Columbine High School massacre

The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the state of Colorado. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and bombs rigged in cars. The perpetrators, two senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, with three others being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide. Although their motives remain unclear, the personal journals of the perpetrators document that they wished their actions to rival the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as other deadly incidents that occurred in the United States in the 1990s. The attack has been referred to by USA Today as a "suicidal attack [that was] planned as a grand—if badly implemented—terrorist bombing." The massacre is reported as being "the deadliest high school shooting in US history." The massacre sparked debate over gun control laws, the availability of firearms within the United States and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion also centered on the nature of high school cliques, subcultures and bullying, in addition to the influence of violent movies and video games in American society. The shooting resulted in an increased emphasis on school security, and a moral panic aimed at goth culture, social outcasts, gun culture, the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers, teenage Internet use and violence in video games. Preliminary activities and intent: n 1996, Eric Harris created a private website on America Online. Harris initially created the site to host gaming levels of the video game Doom, which he and his friend, Dylan Klebold, had created, primarily for friends. On this site, Harris began a blog, which included jokes and short journal entries with thoughts on parents, school, and friends. By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to cause mischief, as well as instructions on how to make explosives, and blogs in which he described the trouble he and Klebold were causing. Beginning in early 1997, the blog postings began to show the first signs of Harris's ever-growing anger against society. Harris's site attracted few visitors, and caused no concern until late 1997. Klebold gave the web address to Brooks Brown, a former friend of Harris. Brown's mother had filed numerous complaints with the Jefferson County Sheriff's office concerning Harris, as she thought he was dangerous. The website contained numerous death threats directed against Brown: Klebold knew that if Brooks accessed the address, he would discover the content and inform his parents, and likely the authorities would be notified. After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The investigator Michael Guerra was told about the website. When he accessed it, Guerra discovered numerous violent threats directed against the students and teachers of Columbine High School. Other material included blurbs that Harris had written about his general hatred of society, and his desire to kill those who annoyed him. Harris had noted on his site that he had made pipe bombs. In addition, he mentioned a gun count and compiled a hit list of individuals (he did not post any plan on how he intended to attack targets). As Harris had posted on his website that he possessed explosives, Guerra wrote a draft affidavit, requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. He never filed it. The affidavit was concealed by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and not revealed until September 2001, resulting from an investigation by the TV show 60 Minutes. After the revelation about the affidavit, a series of grand jury investigations were begun into the cover-up activities of Jefferson County officials. The investigation revealed that high-ranking county officials had met a few days after the massacre to discuss the release of the affidavit to the public. It was decided that because the affidavit's contents lacked the necessary probable cause to have supported the issuance of a search warrant for the Harris household by a judge, it would be best not to disclose the affidavit's existence at an upcoming press conference, although the actual conversations and points of discussion were never revealed to anyone other than the Grand Jury members. Following the press conference, the original Guerra documents disappeared. In September 1999, a Jefferson County investigator failed to find the documents during a secret search of the county's computer system. A second attempt in late 2000 found copies of the document within the Jefferson County archives. The documents were reconstructed and released to the public in September 2001, but the original documents are still missing. The final grand jury investigation was released in September 2004. On January 30, 1998, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stole tools and other equipment from a van parked near the city of Littleton. Both youths were arrested and subsequently attended a joint court hearing, where they pleaded guilty to the felony theft. The judge sentenced the duo to attend a juvenile diversion program. There both boys attended mandated classes and talked with diversion officers. One of their classes taught anger management. Harris also began attending therapy classes with a psychologist. Klebold had a history of drinking and had failed a dilute urine test, but neither he nor Harris attended any substance abuse classes. Harris and Klebold were eventually released from diversion several weeks early because of positive actions in the program; they were both on probation. Shortly after Harris' and Klebold's court hearing, Harris's online blog disappeared. His website was reverted to its original purpose of posting user-created levels of Doom. Harris began to write in a journal, in which he recorded his thoughts and plans. In April 1998, as part of his diversion program, Harris wrote a letter of apology to the owner of the van. However, around the same time, he furiously derided him in journal, stating that he believed himself to have the right to steal something if he wanted to. Harris continued scheduled meetings with his psychologist until a few months before he and Klebold committed the Columbine High School massacre. Harris dedicated a section of his website to posting content regarding his and Klebold's progress in their collection of guns and building of bombs (they subsequently used both in attacking students at their school). After the website was made public, AOL permanently deleted it from its servers. Medication: In one of his scheduled meetings with his psychiatrist, Eric Harris complained of depression, anger and possessing suicidal thoughts. As a result, he was prescribed the anti-depressant Zoloft. He complained of feeling restless and having trouble concentrating; in April, his doctor switched him to Luvox, a similar anti-depressant drug. Journals and videos: Harris and Klebold both began keeping journals soon after their arrests. The pair documented their arsenal with video tapes they kept secret. Their journals documented their plan for a major bombing to rival that of the Oklahoma City bombing. Their entries contained blurbs about ways to escape to Mexico, hijacking an aircraft at Denver International Airport and crashing it into a building in New York City, as well as details about the planned attack. The pair hoped that, after setting off home-made explosives in the cafeteria at the busiest time of day, killing hundreds of students, they would shoot survivors fleeing from the school. Then, as police vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks, and reporters came to the school, bombs set in the boys' cars would detonate, killing these emergency and other personnel. In the event, the explosives in their cars did not detonate. The pair kept videos that documented the explosives, ammunition, and weapons they had obtained illegally. They revealed the ways they hid their arsenals in their homes, as well as how they deceived their parents about their activities. The pair shot videos of doing target practice in nearby foothills, as well as areas of the high school they planned to attack. On April 20, approximately thirty minutes before the attack, they made a final video saying goodbye and apologizing to their friends and families. Firearms: In the months prior to the attacks, Harris and Klebold acquired two 9 mm firearms and two 12-gauge shotguns. Their friend Robyn Anderson bought a rifle and the two shotguns at the Tanner Gun Show in December 1998. Through Philip Duran, another friend, Harris and Klebold later bought a handgun from Mark Manes for $500. Using instructions found on the Internet, Harris and Klebold constructed a total of 99 improvised explosive devices of various designs and sizes. They sawed the barrels and butts off their shotguns to make them easier to conceal. On the day of the massacre, Harris was equipped with a 12-gauge Savage-Springfield 67H pump-action shotgun (which he discharged a total of 25 times) and a Hi-Point 995 Carbine 9 mm carbine with thirteen 10-round magazines (which he fired a total of 96 times). Klebold was equipped with a 9×19mm Intratec TEC-9 semi-automatic handgun with one 52-, one 32-, and one 28-round magazine and a 12-gauge Stevens 311D double-barreled sawed-off shotgun. Klebold primarily fired the TEC-9 handgun for a total of 55 times, while he discharged a total of 12 rounds from his double-barreled shotgun. Immediate aftermath: On April 21, bomb squads combed the high school. At 10:00 a.m., the bomb squad declared the building safe for officials to enter. By 11:30 a.m., a spokesman of the sheriff declared the investigation underway. Thirteen of the bodies were still inside the high school as investigators photographed the building. At 2:30 p.m., a press conference was held by Jefferson County District Attorney David Thomas and Sheriff John Stone, at which they said that they suspected others had helped plan the shooting. Formal identification of the dead had not yet taken place, but families of the children thought to have been killed had been notified. Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, the bodies were gradually removed from the school and taken to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office to be identified and autopsied. By 5:00 p.m., the names of many of the dead were known. An official statement was released, saying there were 15 confirmed deaths and 27 injuries related to the massacre. On April 30, high-ranking officials of Jefferson County and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office met to decide if they should reveal that Michael Guerra, a Sheriff's Office detective, had drafted an affidavit for a search warrant of Harris's residence a year before the shootings, based on his previous investigation of Harris's website and activities. They decided not to disclose this information at a press conference held on April 30, nor did they mention it in any other way. Over the next two years, Guerra's original draft and investigative file documents were lost. Their loss was termed "troubling" by a Grand Jury convened after the file's existence was reported in April 2001. In the months following the shooting, considerable media attention focused upon Cassie Bernall, who had been killed by Harris in the library and who Harris was reported to have asked, "Do you believe in God?" immediately prior to her murder. Bernall was reported to have responded "Yes" before being killed. Emily Wyant, the closest living witness to Bernall's death, denied that Bernall had this discussion. Survivor Valeen Schnurr claims that she was the one questioned by Harris. Joshua Lapp thought Bernall had been queried about her belief, but was unable to correctly point out where Bernall was located, and was closer to Schnurr during the shootings. Another witness, Craig Scott, whose sister Rachel Scott was also portrayed as a Christian martyr, claimed that the discussion was with Bernall. When asked to indicate where the conversation had been coming from, he pointed to where Schnurr was shot. Nevertheless, Bernall and Rachel Scott came to be regarded as Christian martyrs by Evangelical Christians.