School project eric harris hitmen. Why do they do it? Guns, games and "wheels"
First, you need to understand that not all things on the Internet that look like romanticization and imitation actually are. Often this is just a force caused by the fact that this or that topic has suddenly become fashionable. For example, about 2-3 years ago, the Internet was at the peak of the era of web terror, when everyone who was in the subject watched videos with explosions and terrorist attacks and listened to the Arab trap. But not because everyone dreamed of becoming terrorists or somehow sympathized with them. It was just ... there was some kind of chic in it, now it's hard to say. I don’t know much about modern Internet culture due to the recent dominance of cloud-rap and vaporwave, which I don’t like, but I didn’t notice any kind of romatization, so it’s just a usual force. However (and here the second begins), many people love the images of Harris and Klebold because:
1) They fought the system in their own way (and they themselves repeated this more than once, considering themselves almost gods). A very fertile topic for teenagers.
2) That Klebold and Harris are products of typical teenage conflicts, when it suddenly turns out that you are not the most beautiful, not the best, not the smartest, and your interests are not the most popular and seem strange to many. There was not enough sadness, so even for your "not like that" you will be intensely smacked. So you grow up as a victim of bullying and humiliation. Many teenagers experience this and that is why many are drawn to such images of revenge for humiliation. Add to this the hatred of the school, and in general it will be dangerous.
3) I am not a psychologist, of course, but as my life experience accumulated, I began to notice that many teenagers, especially in an unfavorable atmosphere, treat death somehow romantically. That is why the legs of demonstrative suicides and other demonstrative actions are growing. In this regard, our comrades can be role models.
You can come up with a lot more things, a lot of things to write, but here I run the risk of drifting far, far into the problems of adolescence, where I risk being a complete layman. So I'll end with this.
Igor, I fully share your opinion and usually use the same arguments when it comes to these students. The only thing I would like to add to what was said (also after some analysis of this "wave"): in addition, teenagers began to devote a lot of time to clothes, and Klebold and Harris also liked to dress up pretentiously. And this, in fact, is almost the key to understanding the whole "force".
That is, it turns out something like this: schoolchildren are attracted by cynicism ("cuckoo!"), "fighting the system" and a peculiar style (remember those rags that the killers liked to wear - raincoats, glasses, berets). All in all, it looks like a cool action movie.
Here the tsimes is - this must be understood - that teenagers do not want to know what happened to Klebold and Harris at the level of a sick psyche. They are also not interested in what happened to their parents - and, moreover, to the relatives of those killed. They like the way it looks from the outside.
To answer
A very relevant question, inspired by the recent meat grinders in Russian schools. Just the other day, while reading the news, I remembered Columbine and went for a walk along the links. Having read Wikipedia, excerpts from newspapers, looking through the next dock. a film about this, I asked myself: what the hell am I doing for the third hour already? Feelings clearly testified to my excessive sympathy for these guys. I thought: why do I sympathize with these murderers? To THESE killers. For example, I do not sympathize with Chechen terrorists. So I was not a Chechen terrorist, but I was a schoolboy. And quite rightly, I hated school. And, as you know, the school is a place of acquaintance with people, sciences, independence. And with all the charms of the social structure. Here you have both bosses and colleagues and not a tasty canteen, and, suddenly, strangers with impunity can slap you in the face for chirkash from the sole on linoleum, and your parents will be thrashed at the meeting for raising a gopnik. And you are just a normal tomboy, you love your grandmother, you listen to ABBA and dream about commercials. You still don't know how to hate. But this science is taught to you at school. Need to talk about frostbitten classmates-hooligans? If you are fat, thin, bespectacled, redhead, tall, short, smart, stupid ect. you will not be left without attention. In general, a pure soul ends up in a terrarium. And there you have to: comply with the rules of the terrarium, not run into problems with hooligans, learn lessons so as not to run into problems with your parents (and not in order to gain knowledge, because nerds have a hard time) ... In short, I have a little it turns out coherently, because I drink vodchila alone and Ricky Gervais burns in the background ... Well, that's it. John Dillinger. Robin Hood early 20th century. Enemy number one of the state, darling of the working class (check out the irony). Romance shoots to the beginning of the 21st century, where Mr. Depp receives as much for this role as his namesake did not have time to steal. This means that those who romanticize criminals themselves have not matured enough to be in their place and, as it were, feel that they have done the work for them, that at least someone has provided coal. And you, comrade, did not fantasize about blowing up the school?
Here, for the first three years, the Harrises lived in rented premises. Wayne then took a job with the Englewood Aviation Safety Services Corporation, and Katherine began working as a catering service provider. Eric's older brother Kevin went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Eric himself went to Ken Caryl High School, where he met Dylan Klebold in the seventh or eighth grade. The Harrises finally bought a $180,000 house south of Columbine High School, which Eric had started attending the year before. Not far from the Harrises lived Brooks Brown, whom Eric met on the school bus, and who had been friends with Dylan Klebold since the first grade.
Dylan Bennet Klebold was born in Lakewood, Colorado to Thomas Ernst Klebold and Susan Francis Yassenoff. He had an older brother, Byron Jacob, by four years. Like Byron, Dylan was named after a famous poet (Byron was named after the English Romantic poet George Byron, and in Dylan's case it was the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas). Dylan's father was a real estate geophysicist, and his mother worked in Colorado with the disabled. Both attended the Lutheran Church, and Dylan, along with Byron, were confirmed in accordance with the Lutheran tradition. At home, the family observed some rituals in keeping with Susan's Jewish heritage, whose grandfather, Leo Yassenoff, was a builder and noted philanthropist (he built a Jewish cultural and social space in Columbus, Ohio, where Thomas and Susan were from). Thomas Klebold's parents died early and he was raised by a brother who was 18 years his senior. From 1995 to 1997 he dated Rachel Scott. However, the couple broke up due to Klebold's obsession with racism.
At Columbine, Klebold worked extensively in the school theater as lighting and sound engineer, and was also an assistant in the computer lab, where he helped maintain the school server.
According to early investigative reports, Harris and Klebold were not particularly popular in Columbine and were bullied quite often. Ultimately, they themselves began to intimidate other students - from their diaries it is known that these were elementary school students and those who were suspected of being gay. According to some accounts, Harris and Klebold were members of a school group that called itself the "Trenchcoat Mafia", although they had no specific connection to the group, and there is no group photo associated with the group in the 1998 Columbine Yearbook. . However, Harris's father on April 20, 1999, on 9-1-1 calls, mentioned that his son was indeed "a member of what they call the Trenchcoat Mafia", although, as already stated, their association with the group was generally superficial.
Shortly after they became friends, Harris and Klebold connected their personal computers to the same network and played many games over the Net. Harris created a series of levels for the game Doom, which later became known as the Harris levels. On the Internet, Harris used the nickname "REB" (short for "Rebel" (eng. Rebel)) and other aliases, including Rebldomakr, Rebdoomer and Rebdomine. Klebold also used nicknames such as VoDKa and VoDkA (where the letters DK were initials). Harris had various websites where he created homemade "Doom" and Duke Nukem 3D levels that could be played online. Gradually, Harris' open threats to the people of his network environment and the world in general appeared on these sites. When Klebold and Harris began experimenting with pipe bombs, they began posting the results of the bombings on these websites.
Three days before the shooting on Saturday, April 17, Klebold attended an evening school ball where his date was their classmate Robin Anderson (whom Dylan had met several years earlier at a Christmas party), however, she was present with him not as his girlfriend, but as his friend . Anderson later boasted to a guy she knew: "" Nathan Dyckman later recalled that Dylan behaved more than normal that evening, and even made good plans for his future. In particular, he said that he was going to go to college in Arizona (on March 25, the Klebolds went there to see Dylan's room in a university dormitory). Harris was out of work that evening. His acquaintances recalled that he tried to invite several girls, but all rejected his invitation. Ultimately, he planned to spend this time with Susan DeWitt. She came to his house, where they watched a movie, after which he invited her to an after-prom party, but she also refused and went to her house, and Harris met his friends at the party alone. It is also known about his relationship with girls that in his first year at Columbine, he met Tiffany Typer in a German class and on the very first day of his acquaintance he volunteered to walk her home. It was their only meeting, and the next time she refused to go with him, he acted out a false suicide, spilling fake blood around him. Later, in her yearbook, he will write in German Ich bin Gott (Russian I am God).
I convinced my friend Dylan, who hates dancing, sportsmen and has never had a date, let alone a girl, to come with me! Either I'm really pretty or just really pushy!In their first year at Columbine, the boys began working at Blackjack Pizza, the place where their colleague Philip Durant would later introduce them to Mark Maines, from whom they would buy some of the weapons used in the gunfight. Together with them, Eric's friend Chris Morris worked there, who, after a shootout, was arrested for suspicion of complicity, but later acquitted.
Harris was a fan of bands such as Rammstein, KMFDM, Orbital, and The Prodigy. Shortly after the shootout, KMFDM published an article on their website condemning Harris and Klebold's violence and denying that their music had anything to do with it.
On the day of the shooting, their classmate Brooks Brown met Harris at his car at the start of his lunch break. They only recently reconciled after Eric threw an ice rock at Brooks' car and hit the windshield. Brown was surprised that Harris got out of the car with a gym bag, because he was out all morning and missed important tests. But Harris' reaction to Brown's bewilderment was indifferent. Eric told him, “Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home" . A few minutes later, students leaving school for lunch saw Brooks at South Pierce Street near their home. Having moved away from the school for some distance, he heard shots and called the police from his neighbor's cell phone.
Because Harris and Klebold were minors at the time, Dylan's then eighteen-year-old girlfriend Robin Anderson purchased two shotguns and a Hi-Point carbine for them. Later, Anderson was not charged for her participation in this case, because she did not violate any laws in this place, and she herself actively cooperated with the investigation. After receiving the Stevens 311D, Klebold sawed off the barrel, cutting it down to about 23 inches, which was already considered a felony under the National Firearms Act. Harris shortened the barrel of his shotgun to about 26 inches.
Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold in the cafeteria after one of their bombs went off. Surveillance camera recording
The history of their acquisition of the Intratec TEC-DC9 semi-automatic pistol looks quite long. It is known that the gun manufacturer first sold it to Miami-based Navegar Incorporated, from where it was later sold to Zadner Sporting Goods in Baldwin, Illinois in 1994. It then made its way to Fronton, Colorado, to firearms dealer Larry Russell, who, in violation of federal law, did not keep any records or records of gun sales, and therefore it was difficult to say to whom exactly he sold those guns. He only remembered that buyers were drawn to the age of 21 or even more. Unlike Philip Durand and Mark Maines, Russell was not brought to trial because he could not identify either Harris with Klebold or Robin Anderson in the photo.
The bombs the teenagers wanted to detonate at the school were crudely made devices from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipes, and metal propane bottles, which Harris and Klebold had bought for a few hundred dollars at a hardware store on the last weekend before the attack. The bombs were self-igniting. The morning before the attack, Harris bought several more bottles of propane. The bombs that Eric and Dylan planted in the cafeteria had some sort of timers, but the latter were hastily assembled and ended up not working correctly. It was later determined that if one of the two bombs had detonated properly, Columbine would then collapse and the death toll would be in the hundreds.
In their diaries, Harris and Klebold wrote a great deal about how they would carry out the attack, but they wrote much less about the reasons why they wanted to carry it out. The diary, found in Harris's room, contained details that the guys had planned for the day of April 20 since five in the morning. In the notes, the young men often wrote about events such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the Siege of Mount Carmel, and other similar cases. The records of this were for the most part like advertisements for those events, as Harris and Klebold expressed their desire to "surpass" these attacks. They especially focused on what Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma City. The guys directly expressed in the diaries the desire to leave a lasting impression of these events to the world through such a type of violence as a terrorist act.
In his diary, Harris wrote about his vision and admiration for what he envisioned as natural selection, and how he wished he could put everyone inside a Doom game and make sure the weak died and the strong survived. This is probably why Harris was wearing a white T-shirt on the day of the attack, on which NATURAL SELECTION was written in black. In general, this version is confirmed by the fact that later the investigation came to the conclusion that none of the murdered victims was chosen by Harris or Klebold as a specific object for revenge.
The date of the attack caused a lot of controversy, since, according to the records, the attack was originally planned for Monday, April 19th. The reasons why the killers moved it a day later remained unclear. The only explanation is that on April 19, 1999, Eric persuaded Mark Maines to buy additional Tec rounds for $25. He asked him why he needed them, but Eric just brushed it off and said that he "needed them for tomorrow." Maines was unable to get these cartridges until evening, which may be why the date of the attack was pushed back by a day. There was also a version in the media that the date of the attack was adjusted to the birthday of Adolf Hitler, however, people who knew the couple well, such as Robin Anderson, at first said that Harris and Klebold were never obsessed with Nazism or even somehow admired or worshiped Hitler, but in the end, Anderson admitted that the couple clearly had secrets that they did not even tell close friends about.
Harris was about to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, but shortly before the shootout, his application was denied because he was taking the antidepressant Luvox, which was part of his court-ordered therapy. It is likely that this could have been at least partly the cause of his aggression, resulting in a terrorist attack, however, as the investigation found, Harris knew nothing about the rejection of the application. It has been suggested that the reason for the rage could also have been the cessation of taking Luvox, but an autopsy showed that at the time of death, the amount of Luvox in his system was at a therapeutic level. Despite the notion that it is the abrupt cessation of an antidepressant that can disrupt a person's social functioning, after the tragedy at Columbine School, opponents of modern psychiatry, including Peter Breggin, said that the psychotropic drugs that were prescribed to Eric Harris to suppress his aggression , increased its aggressiveness .
Eric's mental problems eventually even led to friction in his relationship with Dylan. Shortly before the attack, Dylan told his mother several times that he thought Eric was crazy and wanted to end his friendship with him, but he was afraid to do so openly.
Harris began keeping his diary some time after the Littleton truck story, in April 1998. At the same time, according to the records, the plan of the terrorist attack began to be developed. The time of the attack was clearly scheduled: 11:17 a.m., since, according to Harris, this was the moment in the school cafeteria with a large number of students.
The personality profile of Eric Harris, which was based on his diary entries and the testimonies of loved ones, described his behavior as " malignant narcissism ... (with) pathological narcissism, antisocial features, paranoid characteristics and voluntary aggression» . Meanwhile, such a profile cannot be considered as a true psychiatric diagnosis, because such, as a rule, should usually be concluded in face-to-face communication with the patient, as well as based on his formal psychological testing and collection of related information about him.
Dylan Klebold's role in the shootout has been shrouded in mystery for some time. In his diary, Klebold wrote that he and Harris were god-like people and much more advanced than other people. Nevertheless, Klebold's secret diary testifies to genuine self-hatred and suicidal tendencies. Although both youths had difficulty coping with their anger, it was Klebold who had tantrums so great that he took the problems much more seriously than Harris. It was established that Klebold enjoyed arguing with teachers and bickering with his boss at Blackjack Pizza. According to their videos, the arrest in January '98 was kind of very traumatic for them. Somewhere during this period, Klebold wrote a letter to Harris, in which he expressed a desire to arrange revenge in the form of fun and killing of police officers. On the day of the attack, Klebold was wearing a black T-shirt with a red inscription WRATH (Russian anger), which gave rise to the version that the attack was arranged specifically for the purpose of revenge for that very arrest, and that the guys clearly planned to organize a major shootout with the police along with the attack . An entry was found in Klebold's diary, according to which he believed that " life wouldn't be fun without a few deaths and that he wished many moments of his past were spent in nerve-wracking swirls of murder and bloodshed. In conclusion, he wrote that he would later kill himself in order to " go to a better place from the world he hates».
The official version was that Klebold and Harris were simply mentally ill by nature and that this was the reason for the attack. From this version, another one was formed, according to which, all the reasons and motives that the guys listed in their diaries were actually invented by them in order to be motivated killers.
Although the diaries and amateur videos of Harris and Klebold (which are called "Basement Tapes") have long been available to the public and the Internet, there are several videos that the police still do not show to the public. According to reports, Harris and Klebold are discussing the motives of the attack on these recordings, as well as giving small instructions on how to create pipe bombs. The police do not show these tapes, citing their content as a "call to arms" and "how-to" that may well encourage imitation.
Initially it was assumed that Harris and Klebold were, as already mentioned, members of the Trenchcoat Mafia. The Trenchcoat Mafia were a small group of Columbine outsiders who wore long black trench coats. Initially, the group was just a small community of gamers who always went out together and started wearing trench coats after one of their members was given a cowboy coat for Christmas. The name "Trenchcoat Mafia" was given to the group by Columbine athletes. Although it was established that Harris and Klebold were part of the group, investigations showed that the guys maintained friendly relations in the group only with Chris Morris, and that most of the original members of the group had already left the school at the time of the attack. Most of the members of the group knew the guys at all only because of their acquaintance with Morris, and therefore, in the future, none of them were charged on suspicion of complicity in the terrorist attack.
For the rest of my life, I will often be horrified and punish myself for what Dylan did.Dylan changed everything I believed in: myself, God, family, love. … I couldn’t understand Dylan’s involvement in the attack until I linked it to Dylan’s final suicideThe Harris family left Littleton in 2005, the Klebolds in April 2014. On April 15, 2000, both families wrote their open letter:
In conclusion, they also thank everyone who supported them during this period.
In April 2001, over 30 people sued the Harrises, Klebolds, Mark Maines, and Philip Duran for $2,538,000. The Harrises and Klebolds, using their insurance, ended up paying out $1,568,000, the Maines $720,000 and the Durans $250,000. At the same time, both families were ordered to keep $32,000 ready for future claims, Maines $80,000, and Duran $50,000. One family filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Harrises and Klebolds and did not accept settlement terms in 2001.
The guys created their own levels for games like Doom, as well as all sorts of graphic modifications. One of the features of these levels was a lot of monsters and an endless stream of ammo and weapons. Contrary to early rumors that surfaced immediately after the shootout, none of these levels come close to resembling Columbine High.
In his diary, Eric Harris mentioned his and Dylan's favorite film, Natural Born Killers, when referring to "Holy April Morning P.O." PU is an abbreviation for the movie title. P born At biytsy”, which they decided to use as the code name for the attack.
Nick Tours attributed a revolutionary motive to the actions of Harris and Klebold. He wrote:
Who would not admit, but to terrorize the American machine in the very place where it exerts its strongest influence, this is truly a revolutionary task. The fact that they are silent about their goals, that they are not even understood, does not deny their existence. Whether you approve or disapprove of their methods, denounce them as malefactors, but dare not dismiss these modern day radicals as nothing less than the latest incarnation of the disillusioned rebels leading the current American Revolution.
Who would not concede that terrorizing the American machine, at the very site where it exerts its most powerful influence, is a truly revolutionary task? To be inarticulate about your goals, even to not understand them, does not negate their existence. Approve or disapprove of their methods, vilify them as miscreants, but don't dare disregard these modern radicals as anything less than the latest incarnation of disaffected insurgents waging the ongoing American revolution.
Historian David Farber of Temple University wrote that Turse's claim
only makes sense in an academic culture in which transgression is by definition political and in which any anger against society can be considered radical.
only makes sense in an academic culture in which transgression is by definition political and in which any rage against society can be considered radical.
Perhaps these two American youths would never have become the heroes of reports, as well as news and analytical articles. Their motives and behavior would not be the subject of study by psychologists and psychoanalysts. And, of course, they would not be cursed by the parents and relatives of all those children and adolescents who became unwitting victims and participants in the terrible, unbelievable events arranged by two friends. Eric and Dylan would live quietly in their cozy American world, grow up, have children, read newspapers in the morning and live their lives in peace. How could all the other participants in those terrible events live and rejoice ... However, for them, as well as for their many victims, everything turned out to be much worse. The massacre at Columbine High School, in the town of Littleton, Colorado (Littleton, Colorado), staged on April 20, 1999, claimed 13 lives and left more than two dozen injured.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were not particularly popular among their peers. Rather, they were the ones being bullied and ridiculed. Having made friends, the guys actively played computer games, in particular, Doom. Eric even created new levels for the game himself, had several websites where he posted his versions of "Doom" for online play.
Eric Harris was the son of US Air Force pilot Wayne Harris and Katherine Ann Poole, a housewife who came to Littleton after her father's forced resignation. At first, the Harrises lived in a rented house, later his father found a job, although not at the helm
m aircraft, but in this area, the mother also found a job for herself, and the family bought a house in Littleton.
With Dylan, Eric met through a mutual friend Brooks Brown (Brooks Brown).
Dylan Klebold, unlike Eric, lived in this area longer, he had more friends and acquaintances. However, according to the memoirs of his parents, Thomas Klebold and Susan Yassenoff (Thomas Klebold and Susan Yassenoff), their son always felt like an outcast and he was not too comfortable surrounded by peers. At Columbine High School, where Dylan moved in 1995, he actively began to work with equipment - sound and lighting - in the school theater, and also helped in the computer lab, working with the school server.
Having made friends, the guys somewhat opposed themselves to the schoolboys bullying them and even began to intimidate their yesterday's offenders themselves. Having networked their computers, they spent a lot of time playing Doom, and were also very interested in terrorist attacks. Subsequently, their diaries were found records of the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma City), committed by the notorious Timothy McVeigh (Timothy McVeigh), in addition, Eric and Dylan openly dreamed of surpassing the terrorist.
The first friction with the law arose in 1998, a year before the sad events at the school - in January, friends were arrested for stealing property from a truck parked on the outskirts of Littleton. However, the case was then "lowered on the brakes", and the teenagers did not receive the deserved punishment. In March of the same year, Harris made some pretty serious threats on his website about
regarding the already mentioned Brooks Brown, his friend, however, even then the police did not see in Eric a subject dangerous to society.
And just before the attack, the guys had some kind of "practice" by presenting a video as part of a school project in which Eric and Dylan appeared as assassins firing fake weapons. The violence that was undisguised and of which the creative description of their project also consisted, again went unnoticed.
On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold smuggled bags of improvised explosives and semi-automatic weapons into Columbine High School. Having opened fire on the street, the teenagers continued their brutal hunt in the classrooms and corridors. Their bloody path ended in the school library, where the students were just studying. Here the guys shot at close range and finished off a few more of their victims. They sought out someone specifically and purposefully, settling scores, but in general they killed everyone in a row. At the same time, Eric and Dylan exchanged jokes and laughed merrily. Having finished their terrible deed, both friends, wandering through the empty corridors and school premises, returned to the library, where they fired their last shots, shooting themselves.
It is known that having met Brooks Brown near the school, with whom they had recently reconciled, Eric did not show aggression, but, on the contrary, advised him to get away from this place.
It is known that even during the massacre, the school was cordoned off by the police, special forces and rangers. The information available to the authorities was
too contradictory for a correct assessment of the combat situation - for example, the policemen were sure that a well-trained and equally well-equipped terrorist squad was operating in the school. This opinion was further confirmed after a short firefight through the window openings.
The result of that terrible morning was 15 killed, along with Eric and Dylan, and 21 wounded.
After these events, many versions of the motives for this crime, which did not fit in the minds of ordinary people, sounded. Both violent computer games and heavy music, which both guys were fond of, were also accused. The antidepressants that were prescribed to Harris were also blamed, and even the actual legislation that made the very availability of weapons for two teenagers possible. "School apartheid" was also a separate motive, dividing all students into "athletes", "excellent students" and others who remained beyond popularity.
However, numerous versions of the motives of the crime remained versions - it turned out to be simply impossible to explain the act of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. How and when the souls of two American teenagers were so hopelessly mutilated, neither parents, nor friends, nor school teachers could explain.
The struggle for popularity, for attention, for the love and friendship of peers - perhaps this explains their terrible act. Unfortunately, the diaries of Harris and Klebold, in which the actual terrorist attack was described in great detail and in detail, did not give any explanation about the motives for the crime.
In modern history, the murder at Columbine has a special place. The massacre arranged by two teenagers shocked the whole country. This event led to a public controversy surrounding violent video games and permitting the purchase of firearms.
Harris and Klebold
The Columbine School in Colorado was no different from thousands of similar educational institutions throughout the country. Here in the last class studied friends Eric and Dylan. They also had strange habits. A few years before the Columbine massacre occurred, students ended up in the police because of disorderly conduct and computer theft.
Young people clashed with their peers. Eric Harris went to see a psychiatrist because he was diagnosed with depression. He was taking medication that could have had a negative effect on his behavior. Friends ran a blog on the Internet, where they posted amateur videos related to the production of explosives and weapons.
Shooters plan
On April 20, 1999, Eric and Dylan planned an explosion at their own school. To do this, they secretly engaged in the production of various bombs for several months. According to their plan, they were to plant explosives in the school cafeteria and go outside. After the detonator worked, the shooters were supposed to open fire on students and staff who ran out in a panic. In total, friends were going to kill up to five hundred people.
If the bombs were homemade by Eric and Dylan, then they had to resort to trickery to get the weapons. None of the shooters had yet reached the age of majority, so they asked a friend who went to Denver to buy guns. The girl was unaware of the plans of Harissa and Klebold.
Start of attack
On April 20, 1999, friends came to their school. They went to the cafeteria, where they quietly planted bombs with detonators, after which they hurriedly went outside. However, the explosion did not happen at the appointed time. At first, Harris and Klebold decided to wait a few more minutes for reassurance. However, when nothing happened after that, they switched to plan B.
It consisted in the fact that the shooters took weapons from their car and went to the classrooms to arrange a massacre. Thus began the massacre at Columbine High School. As Harris took his gym bag with him, he was greeted by a school friend who asked him why he missed class. Instead of a clear answer, Eric said to a friend: “I like you. Leave. Go home." A minute later, this guy heard the first shots.
First killed
The first victims of the shooters were a couple who were sitting on the lawn in front of the school. The girl died immediately from bullet wounds, and her friend later became disabled. After that, the shooters opened indiscriminate fire on the guys who were in sight. So three friends were seriously injured, who decided that the high school students were just playing them.
Subsequently, the massacre at the Columbine school was transferred inside it. The shooters entered the building from the back entrance. Once in the western wing, they began to shoot those who were in the corridor. The next targets were the students sitting in the classrooms nearby. One of the teachers went to the library, from where she called 911. Soon the police learned about the incident. The outfit went to the school.
When the police arrived, Klebold and Hariss were already inside the building. The officers managed to notice the shooters through the window, after which a shootout ensued. However, no one was hurt or injured.
Massacre in the library
At this time, friends were heading to the library. This is where they killed the most people. Their victims were 10 students. They all hid under tables when Dylan Klebold and his comrade entered the room. However, this did not save them. Here, the shooting at the US Columbine School was carried out to kill. The killers came close to their victims and shot them in cold blood. Teenagers mocked the wounded and dumbfounded peers, asking them tricky questions about the desire to die and faith in God. The shooters were clearly enjoying themselves. According to surviving eyewitnesses, Klebold and Harris were constantly laughing and joking with each other.
In addition, the comrades took carbon dioxide bombs with them, which they decided to use directly in the library. One of them was thrown under the table where a school student was hiding. Some of the victims were fired as many as a dozen shots. When the friends left the library twenty minutes later, 12 people had already been killed in the school. Another teacher bled to death and died some time later. Thus, Klebold and Harris took the lives of 13 people. The list of the dead appeared in a few hours after the tragedy.
Friends return to the dining room
The shooters descended into the dining room, where the failed bombs were still stored. Eyewitnesses recalled that while still in the library, one of the friends said that they would blow up the school anyway. Apparently, they went to the dining room to finally activate the explosives stored there. Surveillance cameras were working in the room, which recorded the guys in the last minutes of their lives. The comrades puzzled over how they had with them which was produced in the garage in preparation for the attack on the school.
Harris threw the bottle at the place where the bombs were stored. Friends hurriedly left the room, expecting an explosion. It happened, but its power was not at all as deadly as the schoolchildren had hoped. A security camera recorded the moment the cafeteria was on fire, following the explosion of a fireball from a bomb.
Suicide of Harris and Klebold
In the meantime, an evacuation of students was organized on the street, who were injured even before the shooters were in the building. The police developed a plan of action. Special forces arrived on the scene. The situation was aggravated by the fact that no one knew the exact number of attackers on the school. Initially, the police believed that they were dealing with an organized terrorist attack in which a dozen people took part.
When the friends left the cafeteria, they headed back up to the top floor. From there began the last skirmish with the policemen who were on the street. Friends fired until they had almost no bullets left. Then the shooting at the US Columbine school ended, Hariss and Klebold went to the next room, where they committed suicide.
The work of sappers and special forces
After the noise at the school subsided, the police still decided to storm. Special forces and sappers were sent there. The latter took up the library, where there were several failed bombs. They needed to be neutralized in the first place, as they interfered with the evacuation of the wounded and the removal of the corpses. Soon, the sappers were informed that explosives were also stored in the teenagers' car. They were also disposed of, and no one else was hurt. It turned out that the shooters did not take with them all their ammunition. Explosives and ammunition were found in the car.
However, when SWAT was in the building, it became clear that the shooters had already been finished. Their bodies were found nearby in a burning room on the top floor. Apparently, Eric Harris left behind a Molotov cocktail that crashed and started a fire. This was evidenced by the smoke detector signal, which worked a minute after the death of teenagers. Suicides fired shots in the mouth and temple. Death for them came instantly.
The meaning of tragedy
Together with the names of the shooters, the list of the dead includes 15 people. In memory of the victims, a memorial complex was built in the city. At the time when the shooting at Columbine School had just happened, it was the third largest such incident in US history by the number of victims. We are talking about massacres in educational institutions. However, it was this case in Colorado that became world famous.
The reason for this was the work of the then media. Soon there were dozens of reporters from various television channels and newspapers near the school. The tragedy also resonated with the international community. It was the journalists who drew the attention of every American to what happened in an ordinary provincial school. The society demanded the results of the investigation by the responsible authorities.
Since that April day, the whole world has known that the Columbine School exists. The year 1999 remained in the mass consciousness associated with this tragedy. The word "Columbine" has become winged. Unfortunately, similar incidents of shootings in US educational institutions, including schools and universities, continue to be repeated.
In 2007, a similar tragedy occurred at Virginia Tech when 33 people died. A few years later, gunfire broke out at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It killed 28 people.
Investigation of what happened
When the names of the shooters became known to the police, investigators immediately went to their homes. They feared that important evidence would be destroyed. That did not happen. The investigation continued until January 2000, when details of what had happened were made public.
Until that moment, various conspiracy theories of what happened were popular in the United States. For example, teenagers were considered religious fanatics who staged a massacre at the Columbine School. generally was full of scandals associated with various totalitarian sects.
public scandal
After the details of the life of two shooters from Colorado became clear, there were several media scandals. Investigators found Harris' diaries, where he described in detail his impressions of the computer game Doom. In this shooter you need to shoot at numerous monsters. Many Americans accused the game of promoting violence.
In addition, the public criticized several groups that teenagers listened to. Rammstein musicians from Germany were especially persecuted. They were known for their provocative entourage on stage. In addition, the lyrics of their songs often touched on the topic of violence, hatred and intolerance. Members of the group denied all accusations and condemned the shooters. A similar campaign was waged against Marilyn Manson. This American performer was noted for having prepared a special publication in the press, in which he talked about the causes of the tragedy. In addition, the musician wrote two songs dedicated to what happened at the Columbine school.
There was a heated discussion about the sale of firearms. In the aftermath of the tragedy, several states introduced laws prohibiting or restricting such trade. American law has a number of features. General federal regulations do not apply in such matters. Each subject of the state decides in its own way whether to allow or prohibit the sale of weapons. The same rules apply to the regulation of the death penalty, etc.
Details of the death of Eric and Dylan.
The following facts are known to us for sure, they are confirmed by the testimony.
Dylan and Eric returned to the library and exchanged fire with the police. The shots were fired between 12:02 p.m. and 12:05 p.m., after which no shots from Eric or Dylan were heard by anyone.
The only survivors in the library are Lisa Kreutz, Patrick Ireland, and a few people hiding in the next room. Both - Lisa and Patrick - were seriously injured and were unconscious for some time.
Due to the fire that broke out during the rescue operation outside, eyewitnesses inside and near the library could not tell the exact time when Eric and Dylan committed suicide.
The fire alarm on the ceiling of the library went off at 12.08. It hung just over the place where the bodies of Eric and Dylan would later be discovered. It was triggered by a fire reportedly ignited by a Molotov cocktail found on a library table next to their corpses.
An investigator from the Central Bureau of Investigation concluded that the fact that the Molotov cocktail was found near the bodies of Eric and Dylan indicates that the ignition occurred after their death.
Eric died instantly by shooting himself in the mouth. He was found near a bookcase, and was most likely sitting on the floor before being shot. His brains were spattered on both the bookcase and the ceiling.
Dylan died from a gunshot to the left temple, and presumably, his death did not come immediately. This conclusion is made in connection with the presence of blood in his respiratory tract and lungs. He lay to the left of Eric. Perhaps he ignited the Molotov cocktail. A small stack of his belongings was folded into a bag, which he took off before committing suicide.
Eric died before Dylan. There are several pieces of evidence for this, but the most reliable is that Dylan's head was on Eric's knee. You can see it in the photos.
There were no original photos to be found, and no accurate descriptions of their situation after death were given by law enforcement agencies. Some things and unused weapons found near their bodies were described in more or less detail, which cannot be said about the position in which they were after death. It may be that there is not a single photograph of their bodies in their original position, because before the arrival of the medical examiners, the sappers examined their bodies to find out if they had explosives.
The investigation confirmed that by 12.30 Eric and Dylan were dead, meanwhile, their bodies were discovered only after 3 hours.
Patti Nielson's report titled "One-Two-Three!" based on conjecture, not hard facts.
Lisa Kreutz reported hearing the words, “Are you still with me? We'll do it, won't we?" before Eric and Dylan appeared in the library, but the absence of other witnesses led me to the conclusion that this was not said at the time of their first appearance in the library, but at the moment they returned there.
Patrick Ireland heard someone cough after the fire alarm went off, which brought him to consciousness. It appears that Patrick was near table number 15, the same one that Eric and Dylan were found near, this could be evidence that Dylan was alive, albeit briefly, after he shot himself in the head.