Reliving the Columbine Shooting

However, by the time the boys had arrived at the school, they were already behind schedule. The bombs they were placing in the cafeteria were slated to go off at 11:17 but surveillance tapes showed Eric and Dylan still outside the commons area with only three minutes to spare. Then at 11:22, the tapes showed the bombs still in place and intact. Then book then shifts focus to a Deputy, named Neil Gardner, who was employed by the sheriff’s department but was however, assigned as a resource officer at Columbine. The book discusses about how on the day of the attack, the deputy left campus at lunch to eat.

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,

Columbine High School Shooting: Why did Columbine occur and what can be learned from it?

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?”

    Truth lied deep in the multiple news stories that were spread across the nation in a matter of minutes. As the world became aware of the tragedies at Columbine many ideas were widely spread, but not all of them were true, Cullen showed the readers the truth of what happened. Distressed students and faculty call the news to report the situation, in such a terrifying experience their judgement and memory is clouded by fear, many people thought that they were telling the truth but in fact it was only the truth that lies in their head. “One hour into the columbine horror, news stations were informing the public that toe or more gunmen were behind it. Two hours in, The Trench Coat Mafia was to blame.” (Cullen 150). New was reported on what was thought to be true at the time, but as they spoke too soon, the information that was spread across the nation proved to be false. As Cullen analyzed thousands of papers, taped and videos he was able to understand where

The school staffs had a huge meeting which involved support for the people who got killed and they talked about what must be done differently to prevent shootings to ever take place again in the school. After this took place, the rules were stricter. Students could not bring minor items to school such as a nail clipper because that would result into the student getting suspended. If the rules at school were broken at all, students would face profound consequences. Everything that happened on this day, to the teachers, and to the kids changed the way people acted around the school.

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

"I'm angry someone would do this to us. There are lives ruined, families ruined, and our whole school year is ruined" (Brackely 1). Casey Brackely, once a student that attended Columbine High School, remembers the tragedy of the horrific Columbine shooting that killed and injured many students. Mass shootings in the United States have been on the rise since the 1980’s, especially in the last decade. These shooters motives and profiles are almost all terrifyingly alike. Many of these shooters try to imitate and parallel the tragic shooting of the Columbine High School in 1999. These shootings have made peaceful organizations, such as an elementary school; become a place of violence and death. Currently, in the United States, an epidemic of

Dressed in trench coats Eric and Dylan went to Columbine High School, of which they attended with intent to blow the whole place up. Mimicking the Oklahoma shootings in 1995. After placing the bombs throughout the school, they went to their cars to wait for the explosions. Neither Eric or Dylan were knowledgeable when it came to wiring explosives so they did not detonate. It was then they armed up and started the massacre at Columbine High on April 20, 1999. They would go on to kill 13 people, and wounding over 20 people; as well as, spraying bullets as they walked through the halls, no remorse or hesitation just complete anililation. Wanting to surpass the worlds mass murders status. Pupils and and teachers alike locking themselves in closets

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

    It was a typical Tuesday morning at Columbine High School in Colorado. That was until Eric Harris and

They savagely murder thirteen high school students and staff, and before ending their own lives in the library, injure many more such as Patrick Ireland, who was shot in the head yet somehow, clinging to life, managed to survive and graduate as valedictorian the next year. Cassie Bernall, one of the Columbine students who was murdered by Dylan Klebold, was long regarded as a martyr, yet it was actually another high school student, Columbine survivor Valeen Schnurr, was the one who was actually asked if she believed in God by Dylan. When Valeen said yes, she was shot by Dylan and survived, later telling her story to others. Coach Dave Sanders, who was shot during the initial attack, survived for a few hours before succumbing to blood loss. His family sued the police as it was shown he could’ve been saved by S.W.A.T but wasn’t.

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