Columbine High School Shooting Case Study

Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado is home to the deadliest high school shootings in United States history. On April 20, 1999, two Columbine High School students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting rampage at their high school (shooting teachers and students) killing fifteen, including themselves, and injuring twenty-four others. John Stone, the Jefferson County Sheriff, said “When we did make entry into the library, it was a pretty gruesome sight.” Stone also called the attack “a suicide mission” (New York Daily News, 2015). There is speculation that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the gunmen, committed the crime because “they had been bullied, were members of a group of social outcasts that was fascinated by Goth
On the seventeenth anniversary of the Columbine travesty, Katie Couric revisits her interview with Craig Scott, a survivor of the massacre, and Isiah Shoel’s father, an innocent victim of the shooting. These people were chosen to be interviewed based on availability and the nature of what Scott experienced. Craig Scott not only lost his friend Isiah Shoel, but he also lost his older sister Rachel Scott. He witnessed innocent classmates being shot to death right in front of him. In the interview, Scott recounts how the shooters were aiming for kids in white hats—indicating that they were jocks. He recalls that the shooters came up to Isiah calling him racial slurs and then shot him right in from of Craig. Craig also stated that after Isiah and Matt were shot, he played dead and prayed to God to give him courage and to keep protection over them. This interview touches on controversial topics that have an impact across the globe: race and religion. Katie Couric’s 1999 interview can influence schools and parents to talk to their children about the effects of troubled kids and ensuring that no kids get to the point that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did ever again. According to Greg Toppo from USA
Contrary to early reports, Harris and Klebold weren't on antidepressant medication and didn't target jocks, blacks or Christians, police now say, citing the killers' journals and witness accounts. That story about a student being shot in the head after she said she believed in God? Never happened, the FBI says now.”
Sources from USA Today claim that Eric Harris was more than just troubled but a “cold-blooded, predatory psychopath—a smart, charming liar with a preposterously grand superiority complex, a revulsion for authority and an excruciating need for control” (Toppo, USA Today).
The responsibility of the media was to retell the story of this travesty to the rest of the world, but unfortunately they failed to do so by creating myths and other ideologies as to why the killers followed through with this annihilation. The police also added to some media myths by conducting a news conference prior to receiving credible and correct information. The media took advantage of sensitive issues in order to benefit themselves and grow their audience. They framed the story with controversial topics so they could garner polarizing opinions. The media wants to start conversations in households about why these boys committed this crime and, whatever excuse they provided, they hoped households would run with it. The media wants the public