Unanswered Question Remain for Columbine

[adios]

The anniverary of the Columbine shootings and not coincidently (the reason the killers chose the day they did) April 20 is the day Hitler was born. I saw a Dateline show regarding Columbine and the massacre. Very disturbing and what implications does it have regarding "gun control." Also it seems to the casual observer that there is probably a police cover up.

Unanswered Question Remain for Columbine (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=20&u=/ap/20040420/ap_on_re_us/columbine_unanswered_questions_1)

Unanswered Question Remain for Columbine
Tue Apr 20, 2:09 AM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!


By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer

LITTLETON, Colo. - For nearly five years, unsettling details have trickled out from dusty file cabinets and evidence vaults about just how much authorities and others knew before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold slaughtered 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School.

Misplaced police reports, prophetic videos made by the killers at the school itself, a father's secret journal, a Web site and essay promising death — families of the victims say the warning signs were clear.

"How many times have we heard this was everything, only for something else to come out?" asked Dawn Anna, mother of murdered student Lauren Townsend. "The first time we heard that was back in 1999."


Some 30,000 documents in the case have been released over the years and 10,418 pieces of evidence ranging from a tooth fragment to propane tanks were put on public display this year.


Local authorities, the school district, a state commission and the Colorado attorney general have all investigated, but the question remains: Why didn't someone — a parent, a sheriff's deputy, a teacher, a fellow student — step in before the suicidal gunmen went on their rampage?


Victims' families have tried to get answers: Some sued the sheriff's department, the school district and the parents of the killers. They won damages, but a federal judge sealed many records.


At the heart of most questions is the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, which responded to the massacre and led the official investigation. Its track record is spotty at best.


After the shootings, sheriff's officials downplayed tips about Harris making death threats — even though they relied on them to get a search warrant for his home hours after the bloodshed.


Randy and Judy Brown, whose sons were threatened by Harris, made several attempts to get the sheriff's department to investigate.


The tips started in 1997, when one of the Browns' two sons gave a deputy a printout of a Web site in which Harris boasted of going on nighttime missions with Klebold, firing weapons and vandalizing property.


The Web site later included boasts by Harris and Klebold about building pipe bombs and referred to "ground zero."


The tip was forwarded to former sheriff's investigator John Hicks. A warrant was drafted to search the Harris home, but it was never executed. A report by Hicks was found tucked inside a training manual just six months ago, a stunning revelation that prompted new Sheriff Ted Mink to ask Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar to investigate.


Salazar said he found no negligence by the sheriff's department, though he found at least 15 instances of contact between law enforcement and one or both of the killers.


Other warning signs included violent videos made by Harris and Klebold for a class project and an essay by Klebold in another class describing a Columbine-like slaying of "preps." In one video project five months before the rampage, the two stalk through Columbine itself, offering hit man services to classmates tired of being bullied.


Harris and Klebold were arrested for a break-in a year before the attack, but parole officers were never told about the death threats tied to the teens. Both completed probation and were deemed to be likely candidates for success as adults.


"There was overwhelming evidence. Columbine should have been prevented," said Brian Rohrbough, whose son, Daniel, was one of the first to die. "We cannot turn back the hands of time, but we can put all this information out on the table. ... We can make this an example of what went wrong so that we can prevent it from happening again."


Most excruciating for some of those seeking answers is the fact that some information is being kept secret. The Harris and Klebold families were forced to give depositions to settle a lawsuit, but what they said remains sealed.





Joe Kechter, whose son, Matt, died at Columbine, said the lawsuit was settled because families were running out of money to fight the insurance companies whose homeowners' policies covered the Klebolds and Harrises.

"I hope some day the Klebolds and Harrises agree to get this information out so it can save other kids lives in the future," Kechter said. "I am doing this in respect of my son. I feel the police and the whole system let him down that day. I am not going to let him down."

The school district's investigation also remains confidential because officials say its release would violate attorney-client privilege. Salazar's investigation remains open, though family members don't expect big news from the new U.S. Senate candidate.

"I really don't think we are going to get any more answers," said Al Velasquez, whose son, Kyle, was among those killed.

[benfranklin]

Columbine happened because the 2 idiots were spoiled brats who had too much free time and money, no resposibility, no supervision, and no direction. They spent their time driving around in their BMWs, moaning about how life sucks, and pulling pranks and stunts that escalated into more and more destruction and lunacy. The parents, the school, and the police are guilty of denial, incompetence, and neglect. There is plenty of evidence that all three parties were well aware of potential problems. (The father of one of the kids found pipebombs in the basement, and made the kid get rid of them. And believed the kid's story that they were just fireworks. Big time denial.)

Jefferson County is big-income suburbia, and the Sheriff's Office there is not used to dealing with much more than speeders and kids on senior skip day teepeeing houses. And I'm sure that any attempt to investigate a taxpayer's innocent little darling teenager is met with parental denial and resentment about storm troopers and police states.

I'd bet that there were at least a dozen other kids in that school who were doing the same kinds of things, had the same kind of warning signs, and were equally ignored. And there is no doubt that the parents, the school, and the police have been scrambling like crazy to cover their butts. Why does that surprise anyone? They are trying to cover-up an endemic pattern of neglect and incompetence that finally come home to roost.

As to the question of gun control, I just read that the father of one of the victims is lobbying for legislation extending the soon-to-expire "Assault Weapon Ban", saying that it is necessary to prevent future Columbines. The AWB was in effect when Columbine happened. How is extending it going to prevent something like it from happening again? The AWB is cosmetic, as is much gun control. It is concerned with things like folding stocks and bayonet lugs, and makes society safer by limiting gun magazines to a capacity of 10 rounds. So the idiots have to reload if they want to shoot more than 10 people? That's effective!

The 2 idiots broke the laws, including gun control laws. More laws are not going to stop anyone in the future who is willing to break the law. This problem is not going to be solved by more laws. It is going to be solved by parental supervision and responsibility; by schools that are as concerned about what students are doing as how the students feel about themselves; and by police with the guts to enforce the law and to investigate influential taxpayers and their spawn.

[Nick B.]

I went to middle school with Harris before he moved to Colorado. How scary is that? Although, I don't think that any of this would have happened anywhere had he not moved. I think there was something about the bigger city aspect that caused his to become the way he did.

[HDPM]

When the news of Columbine first broke, they only reported (or I only heard) a "Denver high school." I got worried thinking it was maybe the inner city high school I attended there. After all, you could buy a gun or stolen stuff or drugs if you asked around a little. In the years after I graduated things got somewhat worse at that school due to a combination of things. Then I heard it was Columbine and I asked myself the proverbial WTF? I think what you say may have some truth to it, although generalizations are dangerous when discussing depraved individual conduct. Even after my high school got worse, you didn't hear about shootings or anything and the kids who go there are on average worse off than the kids in Jeffco at Columbine and have at least as much access to guns. So who knows. I don't think you can draw sweeping conclusions, but the spoiled brats theory crossed my mind a time or two. I don't think it has much of anything to do with gun control. Plenty of inner city kids and rural kids can get their hands on guns, but there aren't all that many school shootings. More than some people think I guess, but fewer than you would expect if simple availability of guns were the cause, which of course it isn't.

[Boris]

I lived in inner city Oakland for about a year and I can tell you that the drivers there are some of the most polite drivers around. no road rage. no middle fingers. want to cut into traffic on a busy street? no problem. I'm sure the reason is that you never knew quite what kind of person you were dealing with so better to just be nice.

[Bill Murphy]

W/o reading more than the subject line of your post, nor any of the replies so far, my question is:

Has there ever been a greater show of cowardice and incompetence by law enforcement officials and rescue personnel than at the Columbine tragedy?

Forgot it was the anniversary(if we can use such a word). Seen all the old photos; never mind.

Teacher bled to death five hours after the killers had committed suicide, in a room full of cellphones. Half-paralyzed kid has to crawl out thru broken glass onto an APC. Etc.

Nice going, guys.

[snakehead]

I agree. to paraphrase a father of one of the students at columbine, "when I arrived I expected to them carrying out dead or wounded police officers, not students."

[mosta]

talk about social control--parental supervision, school security, laws and rules, role models, blah blah blah. kids are going to trespass and vandalize and otherwise find things to do (even blow things up) that they're not supposed to do, or at least the ones with brains will. nothing wrong with that. as far as social control goes, columbine itself, I think, is much more significant than anything that will come out of any school board or parent meeting. no one likes to see a massacre, but--here at last is a real wake-up call, for the bullies and the asshles. the personal harm done in schools all around the country day in day out, year after year by the routine abuse and humiliation that is a tacitly accepted part of juvenile culture everywhere adds up to much more than 10 or 20 lives. now, as kids start to get a bigger and look for targets some should think twice. they'll have heard--torture someone long enough, and they may come for you. you don't like them? they don't fit in? maybe better to leave them alone.

[adios]

If I understand you correctly, it's the culture of the high school that was a big contributing factor. Glorifying the jocks, the cheerleaders, and such is the culture that's created which leads to the abuse you refer to. I don't think there's much doubt that these two loathed that atmosphere.

[adios]

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
If I understand you correctly, it's the culture of the high school that was a big contributing factor. Glorifying the jocks, the cheerleaders, and such is the culture that's created which leads to the abuse you refer to. I don't think there's much doubt that these two loathed that atmosphere.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any high school is going to have cliques of jocks and preppies and hippies and greasers and dirts and goths and on and on. And every group looks down on every other group. But some groups always end up as the in-crowd, which adds envy and resentment into the mix of self-doubt and raging hormones. Those two not only didn't like that, but they went to great lengths to make themselves even greater outsiders. A big part of the problem here is that the school and the parents did nothing to educate these kids as to human nature, and how people act, and the fact that this behaviour is at a overt peak (and generally most cruel) in high school. And the parents and the school and the police did not see or admit that these two were over-reacting and on the edge.

By the way, this cultural structure is life-long, just not as overt. There was a great quote from the actress Meryl Streep in an interview. She said that when she was in college, she believed that when she graduated and went to work, the "real" world would be a lot like college as far as doing what you had to do and getting along with people and so on. Then she got out there and found out that the "real" world was just like high school.