11:36:15 AM

Dylan picked up his guns, his shotgun in his right hand and his TEC-DC9 in his left. When the killers left, everyone decided to leave the library.

By the time Eric and Dylan left the library, twelve students in the school were dead, one teacher was dying and twenty three others were injured, many of them seriously. There had been no pattern to the attack. Not one of the their victims had been singled out because he or she had been a figure of hate, except for members of an oppressive school, including Evan Todd.

There were still hundreds of students and teachers hiding elsewhere in the school.

At one point, in the science room where Dave Sanders was dying, Teressa was looking out the door window, trying to see what was going on. She saw the shooters come down the hall. They stopped and reloaded their guns in front of the classroom. The door had a window in it, so they could look right in it. Teressa and Aaron Hancey just jumped away from view.

It was scary. It was for them, one of the most scariest points of the whole ordeal. They were right there. Eric and Dylan could've come in and finished them off. Instead, they moved to a storage room to the right.

Eric opened the door as Dylan lit a pipe bomb and threw it inside. It erupted in a tremendous ball of flames as Eric and Dylan ran for it. A next door teacher would quickly put out the fire.

Just as they returned to the hallways, Eric turned and shot into an empty science room nearest to the hallways.

Dave Sanders died of exsanguination before he could be taken to the hospital. Dave was buried in Littleton's Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens. Since his death, Coach Dave Sanders has had a softball field at Columbine and a scholarship named after him, to honor his memory, and posthumously received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. The Fountain Central High School basketball court was named after him in his honor.

It came as a shock to Aaron that he died. He thought that they could take Dave out, get him operated on and start the recovery process. It broke Aaron's heart to think and know that Dave did die, because Aaron tried his best.

HALLWAY

Eric and Dylan walked down the halls, shooting the lockers, the ceiling and the walls.

Eric Harris was full of hate. He had an indiscriminate for the entire human race. His journal proved this.

"We hate niggers, spics, Jews, gays, fucking whites."

But then, he also hated the concept of racism.

Words from his Internet profile:

"I hate...You know what I hate? Racism. Anyone who hates Asians, Mexicans, or people of any race because they're different."

Dylan shot the lockers to his left. Eric shot the ceiling with his Carbine rifle, then shot the lockers to his left as Dylan shot the ceiling in a sweeping motion.

But Eric was a clinical psychopath. He hatred everyone.

Internet profile:

"You know what I hate? Star Wars fans. Getting a fuckin life, you boring geeks. You know what I hate? People who drive slow in the fast lane. God these people do not know how to drive."

With remorse showing on his face, Dylan walked behind a blank-faced Eric through the hallways. Eric and Dylan's movements through the school now seemed directionless. Eric's secret journals and video recordings leave the clear impression of a disturbed mind, filled with grandiose and destructive schemes.

"If we survive...we'll hijack a hell of a lot of bombs and crash a plane in NYC..." Eric Harris' typed up rant, two years before 9/11.

Dylan, however, was a mystery.

Would Dylan be a part of it, Judy Brown couldn't imagine it. But could he be caught up in it? In someway, yes. And she thinks Eric was dominant over Dylan. She, and many other people, do believe that. Judy had that kind of conversation with Dylan's mother after the shooting. That Dylan was always trying to be there for Eric and actually take care of him because Eric didn't have many friends. Dylan had lots of friends. People liked Dylan.

CAFETERIA
11:44:28 AM

Eric and Dylan arrived in the cafeteria eight minutes after leaving the library. On top of the stairs, Eric placed his shotgun down on the floor and leveled his Carbine rifle on the stair railing to improve his accuracy. Backpacks were scattered everywhere, but Eric knew which duffel bag was his.

He tried to detonate one of the 20-pound propane bombs in the cafeteria, firing endlessly until his clip ran out. The bomb still didn't detonate. It was perhaps, his first suicide bid during the attack.

The boys were easily within the blast area, but they were well aware of that. Twenty five minutes into the massacre, Eric made his second attempt to initiate the main event, and his second attempt at suicide.

In the months before, Eric had been prescribed an anti-depressant drug called Zoloft, which is commonly used to treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But his condition just seemed to get worse. He was on Zoloft for six weeks. And Eric reported that he was having both homicidal and suicidal ideations. That's where you constantly think about hurting yourself or hurting someone else or both. Eric did realize it was coming from the medication, and so did the doctors. They took him off the medication. But all he got in exchange was a different brand name. He got Luvox.

Eric and Dylan walked down the stairs and into the table area of the cafeteria. They had a few remarks and a few sips from drinks left behind by students where the attack began.

"Today the world's going to come to an end," Dylan told Eric. "Today's the day we die."

"Hey, V," Eric called as he took a sip. "Go check out what's wrong with the bombs, will ya?"

Dylan silently put down the drink and walked over to one of the duffel bags. He unzipped the bags and inspected the bombs. He tsked.

"Damn it," he whispered. "Reb! A wire or two are loose. We'll have to blow 'em up manually."

"Shit," Eric groaned as he sat down on the top step.

Dylan walked away from the bombs. "Hold on," he said as he got out of Molotov cocktail bomb. He tossed it toward the bags and ran back to Eric's location. He reached the first step when the bomb partially detonated as a gallon of fuel on one of the bombs exploded, erupting in a ferocious ball of flames.

Eric and Dylan left and walked to the administrative offices located on the east side of the school, shooting as they were going. The gunmen left the office area and walked north through the art area, firing into the ceiling as they walked and made their way back to the cafeteria.

Several times they looked through windows on the classroom doors and even made eye contact with students, but never attempted to enter the rooms. After leaving the main office, the pair went up to a bathroom entrance and began taunting students inside.

"We know you're in there," Eric taunted.

"Hey, let's kill anyone we find in here!" Dylan suggested. But they never actually entered the bathroom.

11:56:19 AM

Eric and Dylan returned to the cafeteria and walked around everywhere, including the kitchen. Water from the sprinkler's that put out the fire still dripped from the ceiling. The lights were off, water soaked the floor, and book bags littered the cafeteria. The dripping water made it look like a cave.

Their body language in the cafeteria was vastly different than what witnesses in the library would later describe. Their shoulders drooped, and they walked slowly. The excitement had been drained out of them; the bravado was gone. Eric had also broken his nose; he was in severe pain.

At Eric Harris's autopsy, therapeutic amounts of Luvox were discovered in his blood stream. Dylan Klebold's autopsy report found no traces of drugs.

Was Eric's medication one further element in the Columbine tragedy? Or was it an underlining psychiatric condition that the drugs were supposed to treat?

One thing was certain, when Eric's father heard of the shooting; he immediately thought it could be his son.

Wayne Harris's call to police:

Police: Jefferson County, 911?

Wayne Harris: I'm Wayne Eric. Uh, my son is Eric Harris. And I'm afraid he might be involved in the shooting at Columbine High School.

Police: I-Involved, how?

Wayne Harris: Uh, he's a member of what they call the "Trenchcoat Mafia".

Police: Okay. Have you spoken with your son today, Mr. Harris?

Wayne Harris: No, I haven't.

In the three years before Columbine, there had been ten incidents of American teenagers carrying out gun attacks on their school. In none of these did more than five people die. But Eric and Dylan had set out to kill hundreds. If their plan had worked to the letter, at least 500 people would've been killed in mere seconds. Every aspect of their lives has been examined in the search for a single cause that explained how they could carry out a massacre with such premeditation and cold ruthlessness.

But perhaps the answer is that there is no single cause. That Eric and Dylan were created by a kind of perfect storm of circumstances that gave them the means and the opportunity to carry out an outrageous act of teenage terrorism. And this was compounded by omissions and oversights by police, parents, doctors, the media and the school.

The Perfect Storm Theory for no one stopping them works exclusively. There were a million times someone could've stepped in. There were hundreds and hundreds of times the police legally could've stopped them. Could've searched them, could've talked to the parents. There were times their parents could've stepped in and said "Hey, what's up. Oh, look! Knives, guns and bombs?! What the fuck? Something's wrong with you. I'm callin five oh." There were a million times it could've been stopped.

Eric turned and went through a door that led to the stair case. Dylan stopped at the door and looked cautiously to his left for a moment and then followed Eric upstairs.

As midday approached, Eric and Dylan made their final journey back towards the library. They walked down the hall silently. A six man police SWAT team was about to enter the school, but from an entrance at the far end of the building. The police would sweep through the school room by room and would reach the library last of all, almost three and a half hours later. Since Columbine, the local police have reviewed their tactics and what they call 'imminent threats'. Officers responding to shooting incidents are now trained to intervene early.

LIBRARY
12:02:13

Eric and Dylan arrived back at the library door. The terrible sites of dead were shrouded in thick smoke. They stood in the dark library, covered in thick smoke. Helicopter lights flashed on their faces.

They noticed law enforcement and rescue workers who were evacuating the injured outside in the parking lot. They sat down behind the windows and loaded their weapons.

They would make one last near-suicidal gesture before ending their lives just a few meters from many of their victims.

They looked at each other.

Dylan rose, followed by Eric.

Eric fired three shots and Dylan shot a burst of TEC fire.

Gardner took cover and fired three shots at the gunmen. Denver police officers provided suppressing fire to the library windows, allowing the paramedics to retrieve the three wounded teens. The paramedics rushed the living to medical attention.

The gunmen ducked. Eric raised his Carbine rifle above his head again and took a shot, going back down again. Dylan rose and shot another burst of TEC-9 fire. Eric rose and fired again before the two boys took cover behind the wall.

They sat there for a few minutes, thinking about what they had done. Bullets and glass flew everywhere, yet the killers did not move.

In hind sight, Eric and Dylan's own home recorded video tapes carry a fearful warning. Few could've imagined that they would turn fantasy into tragedy.

VIDEO TAPE
HITMEN FOR HIRE (school project)

DYLAN: No, you *** damn piece of punk-ass-shit! DO NOT mess with that freakin' kid! If you do, I will rip off your *** damn head, and shove it so far up your freakin' ass, you'll be coughing up dandruff for FOUR FREAKING MONTHS!

ERIC: Look, I don't care what you say. If you ever touch him again, I will freakin' KILL YOU! I'm gonna pull a *** damn shotgun and blow your damn head off. Do you understand, you little worthless piece of CRAP!

MONTHS AGO
RAMPART RANGE

Eric, Dylan and three of their friends, Mark Manes, Mark's girlfriend, Jessica and Phil Duran, were firing the guns the two boys would use in the massacre, and other guns they would not use. They packed bowling pins stolen from Belleview Lanes to use as targets. And they took a camcorder.

It was cold up there, still plenty of snow on the ground. They dressed sensibly, in layers. Eric and Dylan started with their trench coats on, but worked up a sweat and took them off. They had ear protection and eye gear that they sometimes wore.

They shot a bowling pin full of lead, and then Eric had another idea. He aimed his shotgun at an imposing pine five feet away. He missed. And it hurt. The gun had a vicious recoil, which his arm had to absorb. Every inch you cut a shotgun's barrel back magnifies the kick. Eric and Dylan had cut theirs back ridiculously short, almost to the chamber, and now they would suffer the consequences.

He directed Dylan to follow.

"Try to hit a tree," he said. "I want to see what a slug does to the tree."

Holding his TEC-9 sideways with his left hand, Dylan punched a two-inch wide hole in the trunk. They all rushed forward to inspect the damage. Eric dug his finger around and produced a pellet.

They went to investigate a tree.

"That's a fucking slug!" Dyaln jeered.

"Imagine that in someone's fucking brain," Eric suggested.

"Yeah, it hurt my wrist like a son of a bitch," Dylan complained.

"I bet so," Eric agreed, getting some more laughs.

"Look at that!" Dylan laughed, looking at his hand. "I've got blood now!"

They shot more guns and laughed some more.

Each shot via shotgun was punishing. The blast would tear the barrel out of Eric's left hand and whip his gun arm back like a rubber band.

Eric, Dylan and their friends approached the camera to show off their war wounds: large patches of skin scraped off between the thumb and forefinger, where they need to work on tightening their grip.

"When high school kids use guns," someone said. Everybody laughed.

"Guns are bad when you saw them off and make them illegal. Bad things will happen to you," Manes said, getting some laughs. "Say no to the sawed offs."

"Bad!" Eric giggled, pretending to spank a single barreled shotgun Dylan was holding.

"No! No! No! No!" Dylan played along, wagging his finger at the shotgun.

Eric picked up a bowling pin with a small hole drilled through the front and a crater out the back. He showed off each side to the camera.

"Entry, exit," Eric said, getting some laughs.

LIBRARY
12:08:13

Eric and Dylan got up and moved to a book shelf and sat on the floor. Before they sat down, Eric lit a Molotov cocktail on top of a desk.

As they sat down, they looked at each other.

"This is it, Reb," Dylan said.

The boys shook hands. They had lived together. And they would die together.

"The End," Eric said. "We finally got them back."

"Didn't go as planned," Dylan pointed out.

"But we still got 'em."

They both smiled. They cocked their guns.

"So how are we gonna do it?" Dylan asked.

"Like how?" Eric replied.

"Like, one, two, three, shoot or one, two, shoot on three?"

"Uh...the first one," Eric replied.

"One...two...three!" they both yelled.

Eric shot himself in the mouth with his shotgun, literally blowing his brains out. Blood spattered the books behind him. He fell on his side, his hands surrounding his head as if hugging an invisible pillow.

Dylan shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-DC9. His hat blew into pieces and he landed on his back, his blood covering Eric's pants. He survived long enough to aspirate blood into his lungs, and would have been capable of some involuntary movement. He moaned, and died with his mouth open.

LATER...

Patrick Ireland's skull had stopped several buckshot fragments. Other debris lodged in his scalp as well - probably wood splinters torn from the tabletop from a shotgun blast. One pellet got through. It burrowed six inches through spongy brain matter, entering through the scalp just above his hairline on the left, and lodging near the middle rear. Bits of his optical center were missing; most of his language capacity was wiped out. He regained consciousness, but words were hard to form and difficult to interpret as well. Pathways for all sorts of functions had been severed. Perception was impeded, so he couldn't tell when he was speaking gibberish or jumbling incoming sounds. The left brain controls the right side of the body, and the pellet cut through the connection. Patrick was paralyzed (not for the rest of your life paralyzed, just till you get to a hospital paralyzed) on the right side. He had been shot in the right foot; it was broken and bleeding - he didn't even know it. He felt nothing on that side.

Patrick drifted in and out. He tried to get out. Half his body refused. He couldn't stand; he couldn't even crawl right. He reached with his left hand, gripped something, and dragged himself forward. His useless side trailed behind. He made a little progress, and his brain gave out.

He came to repeatedly and began again. He started less than two table lengths from the windows, but he eheaded off in the wrong direction. Then he hit obstacles: bodies, table legs, and chairs. Some he pushed away, others had to be maneuvered around. He almost hurled from the sight of Eric and Dylan's bodies. He kept heading for the light. If he could just make it to the windows maybe someone would see him. If he had to, maybe he would jump. It took three hours to get there. He found an easy chair beside the opening. It was sturdy enough not to trip. He wedged his back against the short wall and worked himself upward, then grabbed hold of the chair for a final push. He propped himself against the girder between two large panes and rested awhile to recover his strength.

Patrick stood on one leg, braced his shoulder against the girder, and picked away the chunks of glass shards with the same hand.

2:30 PM

An officer riding along in a news chopper spotted somebody moving inside the library. He was just inside the blown-out windows, covered in blood and behaving curiously: sagging against the frame, clearing away shards of glass.

The officer radioed a SWAT team. They revved the Loomis armored truck and raced toward the building.

"Hang on, kid!" one of them called. "We're coming to get you!"

Patrick was confused. He heard someone yell, but couldn't see anyone or figure out where the voices were coming from. He felt dizzy. His vision was blurry and one big section was blank. He was unaware that blood was streaming down into his eyes.

Get out! a voice shouted inside his head, Get out!

The armored truck pulled up beneath the window. A squadron of SWAT officers leapt out. Nearby teams provided cover from either side. One group took aim from behind a fire truck; snipers sprawled on rooftops trained their scopes from farther back. If this rescue mission was fired upon, they'd ready.

"Okay, it's safe!" a SWAT man said. "Go ahead and jump. We'll catch you!"

Patrick collapsed forward. The ledge caught him at the waist, and he folded in half, head gangling toward the ground. He wiggled forward, but he couldn't get much traction from the inside, because his feet were already off the floor.

A SWAT officer clambered up the side of the truck and threw his weapon to ground. Another followed close behind him. As the first man hit the truck roof, Patrick kicked his good leg up toward the ceiling, and reached down for the sidewalk with his arms.

The officers lunged toward him and each man caught one of his hands. Patrick kicked again, completely vertical, and his hips pulled away from the frame. The officers clenched and his hands barely moved. The rest of his body spun around like a gymnast gripping the high bar, until he whacked onto the truck roof. The officers got him to safety and a hospital.

Three hours later, police found Eric crumpled, Dylan sprawled leisurely. Dylan's legs flopped over to the side, one knee atop the other, ankles crossed. One arm draped across his stomach, underlining the world emblazoned on his black T-shirt. His head lay back, his mouth open, jaw slack. Blood trickled out the corners, towards his ears. He looked serene. The red letters on his cheat screamed WRATH.

CONCLUSION

Violence, in all its forms, is part of the American education curriculum. Kids tease, humiliate, and make fun of one another for trivialities of all kinds, never realizing that there is a world beyond high school - a world full of many, many kinds of people.

In almost incidents of school violence, the perpetrators were said to have been taunted and subjected to varying degrees of cruelty - from racial slurs to beatings - by other students. There is no question that such an environment will exacerbate feelings of inferiority, hopelessness, and anger. Many kids dream of revenge against those made their lives Hell, but few materialize their vengeance.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are NOT to be commended for what they did, yet disaffected teens have placed them on a pedestal. They have become icons for the degeneration of society, and icons for misfits who see their own fantasies of revenge in the Columbine High School shootings. They have also become the poster boys for evil - two gun-toting, crazed gunmen killing the innocent.

It is indisputable that there was a 'popular' sect of students at Columbine High School. (As there is at every school, to varying degrees) The school's state wrestling champion was allowed to park his $100,000 Hummer in a 15 minute parking space - all day. A football player repeatedly teased a girl about her breasts - in class, in front of a teacher - with no fear of retribution. And just like any school in America, the sports trophies were displayed in the front of the school, the art in a back hallway. The discrimination was even evident in the yearbook - sports pages were in full color, other clubs were in black and white.

The obvious favoritism given to the athletic crowd probably angered many students - including Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. The only difference is that their anger toward certain groups of students materialized into a hatred for everyone. They didn't target just the jocks or just the black kids. They killed indiscriminately.

No one can argue that the schoolroom injustices suffered by Dylan and Eric excuse what they did. One can argue that the obvious favoritism made Eric and Dylan's feelings of worthlessness and vengeance all the more powerful.

Police interviews and court records indicate that both Eric and Dylan knew that at their school, jocks could be convicted of crimes and face no suspension or expulsion from school or school-related activities. They also witnessed jocks tormenting other students while teachers and administrators turned a blind eye.

The favoritism at Columbine High School may have gone farther than that at any other American high school. Dylan and Eric once watched as the school's state wrestling champ, Rocky Wayne Hoffschneider, shove his girlfriend into a locker. A teacher witnessed the entire incident and did nothing. Hoffschneider and four other star jocks were arrested for ransacking the Denver apartment of a 22-year-old man, according to court records. The arrests made the papers. Within days, the jocks were back at school. Nine months later they pleaded guilty and got probation.

One gnawing question is this: why was Hoffschneider even allowed at a public school? The 215 pound football player and wrestler transferred to Columbine in 1996, after being expelled from a private school for fighting. He brought with him a criminal record - a 1992 arrest for criminal mischief and 1995 arrest relating to a missing person. But since the star jock was a juvenile, his records were sealed.

The summer before Hoffschneider came to Columbine; his girlfriend's parents accused his mother and sister of kicking in their door one morning. The girl's father is quoted as saying the Hoffschneider family was "was abusive and physical towards us."

The situation was so serious, in fact that the girl's parents kept three of their children from attending Columbine when they learned that Hoffschneider had transferred to their children's school.

Eric' friend Brooks Brown also tells of personal torment by jocks. According to Brown, he, Eric, and Dylan were standing outside when a carload of jocks drove by, throwing a glass bottle out of the car, which shattered at their feet. Brown remembers Dylan saying, "Don't worry, man, it happens all the time."

"We all hated it — hated the fact we were outcasts just simply because we weren't in sports," Brown says. "It's insane when you think about it, but it's real."

Columbine school officials have mostly ignored the task force's investigation. Coaches, teachers and principal Frank DeAngelis refused requests for interviews. School spokesman Rick Kaufman said he would answer written questions, but then did not. He also broke an appointment for a scheduled interview. Messages left for coaches, teachers and administrators at home went unanswered.

One of the few who've acknowledged wrong doing at Columbine High is Jefferson County school board member David DiGiacomo, who says, "I do believe that in all of our schools athletes can appear to have a different status. I think it's OK if kids are working hard and they're good role models, but to give them special privileges, I think we have to be careful."

The day of the shooting, parent Stephen Greene called a school hot line about his son. Instead, he was greeted by the hot line's voice mail. His message was, "I knew something like this in this school could happen."

Stephen Greene has had his own run-in with Hoffschneider. The jock had been attending Columbine for less than a month when he and another football player began teasing Greene's son, Jonathan, who is Jewish. During gym class, the two would sing songs about Hitler whenever they made a basket - all in front of the gym teacher (also Hoffschneider's wrestling coach,) who did nothing.

The abuse didn't stop there. Greene says, "They pinned him [Jonathan] on the ground and did 'body twisters.' He got bruises all over his body. Then the threats began — about setting him on fire and burning him."

Greene took the incidents to his son's guidance counselor. "They said, 'This stuff can happen.' They looked at me like I was a problem," he said. Greene called the school board, which notified the police. Court records show that Hoffschneider and the other jock were charged with harassment, kicking and striking, and sentenced to probation.

Hoffschneider was allowed to continue his football and wrestling.

In the meantime, he was building his own little group of cronies. Parent Cecelia Buckner says, "He created a tough little group of guys — probably seven or eight boys that were involved in sports, mostly football, wrestling, who began to take control of the school."

Anthony A. Pyne, a 230-pound football player, was one of Hoffschneider's buddies. After Christmas, Pyne began to tease Aundrea Harwick in English class about her breasts. Harwick went to the teacher, Tom Tonelli, who was also a Columbine football and wrestling coach. His solution? Move to a different seat.

Harwick says that at a Columbine wrestling match at Arvada High School, Pyne announced, "Her breasts are getting bigger." Once again, she told Coach Place. He told her to sit on the other side of the gym.

She then went to a woman at a concession stand, who called the Arvada police. The officer issued Pyne a ticket. Because he was a juvenile, court records are not available, but Harwick said he pleaded guilty and paid a $50 fine.

The next day at school, administrator Rich Long, trying to persuade the girl to drop the charges, told Harwick and her mother that "by her going and getting the police, she's ruining his possibilities of playing on the football team," Elissa Harwick recalled.

Pyne played football anyway. Friends of Eric and Dylan noticed the favorable treatment Hoffschneider received. Their friend Tad Boles recalls "He always got things that we never could get...respect."

At the beginning of Eric and Dylan's junior year, while in line for registration for new classes, football players shoved a 4-foot-9 freshman girl and called her dirty because she dressed like a hippie. On another occasion a boy called "Little Joey Stair," who was friends with Eric and Dylan, looked up in a hallway to see three football players shoving him into a locker, saying, "Fag, what are you looking at?"

In the halls, body slams were an everyday occurrence. The social 'outcasts' - a group including Eric, Dylan, their friends, acquaintances, and others, got pushed around more than most. "A football player reached out and stepped on the cord of one of these girls' Walkmen and it ripped out and fell and broke," Melissa Snow remembered, who graduated in 1998. "She just didn't say anything. For those kinds of kids it's really hard to stand up to a bunch of football players, who are all standing around thinking it's really funny what this guy did to you."

Eric and Dylan seemed to take the taunting to heart. "They just let the jocks get to them," Colby said. "I think they were taunted to their limits."

Some students also seem to understand the factors that drove Eric and Dylan over the edge. In an ABC news interview, Eric Quintana, whose two friends were killed by Eric and Dylan, explains, "With all the animosity between the various social groups at Columbine, something like this was bound to happen."

Student Thad Martin says the jocks teased others for how they dress. "It makes you not want to go to school."

There are cliques at every school, and Columbine was no different. Acceptance and 'fitting in' is a high priority in most teenagers' lives. Columbine senior Alisha Basore described the subcultures at Columbine. "People are so worried about what their hair is going to look like, what they're going to wear, so worried that they look cool. It's a rat race inside the school to see who's going to be more popular. Everybody's thinking: 'Am I going to look cool for the popular kids? Are they going to accept me?'"

Quintana agrees, "The jocks rule the school, and they kind of get a big head and think that they own the world." Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, and the other outcasts at Columbine High faced verbal abuse daily. Students say that people would cut in front of them in the lunch line, throw garbage at them, made fun of their clothing, and they were roughed around by others. People ask, "killing thirteen people over verbal taunts, cuts in the lunch line, and insults?"

But that's not all they suffered. Jocks had one time threw a cup of fecal matter at them. Another time, Dylan was videotaping Eric Harris and a friend walking through the hallways. Jocks came along and slammed their arms into all three of their faces and nearly knocked the camera out of Dylan's hands. Seniors had also pelted Dylan with ketchup covered tampons in the commons. Daily, bagels, rocks, coke cans and Skittles were thrown at them at lunch. Body slams against the lockers were frequent, too.

Eric Veik, a friend of Eric and Dylan, says the two would often joke about getting revenge, saying, "It's time to get back at the school."

"They were tired of those who were insulting them, harassing them," Veik says. "They weren't going to take this anymore, and they wanted to stop it. Unfortunately, that's what they did."

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were probably mentally unstable to begin with - but plenty of kids are teased at school, and do not resort to murder.

But NO child should ever have to face the verbal and physical abuse that was doled out by the handful at Columbine High. Someone had to have noticed - someone did notice, but nothing was done.

The ultimate blame for Columbine lies in the hands of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. But as with nearly any crime, there were factors that aggravated their already fragile and emotionally disturbed minds, factors that sent them over the edge. No one listened to the kids at Columbine who told tales of harassment, abuse, beatings, verbal taunting. No one listened to Dylan or Eric. Not their teachers, not their parents, not the police who arrested them for breaking into a car.

The signs that something wicked was to come were everywhere. At first, they may have been subtle, something most adults would dismiss as 'teenage stuff'. However, as time progressed, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were practically screaming for help, but nobody heard their screams. If they did, they didn't care enough to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, no one took the time to look and listen.

At least two people thought Dylan had nothing to do with the shooting. His older brother Byron and his mother Susan were worried that Dylan was trapped in the school.

Maybe no one knew where Dylan was because he'd been shot himself. Maybe he was lying in the school somewhere injured or dead. Maybe he was being held hostage. Maybe he was trapped and couldn't get word to us.—Susan Klebold.

The boys knew that no one would listen, and they reacted the only way they knew how—through violence. Death was not real to them. Did they want people to die? Yes, but one can argue that in their stunted emotional states, they never grasped the finality of shooting other students. They wanted revenge. They wanted the people who had caused them pain to feel their pain, a thousand fold. They wanted recognition, in any shape or form. They wanted to make a statement. They wanted someone to listen.

The shooting at Columbine High School was one last, fatal cry for help from two boys who were obviously suffering and in agony. It is very sad, for lack of a better word, that no one listened to them, no one tried to help. Even if they did hear their screams, they did nothing to soothe their pain. It is cause for even deeper sorrow that they cried out in the way that they did.

It is neither violent video games nor movies that made Eric and Dylan kill. It was not the music they listened to, nor the clothes they wore. The seeds of violence had been planted early on in the two boys, and spurted out on April 20, 1999. Eric and Dylan had a cause to support - exact revenge on all those who had wronged them, either real or perceived. Coupled with an already unstable mind, the taunting they were subjected to caused something to snap within them. They retaliated in death. In their twisted psyche, murder was the only solution. They would go from nobodies to infamous criminals, and everyone would finally know their names and their cause.

Eric Harris killed out of anger and assumptive superiority. He killed in judgment. He killed because of his self-perceived uniqueness and his wish to exist alone, without the burden of inferiors.

Dylan Klebold killed out of depression, pain and misdirected anguish at not being accepted. He killed because he wanted to be loved. He killed because he felt ostracized and suicidal. He killed because he perceived that no one understood that he didn't want to be alone.

Together, they killed for vengeance. They struck against a cruel, careless, elitist society.

No one heard Eric and Dylan's screams…until it was far too late.

I know what it's like to be bullied and treated like shit. To have my entire word burned down around me. For five days a weeks, for seven years, I walked through school and I was spat on. Told I was nothing but a freak, that I was no good, "why don't you just die?". Constantly tripped, thrown down on the ground, kicked insulted and shoved in places and the teachers didn't do a damn thing. (The assistance principal would cuss at me sometimes). I held a gun to my head in 2010. I hope things like Columbine, Red Lake, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook never happens again. You can be a Hero by making a difference. Stand up for yourself and others. Don't just sit back just to fit in. Do what's right.

People who say "just ignore them" or that "Sticks and stones" crap obviously don't know what it's like to be ridiculed.