Dedicated to the heroes and victims of the Columbine High School massacre and the suffering Eric and Dylan went through for four years, tormented by the jocks and popular kids. I write this because I know what it's like to walk through school and be spat on. Told I was nothing but a freak, that I was no good. For 7 years, people treated me like shit and no one else cared. Stop bullying to prevent kids from committing suicide, or killing others.
ERIC HARRIS' HOUSE
APRIL 28, 1998
LITTLETON, COLORADO
In the middle class of the urban town of Littleton, near Denver, Colorado, a seventeen year old murderer's fantasy was beginning to take shape.
He and a friend, known as VoDKa, or V, intend to commit an act so violent, that it will secure their place in history.
Typed up rant by Eric Harris:
"Sometime in April, me and V will get revenge and will kick Natural Selection up a few notches...If we have figured out the art of time bombs before hand, we will set hundreds of them around houses, roads, bridges, buildings and gas stations, anything that will cause damage and chaos...It'll be like LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together."
"I want to leave a lasting impression on the world."
One year later, on April 20th, 1999, Eric David Harris, and another Columbine student, Dylan Bennet Klebold, committed the worst high school massacre in American history.
They killed twelve students and one teacher. Injured twenty-three others and then turned the guns on themselves.
This story records events as they unfolded on that Tuesday morning, during the critical hour of 11:08 AM to 12:08 PM. For years, the horror of the massacre has defied explanation. But recently, new information has been released about the attack and the events leading up to it. From these terrible details, it's possible to reconstruct a fuller picture of Columbine, and the freakish whirlwind of circumstances that ended with a teenager and an adult committing mass murder.
This is the story of the Massacre at Columbine High.
APRIL 20, 1999
11:08:15 AM
EN ROUTE TO COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL
At 11:08 in the morning, Eric Harris was three minutes away from Columbine High School.
Of the one last entries in Eric Harris' journal:
"NBK came quick. Everything I see and hear, I relate to NBK somehow. It feels like a *** damn movie sometimes."
NBK was Eric and Dylan's codename for the coming massacre. It stood for Natural Born Killers, a 1994 movie they both admired.
The film tells the story of Mickey and Mallory, a mass murderer couple with traumatized childhoods, who become media celebrities. The characters were based on spree killer couple Charles Starkweather and his underage girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate.
For Eric and Dylan, the movie seemed to represent a kind of redemption, that they, like the fictional characters, were ultimately superior.
Dylan Klebold, words from home video:
"I know we're gonna have followers. Because we're so fucking God-like. I mean, we're not exactly human. We have human bodies, but we've evolved one step above you fucking human shit. I mean, we actually have fucking self awareness."
A key element in Eric and Dylan's sense of alienation came from their school.
Another last entry in Eric Harris' journal:
"Everybody makes fun of me cause of I how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit...Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face...I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no, don't fucking say, 'well that's your fault' because it isn't, you people had my phone # and I asked and all, but no. no no no don't let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo."
At Columbine High School's unspoken hierarchy, Eric and Dylan saw themselves at the bottom of the pile. The weird kids who hung out with the other outcasts. At the very top were the jocks, a group with their own rules of conduct and their own dress code, which included white baseball caps. From a certain point of view, jocks are not necessarily only school athletes. A jock is anyone who believes that they, because they wear nice clothes, because they screwed the best looking girl, because the teachers treated them different, deserve and are better than everyone else. It's bullshit, though.
While Eric and Dylan were targeting some of the jocks during their shooting rampage, witnesses would later report that they both also seemed hell bent on revenge against the school itself.
They went to Columbine High School to kill people. They didn't go shoot up the police station. They didn't go to the public library. That's because they hated the school. They hated the injustice of this school. They hated the environment.
(A/N: I am not condoning in any way what they did. I'm just trying to find and explain the answers.)
Words from one of Dylan's home videos:
"You've been given us shit for years. You're fucking gonna to pay for all the shit. We don't give a shit…cause we're gonna to die doing it."
THREE MILES TO THE SOUTH
Eric and Dylan had planted a decoy bomb three miles to the south before heading to their school. The timer was set for 11:14 a.m. as a diversion for authorities. A surveyor working in the area noticed it.
"What the hell is this?" he asked himself. It was a barbecue design: standard propane tank, the fat, round white ones, eighteen inches tall, a foot in diameter, packing some twenty pounds of highly explosive gas. This one employed aerosol cans for detonators, each wired up to an old-fashioned alarm clock with round metal bells on top.
When the surveyor moved for a closer look, he realized it was a bomb.
"Oh, crap."
He decided to move it out of the area to protect other civilians. As he made to alert the authorities, the bomb detonated, but it fizzled. The pipe bombs and one of the spray cans detonated, producing a loud bang and a grass fire. But the propane tank laid undisturbed in the burning field.
"Holy shit!" the surveyor yelled as he hit the deck. "What the hell is happening!"
Eric may have had another reason for the decoy bomb. He was uncannily perceptive about people, and Dylan had been wavering. If Dylan was reticent, the decoy bomb would help ease him in. It was a harmless explosive, no one would be hurt by it, but once they drove off, Dylan would be committed.
11:09:04 AM
COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL
The cafeteria of Columbine was starting to fill with students on their lunch break. At some point, earlier that morning, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planted two 20 pound propane bombs in the cafeteria. Both bombs were set to explode at 11:17, just as the cafeteria would reach the peak of the lunch time rush.
Each bomb was strung with nails and BBs for shrapnel, lashed to a full gasoline can and a smaller propane tank, and wired to bell clocks similar to the decoy bomb. Both bombs were hidden in blue duffel bags. The plan was to kill as many students as possible in the explosions, and to execute survivors. Again, Dylan eased into killing. Clicking over the alarm hinge was bloodless and impersonal. It didn't feel like killing for him-no blood, no screams, just a big fireball. In his mind, most of his murders would be over before he faced them.
The massive fireball would annihilate most of the lunch crowd and set the school ablaze in a huge ball of flames. Eric spaced the bombs out but located centrally, for maximum killing radius. If they had worked, the bombs would have collapsed some of the second floor. Eric had hoped to watch the library and its inhabitants crash down upon the flaming lunchers.
The bomb planting was not caught on the cafeteria surveillance cameras, possibly because of a tape change.
Eric and Dylan made a brisk exit and flared across the parking lot at a 90 degree angle. They headed for their cars, strategically parked about a hundred yards apart. The cars provided mobile base camps, where they would gear up to mow down survivors. Pre-positioning ensured optimal fire lanes. The bombs would detonate at 11:17, and the densely packed wing would crumble. As the flames leapt up into the sky, Eric and Dylan would train their guns on the exits and await for the survivors.
That morning, possibly during third hour philosophy class, Brooks Brown and his classmates had a big test on Chinese philosophy. Eric was always Type A about his grades. He wouldn't ditch class if there was a test or an assignment due. It really struck Brooks that Eric wouldn't show up that day.
In class, Brooks sat at his desk with his left hand holding his head. He looked like his was in a daze, as if he had the thousand yard stare. When they got to fourth hour that day, though, he still wasn't in class. Even Brooks only ditched one class in a row, usually. And Dylan wasn't there either.
11:10:15 AM
HALLWAYS
Another student of Columbine was 17 year old John Savage. He had just completed a music class. He had gotten to school early. Did some homework. It was just one of those days where you don't expect anything to happen. He and other students had just finished string orchestra. John was trying to decide whether or not to practice way back in the back of the school in the band room or go to the library.
Among the teachers on duty at the school was David Sanders. He was a popular sports coach in the school because of his ability to get the best of the least likely of the athletes.
Patti Nielson was a 35 year old teacher working part time at the school. Normally, she'd head home after her morning art classes, but today she had been assigned to monitor the hall ways, which has just started to fill with hundreds of students heading for lunch in the cafeteria.
Eric pulled into the parking lot at 11:10, several minutes behind the attack schedule. A couple of girls spotted his car as they headed out for lunch. They honked and waved. They liked him. Eric waved back and smiled.
11:11:36 AM
Everyday after creative writing, Brooks Brown came outside to smoke a cigarette, which was legal before 9/11. He took the same route that he did every day: Out for a smoke and walk around.
This day, he noticed Eric in his Honda park in the small junior parking, about a hundred yards to Dylan's right when he would pull into the parking lot. Eric had the choice spot, directly facing the student entrance, where the bulk of the survivors would presumably flee from the carnage. He could also cover the full southeast side of the building and interlock his fire with Dylan's fire to his left without endangering him. Eric Harris was wearing a black duster, which would later be called a trench coat; a white T-shirt with the inscription 'NATURAL SELECTION' on the front; black combat boots and a finger-less black glove on his right hand. His short hair, duster and his shades made him look like Neo from The Matrix.
He got out and headed to the trunk of his car. Making sure no one was looking, he opened the trunk and sorted through the goods. He grabbed some pipe bombs and a bottle containing a yellow yet explosive liquid and put them in his right coat pocket. He put a container of bullets in his back pack and a sawed-off Savage-Springfield 67H 12-gauge pump shotgun in the belt inside his trench coat.
He had missed two hours of school, so Brooks Brown decided to see what was going on, and he called him a few name. Eric laughed and tossed a few names back with a little energy as Brooks was cussing him out basically. It was weird that Eric didn't shoot him for that, but he cussed Eric out.
Eric and Brooks have had a tempestuous history. A year earlier, Brooks, tipped off by Dylan, found his name on Eric's website. Eric was threatening to kill him.
There was also information on there that Eric and Dylan were building and detonating pipe bombs. On his website, Eric said essentially he wanted to kill Brooks Brown. Brooks' parents reported Eric's threat to the police. This was not the first time Eric's name had been brought to the attention of the police in the two years before the shooting. But they were unable to access Eric's website, and mislaid paper work related to the complaint.
If they acted on these claims, Eric would've been in jail or a mental hospital. It's very simple, and Columbine massacre never should have have happened. In the meantime, Brooks Brown had made his own peace with Eric. It probably saved his life.
"What the hell is wrong with you, man?" Brooks raged. "You weren't in third hour. You missed the test. Dude, you missed a huge test."
Eric chuckled. "It doesn't matter anymore…Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." And with that, Eric put his shades and walked on to the cafeteria.
"Okay…" Brooks wondered. There's a lot of theories why Eric didn't shoot him. Brooks personally thinks, because he remembers the look on Eric's face, he didn't wanna kill him. He wasn't the only person that good, like John Savage, actually. He was friends with him. Nicknamed Screach, he was a great guy.
John Savage had decided to revise for his history test in the library, where the worst of the Columbine massacre would take place.
11:12:51 AM
Dylan Klebold drove to his normal spot in the senior parking lot and parked his BMV directly in front of the cafeteria, about a hundred yards to Eric's left. When the attack began, this would afford him a clear sweep of the southwest side of the building: the long, wide arc of green-tinted windows that wrapped the commons on the first floor and the library above.
He was wearing a black duster, which would later be called a trench coat; a black T-shirt with the red inscription "WRATH" across the front; a finger-less black glove on the left hand, because he was left-handed; black pants with a black belt which had been partially cut away; black combat boots and a backwards Boston Red Sox black baseball cap. On his left boot was a Soviet medallion and he wore a silver colored ring with a black stone on the ring finger of his left hand.
Eric and Dylan had arrived with a huge arsenal of weapons. After the attack, the police would count an two 9mm guns, being an Intratec TEC-DC9 and a Hi-Point 995 Carbine rifle, two sawed off shotguns, being a Savage 67H pump-action shotgun and a Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun and ninety-nine bombs, including the 20 pound propane bombs in the cafeteria, the propane bomb in the field to the south, and booby-trap bombs in each of their cars.
Eric joined Dylan at his car as he grabbed his weapons and set his car bomb.
They had spent a year gathering these weapons. A year planning a massacre intended to wipe the school off the map was beginning to take shape. Dylan met up with Eric at the school entrance.
MARCH 15, 1999
Just a month before the attack, an unreleased video tape revealed the full extent of Eric and Dylan's preparations. The camera man was Dylan. The location: Eric's bedroom. Eric revealed dozens of hiding places, containing what amounts to a small armaments factory.
How did Eric succeed in concealing such a vast collection of lethal weaponry? The question still remains unanswered.
"Oh, my God!" Dylan exclaimed at the sight of the shotgun Eric got him. Eric rubbed his palm on the smooth sawed off butt of the massive hand cannon. Dylan took it, still holding the camera, and admired it in awe, rubbing his fingers on the double barrels.
Eric showed Dylan everything as he recorded. He revealed explosive material, bullets, different types of explosives and a smoke grenade. He also had the propane tanks. He unsheathed a huge knife with a swastika near the handle. He also showed him a freakish knife with spikes on the handle, a very long knife and two switches blades.
"Yeah!" Dylan happily hissed at the camera, showing some finger devil horns. "Yeah!"
Not surprisingly, Eric's parents have not spoken publicly since the massacre.
"Hi mom!" Eric said, waving at the camera. "What's going on?"
But his play acting at the end of the tape showed that Eric was well aware of his skills in the art of deception.
Dylan's words from home video:
"It'll be The Most nerve racking fifteen minutes of my life. After the bombs are set and we're waiting to charge through the school…Seconds will be like Hours...God, I can't wait!"
11:15:15 AM
In a far corner in the school parking lot, Neil Gardner was taking a quick lunch with Andy Martin, a security guard at Columbine. Gardner was a local police officer with a special responsibility for the school students and teachers. In the past, he had seen Dylan Klebold around the school, but he didn't know Eric Harris. And he did not appear to know that Eric and Dylan had already been in trouble with the police and the courts.
LITTLETON, COLORADO
JANUARY 30, 1998
15 months earlier, Eric and Dylan had broken into a van and stolen electrical equipment. They were later caught.
Eric and Dylan approached a white van, calm and cool. Eric had a pair of ski gloves to mask finger print detection. Dylan, wearing the hat he would wear during the massacre, also with some jeans and tennis shoes. His brown shirt, which had short sleeves and red long sleeves, had a red star and a black skull inside the star. Eric wore pants, a shirt, a sweater and a backwards KMFDM cap.
Walking backwards, Dylan waited until his back was a feet in front of the doors of the back of the van. When he made sure no one was in sight but Eric, he turned around and jumped on the back doors of the van. He shook the van then jumped off. Dylan then joined Eric at the front of the van. Hands in their pockets, Eric and Dylan both casually leaned on the hood, acting as if they were just relaxing.
Then, Eric took guard duty and gave Dylan the dirty work. Dylan put on one of Eric's ski gloves and tried to punch out a window. They had no idea how solid a car window was. He hit it again and again. Nothing. Eric took over. Just as useless. Dylan went for a rock. He hauled up a boulder, hurled it into the glass, and even that was deflected. It took several blows before the rock crashed through. Dylan put the other glove on, then pressed his back against the passenger side door. Looking right then left, he reached in to unlock the door. He opened it and started digging through the pile like crazy.
Eric ran back to man the getaway car. Dylan grabbed anything that looked interesting. He flung everything else all over the van. By his count, he grabbed one briefcase, one black pouch, one flashlight, a yellow object, and electrical stuff. Dylan ran arm loads of loot back to the Honda. Eric continued to stand guard. Another car approached.
"V, freeze," Eric called. "Don't move. Car coming."
Dylan froze; the car passed. Unfazed, Dylan ran back to grab more.
"That's enough!" Eric ordered, growing wary. "Let's go."
They were later arrested on felony charges of criminal trespass and theft. At their court hearings, both were ordered to undergo courses designed to steer juveniles away from crime. After completing his course, Eric Harris seemed contriumph.
Eric Harris' Anger Management class essay video:
"I'm happy to say, that with the help of this class, and some other diversion related experiences, I do want to try and control my anger."
Eric's private journal told a different story.
Eric's Journal: "Isn't America supposed to be the land of the free? How come, if I'm free, I can't deprive a stupid fucking dumb shit from his possessions if he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van, out in plain sight and in the middle of fucking nowhere, on a Fri-fucking-day night. NATURAL SELECTION. Fucker should be shot."
Their encounter with the law reveals the existence of a kind of parallel universe. While outwardly apologetic and reformed, Eric and Dylan were now bonded by a shared rage.
Dylan's writing on Eric's 1998 yearbook:
"My wrath from January's incident will be GOD-LIKE! Not to mention our revenge in the Commons."
APRIL 20, 1999
COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL
11:16:18 AM
The Commons was the Columbine cafeteria. Eric and Dylan had drawn up detailed plans for the attack. The bombs were set to explode at one minute at a time. There were 480 students inside, almost a quarter of the school's population.
At 11:18, the school stood intact. Some kids had already made it through the lunch lines and were strolling outside, settling onto the lawn for a little picnic. No sign of disturbance. The timing devices were not precise. No digital readouts with seconds counting down in red numerals; they were old-fashioned clocks with a third little alarm hand positioned two-fifths of the way between 3 and 4. But they should have blown by now, but didn't.
Hundreds of students streamed out the student entrance. They hoped into their cars and zipped away. Time for Plan B. But there was no Plan B. Eric had staggering confidence in himself. He left no indication that he planned for contingencies. Dylan left no indication that he planned much of anything else.
They could just proceed to Act II: mow the departers down in a cross fire and advance on the exits as scripted. The bomb failure appears to have rattled only one of the boys. Dylan. Either boy might have panicked, but Eric was unflappable, the reverse of his partner.
Getting out of his car, Eric acted swiftly to retrieve his emotional partner. He was in the prime location yet abandoned it to come to Dylan's, moving quickly. Within two minutes, Eric had figured out the bombs had failed.
He grabbed his packs, crossed the lot to Dylan's BMW, rushed with him to the building, and climbed the external stairs to the west exit.
Richard Castaldo was on his way out to meet up with his friend, Rachel Scott. They planned to have lunch just outside the school's west entrance. In their dusters, called trench coats, Eric and Dylan attracted little attention. They had often worn this uniform to school.
Discreetly, Eric and Dylan got out their weapons from their weapons from their trench coats, Eric carrying the carbine rifle and the pump-action shotgun and Dylan carrying the TEC-DC9 and the double-barreled shotgun. The attack was now just seconds away.
"Hey," Rachel greeted Richard. "How's it going?"
When Richard Castaldo first sat down with Rachel, starting to eat their lunches, they saw a couple of guys coming to their left. They threw, Richard didn't know what it was right then, it was a pipe bomb. It went off and it didn't really do anything. Richard thought they were screwing around, as like a senior prank or something because the school year was about to end.
Eric and Dylan cocked their guns.
"Go! Go!" They both yelled. Dylan advanced as Eric shot at Castaldo and Scott with his Carbine.
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