But he was also harboring a deep hatred for the world. They acquired a fourth weapon, a bomb, from a coworker at the pizza place. Other Columbine survivors founded The Rebels Project, a non-profit that connects mass shootings survivors with each other to help find a support system. Now, schools are built to have classroom doors lock from the inside, he said. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Columbine High School Shooting: The Full Story Behind The Tragedy 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. Investigators later learned Harris and Klebold had arrived in separate cars at Columbine around 11:10 on the morning of the massacre. The truth was more complicated, and thus, harder to digest. I had a difficult time looking at people in the eyes because of the guilt I felt. Columbine High School students gather at a memorial for the victims. The Columbine Massacre took 15 lives (including the two shooters) and wounded 24. No one wanted to confront the worst-case scenario, no matter how increasingly obvious it was becoming. Bush publicly resigned as an NRA member in protest. The problem was that his father picked up the phone, and Harris had to claim it was a wrong number. "That's one very good argument, Jim," replies PR consultant Tony Makris. Public DomainA page from Eric Harris journal showing drawings and notes related to guns and Doom. (Garrett considers one of the most significant federal changes in recent decades to be the assault weapons ban signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, which expired in 2004 and was not renewed by Congress. DeAngelis soon realized Columbine could no longer serve Chinese food because that was served the day of the shooting. It was in 1998, the year before the shooting, that the two boys were first arrested. Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills months after Colorado ROBINSON: No, I'm talking about something concrete PR CONSULTANT TONY MAKRIS: Like a victims fund ROBINSON: Yeah, we create a victims fund, and we, uh, we give the victims a million dollars or something like that, uh. Eric Harris in a scene from the Columbine shooters, the biggest mass shooting in U.S. history left Las Vegas in terror, Harris had moved around fairly often as a child, considered gifted as early as grammar school, the Trenchcoat Mafia and other Columbine myths. Jefferson County Sheriffs Department via Getty ImagesFrom left, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold examine a sawed-off shotgun at a makeshift shooting range. Several other journal entries are signed Goodbye as if he expected them to be his last ones. When I first saw the Web pages, I was utterly blown away, said Brown. Klebold writes in florid, morose prose and poetry about God, self-medicating with alcohol, cutting himself, and his persistent thoughts of suicide. May 1999. 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. Indeed, even two decades later, people are still attempting to reconcile how two children couldve engaged in such immense violence and become the Columbine shooters. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. As Brown began to confront him, Harris interrupted him: It doesnt matter anymore. Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, is seen here in a photo taken just weeks after the 1999 Columbine shooting. From this, it can be inferred that Harris had to convince Klebold to go through with the attack at the last minute. They then tried provoking police by firing through the windows, but the officers neither hit them nor entered the building. More than 20 were injured. David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland, Fla. high school shooting and Craig Nason, a survivor of the 1999 Columbine massacre, took to Twitter following news of the shooting at an elementary . But then, the sounds became faster. Often, Harris cruelty was unfocused and not tied to any particular slight. Sometimes after a high-profile mass shooting, states will tighten up gun laws, requiring background checks, restricting the age for buying guns, reducing the sale of assault-type weapons or banning the sale of high capacity magazines, said Garrett. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 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. In early 1998, Harris stopped posting online and began keeping a notebook he titled The Book of God, mostly dedicated to his homicidal fantasies and nihilistic philosophy. Klebold had actually been keeping his own diary, Existences: A Virtual Book, since the previous spring. Because their story needs a villain. His depression and rage simmered and showed themselves in his work, once even causing him to hand in an essay so gruesome his teacher later remarked that it was the most vicious story shed ever read.. Since the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School, we identified six mass shootings and 40 active shooter incidents at elementary, middle or high schools in the United States. That's when a group of girls came out of a locker room, walking unsuspectingly down the hallway. While Brown distracted her, Harris covered himself and a nearby rock with fake blood, letting out a scream before playing dead. but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill who ever I deam [sic] unfit for anything at all. So if you restrict the way they buy weapons, they can just wait or go to another state to buy an assault weapon. What changed between August 10, 1998 his last suicide threat and the attack on April 20, 1999, is unknown. Two were placed in the cafeteria to bring down the ceiling and allow Harris and Klebold to shoot students as they fled. While Eric Harris was an unpredictable ball of volatile energy, Dylan Klebold appeared more introverted, vulnerable, and quietly disillusioned. At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric . 11; Overwhelmingly, the offender is a single shooter (98 percent), primarily male . On April 20, 1999, the Columbine High School Massacre in Littleton, Colorado brought a violent end to a time of relative innocence in American society and culture. The dilemma they face is apparent in their conversations. 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. "What we're trying to avoid here, I think, is what happened after the Oklahoma City bombing," says PR adviser McQueen. The evidence provides no definitive explanation, and the question continues to haunt us all. 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. Van Dreal: Revenge is a driving force in school violence because it's borne from humiliation and loss of control. BAKER: I think the industry will do whatever we ask them to do. hide caption. Jefferson County Sheriffs Office/Getty Images. Officials later found two propane tank bombs in the cafeteria; had they detonated, the death toll would have been much higher. On the morning of Tuesday, April 20, 1999, Columbine High School senior Brooks Brown noted something strange. That's how the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School - where two young men killed 13 people - shaped the way law . RT @CGravesMassGuy: @NotJolyMcVeigh https://tapatalk.com - Twitter The Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. These [gunmen] will plan weeks, months, sometimes years, in advance as they build up. Though Harris temperament and behavior were seemingly as normal as anyone elses at his age, he did appear to have trouble finding his place in Littleton. Because their story needs a villain. Investigators say he sold the gunmen a semiautomatic TEC DC-9 handgun that was used in the attack. What they didnt know, however, was that Harris and Klebold had been arrested for a completely different felony: breaking into a parked van and stealing electronics equipment. Harris also took notes about student movements and the number of exits in the school. When that victim replied, Yes, the shooter walked away. We are in deep s*** on this deal. In a presentation to a conference of psychologists years after the shooting, Dwayne Fusilier of the FBI presented his belief that, based on his homicidal fantasies, skill at lying, and lack of remorse, Eric Harris was a budding young psychopath. In response, one of the participants raised an objection, I think he was a full-blown psychopath. A number of other psychologists agreed. They said he had a white shirt.". They reflect on how surviving transformed them from carefree teenagers to terrified and bitter young adults. "The simplistic training is 'run, hide, fight,'" Garrett said. April 20, 1999. A few days later, parked at a stop sign by Harris bus stop, Harris shattered Browns windshield with a block of ice. 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. April 20, 1999. Harris father Wayne managed to get both boys into a Juvenile Diversion program. They learned about it in the newspaper. Before they eventually turned the guns on themselves, the two shooters reportedly taunted their victims with a glee so disturbing it could understandably sound fictional. March 6, 1999. "Even on the first day, a lot of students said that. A lawyer for Manes, 22, has said his client had no knowledge of plans for the school attack. "When you take those different pieces of the puzzle, put them together, I think we have a better chance of stopping these things. Harris secured advances for them both to purchase last-minute supplies. I mean, why why are you giving money? Forty-eight minutes ticked by at Columbine before SWAT entered the building, DeAngelis said, as the officers first had to get their gear at their precincts -- leaving DeAngelis and the police at the scene feeling helpless. 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 boys and their coworkers would routinely goof around during slow hours, drinking beer and shooting bottle rockets off the roof. He and Brooks Brown both attended the Colorado CHIPS (Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students) program for gifted children starting in the third grade. You feel responsible? By approximately 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other people. DeAngelis herded them into a gym storage area. And in those private moments, the NRA considered a strikingly more sympathetic posture toward mass shootings than the uncompromising stance it has taken publicly in the decades since, even considering a $1 million fund to care for the victims. Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were hardly the bullied outcasts bent on revenge that they were made out to be they wanted to see the world burn. It was compulsive. Fascinated by war stories, he regularly played soldier, pretending to be a marine with his older brother and neighborhood children in rural Michigan. Colorado governor signs 4 gun control bills after massacre "Today, that strategy of waiting seems nuts. Bullying was fairly common at Columbine High School and teachers reportedly did little to stop it. Brown was never sure why hed done that, but Columbine author Dave Cullen suspects it was one of several attempts to draw attention to Harris behavior. The shootings were carried out by Eric Harris, age 18, and Dylan Klebold, age 17. East Lansing Police Oversight Commission to review Meijer shooting Originally planned for April 19 the anniversary of the Waco Siege and the Oklahoma City Bombing the attack, Harris hoped, would beat Timothys McVeighs body count in Oklahoma. The Columbine High School shootings occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, United States. Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the school cafeteria during the massacre. While some suggest the two boys were targets of bullying, many more accounts show them as fairly popular, maintaining a sizeable group of friends. In the beginning, Harris and Klebold were just angsty teens working at a local pizza place together. Jefferson County Sheriffs Office/Getty Images. From a few jumbled pieces, the flawed popular image began to form: Klebold was in the theater department, so he was gay and mocked for it. Security cameras show they then went to the cafeteria, trying and failing to set off the propane tanks with pipe bombs and shotgun blasts. 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? ", Farber wanted life to go on "as normal as possible," but "there's just always this underlying feeling of guilt," she said. At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in trench coats, began shooting fellow students outside Columbine High School, located in a suburb south of Denver. Strangle them, squish their head, rip off their jaw, break their arms in half, show them who is God.. All of this mightve occurred if the bombs actually worked which they didnt. When the bombs failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree. Farber hopes the film will reach trauma survivors beyond Columbine and help them move past their own experiences. 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. March 6, 1999. 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. And, and it's gonna, it's gonna be the worst thing you can imagine.". Kevin Moloney/Getty Images Each student dealt with the tragedy in a different way, he said. Circa 1998. Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images. There was strong criticism of the slow police response. Just after the deadly shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, gun control advocates rallied at the Colorado State Capitol to protest the NRA's annual meeting that year in Denver. The violence came to an end when Harris and Klebold took their own lives. Klebold and Harris were no longer mere fans of violent video games like Doom but had obtained three weapons that would later be used in the shooting from a female friend who was old enough to purchase guns in the state of Colorado. April 20, 1999. Stone said investigators have questioned the person. Liability for Mass Shootings: Are We at a Turning Point? Compared with Harris and Klebolds ambitions, the Columbine High School attack was a complete failure. In his imagination, games were full of violence, and he was always the hero. Wikimedia CommonsEric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold in the school cafeteria during the Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999. 02:45 - Source: CNN. Heirloom Fine PortraitsDylan Klebold. He heard a tap at the window and turned to see Harris and Klebold, dressed in black, sitting in a tree. LaPierre claims that Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., had secretly asked him for talking points to use after the shooting. School shootings didn't start in 1999 at Columbine. Here's why that The shooting happened more than a year ago, on April 25, after police responded to a report of a man with a gun at the Meijer store on Lake Lansing Road. What's the industry going to do? At least 143 people have been killed in school shootings since Columbine, according to The Washington Post (school shootings are not tallied by the federal government, The Post notes). Columbine-obsessed teen Sol Pais, who threatened local schools, found As he wrote in a note on the journals first page, Fact: People are so unaware well, Ignorance is bliss I guess that would explain my depression.. Stone's remarks about a possible third attacker marked the latest turn in a case that has seen authorities appear at odds with each other over developments in the investigation.