The senseless murders of innocent people. Two males. Outcasts. Mentally ill.
Paranoid schizophrenics.
The deaths of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on November 15, 1959 as portrayed by Truman Capote in his classic work “In Cold Blood?” Or the violent slaughter of classmates at Columbine High School nearly a half century later?
Two males? Check.
Outcasts? Check.
Mentally ill? Check.
Paranoid schizophrenics? Check.
If Richard Hickok and Perry Smith were somehow to travel in time to Columbine
High School as teenagers as the century was about to turn, they could have easily morphed into Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, taking innocent lives in a society that breeds contempt – if looking for it.
However, if Dylan Klebold and Eric
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Both slaughters were horrific. Both senseless. The murder described in “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote shocked the world. Hardworking people – like the Clutter family – and in small towns – similar to Holcomb, Kansas – they were the simplest of people, and they just did not get slaughtered for no reason. The shooting at Columbine was similar to this in that there was no actual reason for the mass murder of fourteen innocent lives. The shooters were bullied, but can we say that is an excuse for the crime? No, of course not. The shooting at Columbine also stunned the world, it also ripped out the heart of every man, woman, and children. The world stopped. Things like this were not supposed to happen. Children – whether they be in elementary school or college – should never feel unsafe and unprotected as they did on the day of the shooting. Just as small town families that had little to do with anything of grave importance, they suddenly felt vulnerable. They began to imagine, “That murdered family could have been us, they were just like us.” People in colleges at the time of Columbine began to think, “Kids are bullied here too, what says that they won’t snap just like at Columbine? Are we safe?” No one can say for sure that if the murders of the Clutter family were sent into the time of Columbine that they could have potentially been the two boys at Columbine, or vice versa. However, it is far more likely that these two
In Cold Blood and Columbine are two books that have a lot of similarities. The two books both revolve around two guys with mental health issues, who are responsible for murdering a group of people. There is a psychopath along with a sociopath present in both stories. All four men from the books have gotten in trouble with the law prior to the murders.
On April 20, 1999, the unimaginable occurred at Columbine High School in the small town of Littleton, Colorado. A school shooting, perpetrated by, then senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took the entire community by storm. With 15 deaths, including the perpetrators, and 24 non-fatal injuries, the memories of this horrific massacre will forever resonate in minds of all. With a meticulously, thought out plan, the two shooters prepared guns and bombs before performing the sickening act. Families, the FBI, local officials, psychologists,
The Clutter family and the family of Betty Spencer. Also similar were the number of people left dead at the scene. Both tragedies ended in four
This nationwide panic of school shootings and juveniles synonymous with “folk devils” can be shown using the five features presented by Goode and Ben-Yehuda (Steeves and Milford, 2015). There was initial concern, as several high profile incidents occurred within a period from late 1997 until the Columbine shootings on April 20, 1999 (Burns and Crawford, 1999). The media played a key role by describing the horrifying accounts after each shooting to the public, while they also advertised the funerals of victims throughout social media, radios, and televisions (Burns and Crawford, 1999). Much of the concern is depicted through the actions taken, by “hiring additional security guards”, “installing metal detectors in schools”, and creating “school lockdown procedures” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 152) to name a few. Next was hostility, shown through the “punitive and restrictive responses”, implemented and directed towards “juvenile delinquents” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 153). It became a felony to “expose children to books, movies, and video games that contain explicit sex or violence” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 152). Fueled by the words of Juvenile Magistrate Deborah Robertson, Reverend Mark Clark, and
Almost twenty years ago, on April 20th, 1999 just seemed like any other regular day of that time. Everyone went about their regular routine; parents going to work, children going to school, young adults going to colleges. But two high school seniors of Columbine High had no intentions of going about their regular days. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their school with mind made of never leaving that school again alive but not before committing the most heinous and bloody massacre ever committed in the United States history. There has been bombing where the death toll was significantly higher than Columbine shooting. But what made this tragedy so terrifying was this was not any terrorist or radicalized person trying to avenge authorities; these were two teenagers killing their fellow classmates and teachers. Something that none thinks about, it was like a parent’s worst nightmare coming true. Eric and Dylan killed a total of thirteen people, students and teachers combined, and seriously injuring over twenty others . This shooting sent shockwaves across the country, but most evidently sent criminal justice community scrambling looking for answers into why these two boys did what they did? What happened that made them mass murderers? To explore these questions criminologists started applying crime theories to the both their present life and their upbringing.
The first misconception is that the social cliques that occur in high schools across the nation has a role in this tragedy. Columbine is not simply a school shooting but is rather a shooting that the gunmen chose the school as their tool. School shooters tend to act impulsively and attack the targets of their rage mainly the students and faculty. Harris and Klebold planned for a year and dreamed much bigger. The school served as a means to a grander end, to terrorize the entire nation by attacking a symbol of American life. The shooters talk in numerous video tapes about their act being bigger than the Oklahoma city bombings. They boasted about making sure there bloody performance was bigger and more memorable. Klebold is particular was quoted as bragging about inflicting “the most deaths in U.S. history. Columbine was
One of the most horrific shootings that scared America was the Columbine High School shooting of 1999. Though not the first mass shooting, this shooting was the first major school shooting with the death of 12 students, 1 teacher, and 21 injured. The two shooters were Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Both of the killers were white, male, and 18. They had both parents, were both a part of an
School violence, is an issue that is hard to deal with. There are things that may be done to decrease it but it does not seem like it will ever go away. Parents send their children to school to learn, to have fun, to pass notes, and to meet new people, not to be shot at and never have the chance to come home ever again. They should not have to think or be afraid of sending their child to school and never seeing them. Last year one of the worst school shootings took place at Columbine High School. Not only did it effect the famlies of the victims and of the killers, pretty much the whole nation was involved and many people were brought in to figure out what had happened, and why it happened. This incident brought our nation together, and
why Columbine was so big was because of the killing of so many harmless teenagers. It
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold changed the way schools handle threat precautions. The secrets they left us; the boys being outcasts, bullies, and the trench coat mafia, leave us with a horrible tragedy to deal with. Which are just some of the proven myths in the shooting of Columbine.
On April 20th of the year 1999, two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went armed into Columbine High School with guns, knives, and a multitude of bombs. The result was the slaughter of twelve students and one teacher. The gunners also turned the guns
Parents of the kids who were killed in the shooting were upset and fuming at the same time. When parents of the passed were allowed to pay respects to their children, Brian Rohrbough was almost censored when he called Columbine School District “godless” and ended with a bible verse, Isaiah 48:22, saying “There is no peace for the wicked”. This book shows the plan, execution and aftermath of the Columbine School Shooting, and shows the lasting effects, both physical and emotional, an event such as this can have on a group of human beings.
On Tuesday, April 20 1999, Columbine High School located in Columbine Colorado an unfortunate massacre happened and many teens lost their lives. The two students responsible for this incident were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. These two senior students were responsible for killing twelve students and one teacher; they were also responsible for injuring an additional twenty one students on their rampage. A few other students were injured while trying to escape the school. Columbine is considered the fourth deadliest school massacre in history. It was said to be that there was not one target but everyone was a target on Eric and Dylan’s rampage through the high school
In Psychology, there are perspectives and approaches that are looked into when trying to understand how the intricate human mind works. These perspectives are respectfully derived from different ideas and time periods, exemplifying different ways of thinking. These perspectives include: sociocultural, biopsychological, psychodynamic, behaviorism, cognitive, and humanism. These approaches are critically essential in solving something as serious as murder, or simply even why someone acts the way they do. There are many instances where there will be shocking news stories about people committing murders—people that are so unexpected to do such harm. However, when the six
Over the past couple of decades, school shooting have seemed to occur often-- continuously shocking the nation and reminding everyone that no community is exempt from such horror. One main contributor of this hysteria is found within the media. At the catalyst of this hysteria, lies the horrific Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then, school shootings have received ample coverage-- some argue that this has romanticized school shootings, others argue that is has provided condemning coverage of the often insane perpetrators. In the first year after the Columbine shooting, over 10,000 articles were written about the event, likely setting the stage for the nationwide desire for constant coverage of such events (Elsass et al, p. 445-446).