18 years ago on April 20, 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into their high school armed with 4 guns, 99 explosives and 4 knives and killed 12 of their classmates and one teacher. Littleton, Colorado was suddenly catapulted into the national spotlight as the Columbine High School Massacre became all anyone could talk about. To this day, Columbine is still the gold standard for high school shootings as it is still the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.
However the story starts almost three years earlier in 1996 when Harris created a private website on America Online. Initially created to host gaming levels for his friends the site evolved into Harris’s personal blog by early ‘97. By the end of that year Harris’s blog went from light jokes and short entries on his life to instructions on how to make bombs, expletives and entries where he described the mischief he and Klebold got into. Nothing much came of the site until March of 1998 when Klebold gave the address of the site to Brooks Brown, whom Harris had had a falling out with after an incident where Harris threw a piece of ice at Brown’s car windshield, Brown’s mother filed numerous complaints with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office concerning the danger she believed Harris posed not only to her son but to the town in general. While no one quite knows Klebold's motive in giving Brown the site address he was probably hoping the police would find Harris’s numerous threats towards Brown, and the students and teachers of Columbine High School.
A draft affidavit to search the Harris household was written up by investigator Michael Guerra after he was contacted by the Browns about the death threats toward their son by Harris. When Guerra accessed the site he found information that Harris was in possession of pipe bombs, a hatred of society and a desire to kill. The affidavit also mentioned a suspicion that Harris was involved in an unsolved February 1998 case involving pipe bombs. The affidavit was never filed and on April 30, 1999 high-ranking officials of Jefferson County and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office met to decide whether or not to tell the press that they had the opportunity to search the Harris household thirteen months before the shooting. They decided not to tell anyone and over the next two years the files were lost. It wasn’t until March 22, 2004 that Guerra confessed to the existence of the files and the meeting to cover them up to investigators from Colorado attorney general.
Eric's Online America Profile
The January Incident
In January 30 of 1998 the pair was charged with mischief, breaking and entering, trespassing, and theft after breaking into a van parked on the side of the road and stealing computer equipment. By Klebold’s account they grabbed, “one briefcase, one black pouch, one flashlight, a yellow thing, and a bucket of stuff.” They drove their loot over to Deer Creek Canyon Park, a preserve that ran for miles up to the mountains, at the time it was deserted so the boys felt safe checking out their stash. While they were occupied, Jeffco Sheriff’s Deputy Timothy Walsh snuck up on the pair, surprised them and Harris tried to cover up the theft while Klebold stayed quiet. When questioned again Klebold folded. Harris was furious and put full blame on Klebold in a later journal entry “Dylan suggested that we should steal some of the objects in the white van”. On March 25, 1998 the boys faced Jeffco Magistrate John DeVita during a joint hearing where they impressed him by appearing with their fathers, dressing well and behaving with respect. DeVita approved them for Diversion, a twelve-month juvenile program where they'd be performing community service and attending counseling. They completed the program in just three months with glowing reviews by their therapists and counselors.
Judgement Day
47 minutes after the shootings started on April 20, 1999 the SWAT team entered the high school and found 13 bodies (2 bodies were outside the school), 12 of which were in the school’s now infamous library. The shooting began at 11:19 a.m. after the bombs the duo had planted in the cafeteria earlier had failed to detonate. 49 minutes later it was all over, Harris and Klebold had committed suicide in the library among the bodies of ten of their victims.
“Eric fired through the roof of his mouth of his mouth, causing “evacuation of the brain.” He collapsed against the books, and his torso slumped to the side. He ended that way, with his arms curled forward, as if hugging an invisible pillow. Dylan’s blast knocked him flat on his back and strewed brain matter across Eric’s left knee. Dylan’s head came to rest just beside it.”
- “Columbine” Dave Cullen
The 13 victims who lost their lives at Columbine are as follows; Rachel Scott (17), Daniel Rohrbough (15), John Tomlin (16), William David Sanders (47), Kyle Velasquez (16), Steven Curnow (14), Cassie Bernall (17), Isaiah Shoels (18), Matthew Kechter (16), Lauren Townsend (18), Kelly Fleming (16), Daniel Mauser (15), and Corey DePooter (17). 24 people were injured both by gunfire and while trying to escape the school. One of more serious and publicized injuries was Patrick Ireland's. Ireland was hit in the head and foot while hiding under a table in the library and was present though very out of it for the killer's suicides. But that's not what makes him so famous, what makes Ireland stand out is the way he escaped the school. The library is on the second floor of the school over the cafeteria. Because of his injuries, Ireland was fading in and out of consciousness and wasn't aware that the shooters were dead and at around 2:38 p.m. crawled to the library windows and fell seven feet straight down onto the top of an emergency vehicle while a SWAT team did their best to help. The SWAT team was later heavily criticized for their part in not helping Ireland down in a safer manner. But "The Boy In The Window" survived and lived on to graduate as co-valedictorian in 2000.
"The Boy In The Window"
18 Years Later...
It’s been 18 years since that day and a 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people...charged with Columbine-style plots" and found that almost all were white male teenagers and almost all had studied the Columbine attack or cited the Columbine perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as inspiration. The Virginia Tech Shooting sound familiar? The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho refers to Harris and Klebold as martyrs in one of the videos he filmed before the massacre. In the years following Columbine security measures at high school around the nation were increased. Some schools require students students to wear or carry computer-generated IDs while others instituted dress codes, locker searches, and mandatory see-through back packs. Other schools uped their security through metal detectors, security guards, and school door numbering.
But it wasn't just the nations schools that had to reassess after Columbine, police forces now train for Columbine-like situations to avoid the criticism the Jeffco Police and SWAT received over their slow response and progress during the shooting that according to some, could've saved lives. One significant change to police tactics is the introduction of the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment tactic which saved dozens of lives at Virginia Tech alone. At Columbine the police surrounded the building, set up a perimeter, and contained the damage but this tactic calls for a four man team or however many men are available to take out the shooter as soon as possible to minimize the causalities, assuming the shooter is aiming to kill not to take hostages.
But is all that enough to feel safe at school? Could any of that stop a modern day Eric and Dylan?
A Quote from The Columbine Memorial
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