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As his fathers career pulled him out of schools and away from friends leaving Plattsburgh, New York in 1993 for Colorado Harris increasingly retreated into the computer and the internet. By then, the popular beliefs about what had happened on April 20, 1999 were seared into the collective consciousness. Kevin Moloney/Getty Images Then, learn about Brenda Ann Spencer, who shot up a school because she didnt like Mondays. The official Jefferson County Sheriffs Office account of the events included this moving coda: While this report establishes a record of the events of April 20, it cannot answer the most fundamental questionWHY? His family then moved to Colorado once he became a teenager. ", Over the next two decades, this unapologetic message would come to define the NRA's tone in the wake of mass shootings at American schools. A lawyer for Manes, 22, has said his client had no knowledge of plans for the school attack. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." While the myth that they had been bullied and ostracized by the proverbial jocks and popular kids quickly filled the airwaves, that was an entirely unfounded narrative. 840 Columbine High School Massacre Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO All Sports Entertainment News Archival Browse 840 columbine high school massacre photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more photos and images. However, none of these theories was ever proven. Eric Harris practices shooting a weapon at a makeshift firing range not long before the Columbine shooting. They were hooting and hollering and getting a big joy out of this.. Almost 19 years after the notorious Columbine High School shooting in the US, survivors reflect on the lessons learned while being divided on gun control and student activism in the wake of recent . It also was speculated that Harris and Klebold had carried out the shootings as retaliation for being bullied. A 16-year-old girl -- the gunman's target -- was killed. "Screw the insurance," says Hammer. A school bus in 1999 passes a billboard advertising the NRA's annual meeting in Denver, previously scheduled to take place just 10 days after the shooting at Columbine High School. The April 20, 1999, Columbine shooting, which killed 13, shocked the nation. "Investigators still don't have any evidence to show a third gunman. By spring 1998, they were already planning Judgement Day or NBK, shorthand for the film Natural Born Killers. The sheer shock of 13 people losing their lives in chaos that unfolded on live TV launched the country into a new era -- and new century -- of school shooting coverage, ahead of Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland and countless others. "The simplistic training is 'run, hide, fight,'" Garrett said. Following protocol, the officer didn't enter the building. The next time they shot people it was to kill themselves. A pump-action shotgun and assault rifle used in the Columbine High School shooting. He wanted to be a domestic terrorist. Its a perception that directly inspired the modern anti-bullying movement and spawned a recurring media trope appearing in films and television series like 13 Reasons Why, Degrassi, Law & Order, and others. The Columbine High School shootings occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, United States. What changed between August 10, 1998 his last suicide threat and the attack on April 20, 1999, is unknown. The west entryway to Columbine High School, with flags marking points where bullet casings were found. Other people were zombies, he thought, but they were also the lucky ones. Harris also took notes about student movements and the number of exits in the school. Demonstrators attend the March for Our Lives rally, March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Two Connecticut State Police officers escort a class of students and two adults out of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, 2012, after a shooter entered the building and killed 20 children and six adults before taking his own life. The report summarizing Harris mental state and development during the temporary probationary period a year prior even ended on a positive note. Circa 1998. In some ways, the killers writings help decrypt the Columbine shooting not because of what they reveal about their emotions, but the details of what they had really wanted to do. "For NRA to scrap this and the amount of money that we have spent ". Just before New Year, the local gun shop called his house saying the high capacity magazines hed ordered for his rifle had arrived. Parents wait for news after reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14, 2018. "Everything seemed to slow down," he recalled. Eric Harris, born in Wichita, Kansas, was the son of an Air Force pilot and spent much of his childhood moving from place to place. He was just casually walking, said Wade Frank, a senior at the time. The streetlights caused a visible reflection off of the droplets of blood I understood his actions.. A final bomb was placed in a park three miles from school, set to go off before the others. The pair worked their final shift at Blackjack Pizza on Friday, April 16. A Final Solution, like that of the Nazis, was what would save the world: Natural Selection the same message printed on his shirt during the shooting. Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, is seen here in a photo taken just weeks after the 1999 Columbine shooting. One student saw either Harris or Klebold (the account remains unclear) shoot a kid at point-blank range, in the back of the head. While theyd successfully managed to build them, the two then also decided to escalate things even further and consequently made two 20-pound propane bombs for the big event. The police were another problem. Kevin Moloney/Getty Images On April 20, 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, gunning down 12 of their fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves. In an apparent answer to his parents concerns about his future, he wrote: THIS is what I want to do with my life!, Almost exactly a year before the Columbine shooting, Harris came the closest to explaining why he would shoot up a school. NPR has taken steps to verify the tapes' authenticity, including by confirming the identities of those speaking on the tapes with two sources and comparing the voices on the calls with publicly available audio. With their notes, though, its clear it was a badly bungled bombing. While some critics of the NRA claim that the organization is beholden to the firearms industry, NRA leaders on the call claimed the opposite that the industry was ready and willing to follow their lead. And they dismiss conservative politicians and gun industry representatives as largely inconsequential players, saying they will do whatever the NRA proposes. In the 20 years since, an accepted explanation for the Columbine shooting has been driven into the public imagination. The violence came to an end when Harris and Klebold took their own lives. America endured school shootings before Columbine, but never "one quite like that one," said ABC News contributor and former FBI agent Brad Garrett. On the morning of Tuesday, April 20, 1999, Columbine High School senior Brooks Brown noted something strange. DeAngelis soon realized Columbine could no longer serve Chinese food because that was served the day of the shooting. Klebold attended prom with a group of 12 friends on Saturday, while Harris went on a first and last date with a girl he recently met. An affidavit for a search warrant had been written. He looked into making napalm, and at one point tried to recruit Chris Morris into what he had planned for these explosives playing it off as a joke when the other refused. Mark Manes, the man who sold a gun to Harris and bought him 100 rounds of ammunition the day before the murders, was sentenced to six years in prison. Heirloom Fine PortraitsDylan Klebold. While Brown distracted her, Harris covered himself and a nearby rock with fake blood, letting out a scream before playing dead. The key, he said, is those pieces working together as one: Prior to Columbine, he said, law enforcement, mental health professionals and school administrators worked separately. Farber is now a filmmaker and released a documentary this month in which she followed several of her fellow survivors as they returned to the Columbine room where they were when gunfire erupted. In total, he killed 32 victims and injured 23 others before turning the gun on himself. "The most difficult thing was just providing support and help to everyone.". Despite the overwhelming trauma, DeAngelis noticed an immense stigma surrounding mental health treatment, and he said he was discouraged from disclosing he was seeing a therapist in case he'd be "deemed unfit for duty. Mass shootings are. Klebold and Harris were two of 2,000 students at Columbine High School. Narrator: Often, school shooters are . Jefferson County Sheriffs Department via Getty ImagesFrom left, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold examine a sawed-off shotgun at a makeshift shooting range. He predicted "there will be an arrest made of somebody that had direct knowledge -- one or more.". hide caption. No one wanted to confront the worst-case scenario, no matter how increasingly obvious it was becoming. Now, schools are built to have classroom doors lock from the inside, he said. They were supposed to stand many yards from each other for an optimal firing range, but when the shooting started, the two were standing together at Klebolds assigned position. One day after the shootings, the NRA's top executives, officials, lobbyists and public relations strategists all scrambled on to a conference call to deal with the crisis. In addition, 21 others were wounded. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while . NPR reached out to the NRA and provided it with transcripts of the audio we used in this story. Klebold and Harris delved deeper into their online interests as well. After this look at the Columbine High School shooting, discover the widely misunderstood story of two of the massacres victims: Cassie Bernall and Valeen Schnurr. Fascinated by war stories, he regularly played soldier, pretending to be a marine with his older brother and neighborhood children in rural Michigan. Brown started running, knocking on doors until he found a telephone. Not because guns are responsible, but because we care about these people? Massacre at Columbine High: Directed by David Hickman. Is there anything? "And that was so important.". Police respond to a shooting that injured teacher Abigail Zwerner at Richneck Elementary in Newport News in January. While the claim that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were part of the Trenchcoat Mafia was yet another myth, they certainly dressed like the group a school clique of self-described loners and rebels who dressed in all-black garb. Columbine High SchoolEric Harris, as photographed for the Columbine yearbook. It can be twisted, but we feel sympathetic and NRA SPOKESPERSON BILL POWERS: Respectful. When one athlete commented that the group looked like a trench coat mafia, the friends turned it into a badge of pride and the name stuck. Gunfire. Charlton Heston (left), then president of the NRA, meets with fellow leaders Wayne LaPierre (far right) and Jim Baker (center) on April 30, 1999, ahead of the NRA's annual meeting in Denver. Mourners visit a memorial of crosses on a hill overlooking Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on May 1, 1999. The baffling question never really went away. Because their story needs a villain. In the wake of the 2002 Columbine school massacre, for example, victims sued video-game makers and movie producers and distributors, . Maybe they've come up with something I don't know about," Thomas told the Post. Jefferson County Sheriffs Department via Getty Images. About half an hour into the attack, Harris and Klebold were in the school library with nearly 50 people at their mercy. They were laughing after they shot, said Aaron Cohn, a survivor. Although Harris claimed after their first gun purchase that they had crossed the point of no return, he had not counted on a few complications. . She tells LaPierre that even if they don't lose money, they would lose face if they canceled. Though new measures are in place in schools, mass shootings overall aren't on the decline, Garrett said. Jefferson County Sheriffs Department via Getty ImagesEric Harris practices shooting a weapon at a makeshift firing range not long before the Columbine shooting. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. "When you take those different pieces of the puzzle, put them together," he said, "I think we have a better chance of stopping these things.". 11; Overwhelmingly, the offender is a single shooter (98 percent), primarily male . April 20, 1999. On their website, the soon-to-be Columbine shooters openly plotted destruction and violence against their community and even called out specific people by name. Dylan Klebold (left) and Brooks Brown in elementary school. He did not identify that person. The man unloaded one of the pistols across the fronts of four innocents. Rumors swirled around Columbine High School that they were in serious trouble. It was the most anxious hour of my life, she said. Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left a scar on the Littleton community. From the Denver Post photo archive. Instead of immediately confronting the threat and racing into the building, police secured the scene and waited for SWAT teams to arrive, which allowed the gunmen to continue to fire inside. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. Zed Nelson/Getty ImagesThe day after the massacre, Columbine High School students gather outside their school to pray and place flowers on the ground. 02:45 - Source: CNN. Officials later found two propane tank bombs in the cafeteria; had they detonated, the death toll would have been much higher. Writing since 2004, his articles on Spiritualism, grave robbery, document relics, and other topics have appeared in Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, Fine Books, and Collections Magazine. The west entryway to Columbine High School, with flags marking points where bullet casings were found. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. The Full Story Behind Columbine High School Shooters Eric Harris And Dylan Klebold. He is intelligent enough to achieve lofty goals as long as he stays on task and remains motivated.. Smart as both boys were, they had no idea how to wire detonators and failed to figure it out in the limited time allotted for their construction. Initially, the idea was to set off bombs in the school cafeteria. Around the same time, leaders discussed how to respond to the shooting at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colo. More than 20 years later, NPR has obtained secret recordings of those conversations. April 20, 1999. Before the SWAT team finally entered the building at 1:38 PM, Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had carried out a vicious massacre with seemingly no shred of pity for any of their victims. While our community struggles with that question and grieves those who were lost, we remain united in one hopethat our nation shall never see anything resembling the tragedy at Columbine High School again. "The fruitcakes are going to show up. "You know, the other problem is holding a member meeting without an exhibit hall. The differences between the two are striking. Today, most people still think Columbine could have been stopped if only someone had been a little nicer to Eric Harris a humanizing story that covers over a truth too terrible to think about. But a hard-line faction in the NRA is uninterested in those compromises or any position other than the most expansive view of the Second Amendment. "I was talking to Nickles' office this morning, and what they told me is they're planning on sending them all to school[s] because what they wanted us to do was secretly provide them with talking points," LaPierre says. Columbine High School students gather at a memorial for the victims. Here is all evidence released - including the witness statements known as the 11k. Some victims and families of people killed or injured filed suit against the school and the police; most of these suits were later dismissed in court. "The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all too often bloom on fresh graves. They acquired a fourth weapon, a bomb, from a coworker at the pizza place. "I'd be willing to bet that these Parkland kids will be doing the same thing if these tragedies happen down the road. Even after that, Harris did most of the shooting. And so anything we do here is going to be a matter of trying to decide the best of a whole bunch of very, very bad choices.". Does that look crass or NRA LOBBYIST JIM BAKER: You mean the legislative? A German student is charged with planning a massacre to coincide with the US tragedy. Brown was confused, but that was nothing new in his relationship with Harris. Columbine High School shootings, massacre that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, leaving 15 dead, including the two students responsible for the attack. When I first saw the Web pages, I was utterly blown away, said Brown. The principal spent his post-Columbine years wading through uncharted waters as he tried to help himself, his staff and his students through the trauma. Billboards advertising a "World Class Guns & Gear Expo" already peppered the city. A third measure . ", The sheer shock of 13 people losing their lives, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. It's a recurrent internal problem with the NRA often its most radical members are also the most passionate, dedicated and outspoken.
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