearly 48 hours after the massacre... of course they were already dead, but still...

R359 Whey were left out for almost 48 hours?

Stories and pictures

Danny Rohrbough's father didn't know what happened to his son until the photo of his body was published in the paper the next day.

Cops need to "investigate" so want everything and everyone left alone until they can do so.

The Littleton Police Department, or SWAT team, bumbled badly. Patrick Ireland is lucky he had the initiative to save himself by finding a window, otherwise he would have most likely bled to death. Another girl, Lisa Kreutz, left badly wounded in the library (and probably the only witness to Dylan and Eric committing suicide) was lucky she survived long enough to be rescued.

Even if their "protocol" was one thing, they should have realized at a certain point that this was something different that required different and swift action.

[quote]The Littleton Police Department, or SWAT team, bumbled badly.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. They were frankly inept.

The year following the shootings, a couple of tragedies rocked Columbine High. A popular basketball player Greg Barnes committed suicide in his garage with Adam's Song by Blink 182 playing on repeat. The song is about suicide.

Also, two Columbine students Nick Kunselman and Stephanie Hart-Grizzell were murdered in a Subway shop. Nick worked at the shop and Stephanie his girlfriend often hung out when he was closing up. A co-worker found them dead from gunshot wounds. The murders are still unsolved.

I met Richard Castaldo at a party in LA. He was one of the Columbine survivors and one of the first kids to get shot. He had been having lunch with Rachel Scott when it happened and was lucky to survive, but remains paralyzed below the chest and is confined to a wheelchair. Anyhow, a very nice guy, and he was very candid and forthcoming about that traumatic event. Very politically-minded as a result of that shooting, and he was a blast to talk to because he saw through all of the "fake prayers" that people made and thought it was such bullshit when these people remained pro-gun pro NRA. He would fit in quite well on DL actually.

Do tell more, R366.

Watch this

F&F the crazed Sandy Hook "truther" at R368!

A lot of you older people are making poor generalisations of millennials. Kids these days are just as isolated from their parents as any other generation. I was born 1997 (though not in USA) and I only knew one girl with a helicopter mother. Her mother wouldn't let her on sleepovers until she was 13 and wouldn't let her go to the local Easter Show because of rapists. Needless to say, she was socially ostracised. In the millennial generation, kids growing up would take their privacy to the internet. Most bullying was done on facebook, and parents were completely none the wiser (unless there was a snitch).

By the time I was thirteen, I was one of the very few virgins in my grade and most kids were running around behind their parents backs dealing drugs, doing drugs, doing graffiti and vandalising.

I think the difference is that in the days of the Colombine Boys, parents didn't realise that being a thug could equal being a murderer. People are a lot more wary of weirdo outsider boys now. No one wants to talk to a creep with no social skills because he might be capable of murder.

[quote] Kids these days are just as isolated from their parents as any other generation.

Kids these days aren't millennials anymore.

R371 I mean teenagers here, like the Columbine kids, not little preschoolers.

My boyfriend is a cop in a town across the country from Columbine and, for whatever reason, every year they are required to watch the Columbine video, beginning to end. I just asked him if there is footage from the library, and he said yes ... with sound.

Wow, R373. Did he ever give you a description?

I never believed for one moment that library footage didn't exist.

"every year they are required to watch the Columbine video, beginning to end."

Like 'Die Hard' at Christmas for straight guys!

Damn, R375, I didn't think my vagina was THAT obvious, but you are correct, I'm straight and so is my man.

Ha, just trying to put a little levity into a very sad topic, R376. It wasn't directed at you specifically.

R377, Oh, then I take back all your credit ... because you were right ;)

That must have been a terrible, terrifying video to witness.. the library is where all of the worst killing happened

[quote]Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. They were frankly inept.

I recall they were sued by a victims' families. I can't remember if any of them ever got money from the sheriff's department.

Helicopter parenting was officially launched in 1981 with the Walsh family histrionics due to their guilt over letting poor Adam wander into the clutches of Ottis Toole...

This girl, Amanda Stair, is the sister to Joe Stair who started the Trenchcoat Mafia. Nevertheless, she was in the library when Eric and Dylan went on their worst rampage. She describes that experience here.

bump

Eric Harris was HOT!

Yeah, if mass murderers are your thing, R384!

the creepy fangirls on tumblr, who act like they just like the Columbine shooters because they're so troubled and misunderstood and were bullied and all that, conveniently seem to obsess over Eric, the cute one, when he was the stone cold sociopath and the ugly one is arguably the more sympathetic of the two

Does anybody recommend the "No Easy Answers" book by Brooks Brown? Worth reading?

I know that Eric and Dylan are not the first, last or even worst mass shooters in America's bloody history, but I do blame these two little shits for popularizing what has become an epidemic in this nation.

18 years after this senseless tragedy, and not one thing has changed about gun control. In fact, it is only getting worse.

[quote]Does anybody recommend the "No Easy Answers" book by Brooks Brown? Worth reading?

No. He's full of bullshit.

OP, today is an example of why this case remains fixated upon.

It represented an ugly and ominous turning point for this country.

R240 is getting called out for questioning the quote he posted but that quote was originally posted on this thread with the iconic photo from Kent State (which happened in 1970.) That combo might seem confusing for some people on this thread; maybe he was just voicing his confusion about it. I'm not R240 btw.

Whoever said columbine was a millennial-only trauma doesn’t seem to understand how trauma works...

Well, one of the first national tragedies where almost all of those involved (victims, suspects, survivors, eyewitnesses) were Millennials. Of course, as we would later see with Virginia Tech, Aurora, etc, it certainly would not be the last

R342, the girl in that video, Bree Pasquale, was very brave. After the killers announced they were targeting jocks, she threw herself on top of a boy who had been wearing sports clothing with logos. She also had no room to hide under a library table, so she was completely exposed. When Eric Harris pointed a gun at her, she perhaps had the longest conversation with him, pleading for her life for minutes. For whatever reason, Eric Harris spared her.

Remember when we all thought this was as horrible as it could get?

R366, Richard Castaldo had this to say on social media about gun violence, and he is spot on. Being one of two Columbine students who were left paralyzed in the shooting, he has a right to be outraged.

[quote] I was shot and paralyzed by two lunatics with guns. The NRA and scalise and people of that ilk, used the incident to gin up gun sales as well. Charelton heston famously held a rally where I was shot to scare every right wing nutball that the government was going to take away their guns. Which has never happened by the way. U.s is literally awash with guns. Not a damn thing changed then either, now it's 18 years later and still nothing. In fact most of these assholes want to make gun laws even looser... is that even possible really? My hope is this incident will knock some sense into these people and make them realize that maybe the threshold for owning high powered weapons of war might be a little lax. One of these myopic asshole who was shot would now like to,know the shooters background . And he voted AGAINST universal background checks. Perhaps knowing the backgrounds of people were giving high powered weaponry too might be a good idea; not after the fact when it accomplishes absolutely nothing. It's sad when anyone gets gunned down, but none of these congress people/victims seem to give a shit about the literal dozens of people gunned down in AmeriKa everyday, until it happens to them. I feel a slight pang of sympathy for scalise, but that will evaporate immediately if he doubles down on his let's hand out guns like candy agenda he got from his NRA masters. Maybe you reap what you sow. Actually I'm also a little upset that one of the bullets didn't lodge in his spinal cord so he can get the full effect of what semi auto rifles can really do. P.s. wasn't this a false flag? Were the victims even real? Let's ask Alex jones, he has the documents

Castaldo today.

If ‘Amerika’ Is literally ‘awash with guns’ already, what is Mr Castaldo’s suggestion on how to round up hundreds of millions of firearms and cut off the flow to the illegal market?

Why should anyone believe it would become any different that government policies to round up alcohol during prohibition, terrorists during the last decade, or opiates & illegal immigrants in 2017?

Yeah, R398? Why does the USA bother to have any laws at all? Since we can't round up the millions of drugs in the country, we may as well do away with all drug laws and have open narcotics for everybody.

[quote] If ‘Amerika’ Is literally ‘awash with guns’ already, what is Mr Castaldo’s suggestion on how to round up hundreds of millions of firearms and cut off the flow to the illegal market?

Also, did you not read Castaldo's quote? He didn't say anything about "rounding up hundreds of millions of firearms." He simply suggested that the laws for owning high-power, assault rifles is a bit lax and that it might help to know a gun owner's background before they are able to arm themselves with assault rifles.

Is there any particular reason you believe that the average person should own something like an AR-15, or that there is something wrong with more thorough background checks on people who want to own these killing machines?

An act of pre-planned pure evil by teenagers committing crimes against other teenagers, without remorse or regret.

They may have regretted the fact that they didn't manage to rack up more victims.

I agree with background checks and limits on assault rifles, but I also suspect those things won’t dent the problem.

I know he didn’t bring up rounding up guns, but he should have.

If you don’t address the massive amount of product already on the street as well as the flow of guns on the ilegal market, those laws are just political bandaids.

Mr Castaldo was shot during the era of the Brady Bill...

[quote] If you don’t address the massive amount of product already on the street as well as the flow of guns on the ilegal market,

Addressing guns on the illegal market wouldn't have made a lick of difference to Mr. Castaldo, considering the fact that the two 17 y/o boys (Eric was 17 when he acquired to weaponry) who shot him were able to easily procure their weapons from other teenagers who legally bought them.

R403:

The point is that the legally obtained weapons can be replaced with illegally obtained ones by shooters who are committed.

Harris & Klebold didn’t obtain the guns they used legally and they were the ones on a mission.

Nobody learned a thing from Columbine. Nothing has changed.

bump

Eerie aftermath footage, including view of the library afterwards.

A girl (now adult) injured in the shooting said the Cullen book was full of mistakes and insulting and even got the story about her wrong

Yeah, R408. You mean Anne Marie Hochhalter. She is one of two kids who remain paralyzed to this day.

The other paralyzed victim being the aforementioned Richard Castaldo.

[quote]Yeah, [R398]? Why does the USA bother to have any laws at all? Since we can't round up the millions of drugs in the country, we may as well do away with all drug laws and have open narcotics for everybody.

Canada now has someone leading a major political party who wants to do that. As NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh would call for possibility of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs such as heroin and cocaine

One sad aspect of these shootings is that while we at least try to memorialize the dead, the survivors are often forgotten. Often their lives are ruined or changed in terrible ways, like those two handicapped kids. Their families are forced to care for them and rack up huge medical bill debts.

One can only imagine how many shooting victims may end up paralyzed after the Mandalay shooting..

The casinos are stepping up with millions to pay hospital bills, etc.

They sort of have to...

R409, that poorgirl's mother committed suicide 18 months after the shooting.

This poor boy's family would have to spend nearly $1 million dollars for facial reconstruction surgeries, etc. after his jaw was practically blown off.

And they were uninsured ^^

bump

We failed these kids.

They remember Columbine because that was the name of my first-born. Pierrot was my second.

This was shocking. We thought that this was the most horrible thing that could ever happen.

We promised "Never again!"

And how many times has it happened since then?

Columbine dad of Daniel Mauser holding his son's sneakers.

He has made his life's mission to ban semi-automatic rifles.

Almost 20 years later, he is still fighting.

His son.

Bastards.

They tried to make it seem like the shooters were bullied.

Why, then, did they shoot these poor kids in the library?

Poor kids.

I genuinely hope that in my lifetime I get to see some type of gun control.

Get used to disappointment.

bump

Sad

Eric Harris was a little hottie, too bad he had to kill himself.

[quote]One sad aspect of these shootings is that while we at least try to memorialize the dead, the survivors are often forgotten. Often their lives are ruined or changed in terrible ways, like those two handicapped kids. Their families are forced to care for them and rack up

There were fundraisers held for the medical bills which were heavily publicized. But, yes some survivors were left with huge medical bills for years afterwards. I think it was Richard Castaldo who had to file for bankruptcy years later.

And that stuff is basically ignored. On to the next bloodbath. If it leads, it bleeds, etc.

oops, If it bleeds it leads!

Typo!

Because OP, it was the defining even of the last century, in terms of bringing about sensible gun-control laws, increased funding for identifying and treatment of mental health issues before they escalated, and increased school safety measures.

Oh wait, none of that happened. But at least we're all still dying. Faster and more efficiently too!

Because OP, as other posters have said, this was the first real trauma of the millennial generation.

And there would be worse things to come.

It also played out live on TV which made it more notorious than the other shootings. I can remember this was the day that I first discovered a new channel on TV called....Fox News.

Back then, we all thought that was as bad as it would get.[

If only we knew..

The 90s were a decade filled with many sensationalistic stories and scandals (OJ, Tonya Harding, Menendez Brothers), but this was a case that is still relevant and resonates today.

bump

Ryan Murphy already sort of did Columbine in the first season of American Horror Story, library scene and all.

^ meant to quote r166.

[quote]Frankly, I am surprised they haven't made an "American Crime" style TV show out of Columbine yet.

[quote]Frankly, I am surprised they haven't made an "American Crime" style TV show out of Columbine yet.

Dave Cullen's book was optioned as a mini-series for Lifetime years ago. I think the project may have been canned.

It was canned because the families of the victims protested.

Sue on TED.

I actually think they should make a mini-series on Columbine and if the victims' families complain that's their problem.

Eric Harris was a little hottie.

Ugh, R444. It's insane how many fangirls (and boys?) that little shit Eric Harris still has online!

What the hell is the matter with these girls?

I think Dylan has more Tumblr fangirls than Eric, since he's the Sad Emo One.

This thread should be bumped every time there is another school shooting.

So I guess that would be every day now?

Get your shit together regarding guns, America!

You've only had about 20 years!

Columbine survivor who headed to March for Our Lives

Does Sue discuss how she kept her hair appointment the day after the murders in that clip linked above or in her book?

Bitch had her priorities I guess.

People had no way of knowing back then that this would become the beginning of a bloody trend. It was considered a grisly one-off, and the media explosion that followed focused on everything but gun control: Marilyn Manson, goth kids, jock bullies, weird kids wearing trenchcoats or all black, metal music. Because there were no cellphones or social media or Youtube, people don't really remember that Columbine students protested the NRA gathering in Denver just two weeks after the shooting.

Rare photo of 1999 protest.

Disgusting piece of shit Charlton Heston on gun control: "From my cold, dead hands!"

May he Rest in Piss.

It also played out live on TV. (the kid trying to climb out of the window etc.)

That made it more impactful then the ones that were just reported after the fact.

Columbine was a big deal because most of us were watching it play out in real time. Those dead kids on the sidewalk were endlessly shown. I remember some fuckwit reporter talking about the kids running out with their arms over their heads in single file-“be careful, don’t fall” and a pause as her producer obviously told her over her earphone that those were dead kids, not stumblers. It was all so awful, the inertia of LE hiding behind cars. It was like the Simpson trial, none of the “good guys” came off well.

Law enforcement treated the bodies of Rachel Scott and Danny Rohrbough (spelling?) horribly. They were the dead lawn kids and I believe their bodies were left out there for at least 48 hours, if not more.

To answer OP's question, Columbine is remembered because it is widely thought of as "the first one." Anything that represents the first of some type of trend will get more attention. As it turns out, Columbine wasn't the first school shooting. Pearl and Kip Kinkel came before, but this is the case that held all of the intrigue for the media to exploit, and so it is remembered as such.

Up until that point, also, adults were engrossed in the sensationalistic scandals of the 90s: Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan, the OJ Simpson trial, Monica Lewinsky and that blue dress, and this was the first time for awhile, I think, where parents realized, "whoa, maybe not all of the kids are all right."

Did the news media shot footage of Rachel Scott's body? I remember for awhile some outlets showed Danny Rohrbough on news shows, but stopped. I remember seeing Danny's mother on Oprah like a year after the shooting happend. The school gave her the cement square that Danny died on. She set up in her yard with a swing.

Also, one on the shooters, Eric Harris was hot!

R460, Eric Harris was the very definition of average looking. Nothing hot about him at all!