Morbid Curiosity: The Columbine Massacre
Mr Ellison
Morbid Curiosity: The Columbine Massacre
MP4A History
Addison Baker (142251)
3/21/2014
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Plan of Investigation PAGEREF _Toc383629668 \h 2Historical Context PAGEREF _Toc383629670 \h 3Interview and Narrative PAGEREF _Toc383629671 \h 8Analysis of Interview and Source Reliability PAGEREF _Toc383629672 \h 11Evaluation of Series of Events PAGEREF _Toc383629673 \h 12Resource List PAGEREF _Toc383629674 \h 13
Plan of Investigation-1372235128333500
Historical ContextOn April 20th, 1999 two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began an attack on their own high school and on their fellow peers inside. They entered Columbine high school armed with various means of firepower and were prepared …show more content…
to murder 500 people. When the assault ended, 24 people were injured and 15 were dead including the killers themselves, leaving countless lives changed forever. Eric and Dylan had been planning their attack on Columbine High School for up to one year before hand and their reasons behind the shooting will remain forever unknown. Columbine was the first school shooting of its kind due to its live coverage and influence of the media on the general public (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre).
Columbine high school is situated in Littleton, Colorado in the United States. Littleton Colorado is a suburban town in Colorado with a current population of 40,340 people and a per capita income of $34,203 ( City-Data, Littleton). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attended Columbine along with two thousand other adolescents in the year 1999. The two teenagers took their time to plan the columbine massacre and began planning as early as one year before April 20th. Harris and Klebold were arrested on January 30th, 1998, for breaking into a van and stealing various electronics. They were entered in a juvenile diversion program to help them break their bad habits and resist future urges. Shortly after entering this support group, Eric began a journal where the idea of a school shooting was first outlined. Eric and Dylan were both suspected to be members in a local gang, the “Trench Coat Mafia”. Members of this gang wore black trench coats and were known to stir up trouble. They were however, not members of the gang. They left alarming messages and illustrations in each other’s yearbooks including a man holding a large gun surrounded by dead bodies with the caption: “You’re only alive because someone has decided to let you live,” written underneath. Eric and Dylan surfed the internet with no supervision, finding recipes for pipe bombs and other explosives. They later compiled an arsenal hidden under their beds and in their closets. Klebold and Harris began observing student activity in the cafeteria, noting when the lunch rush was at its peak and what time the students began to resume classes. The diabolical teenagers had been anxious for April 20th to arrive and finally, it had (Columbine Massacre, Rosenberg).
The attack itself only took a total of 45 minutes and was much messier and unorganized than planned. Harris and Klebold planted bombs in the cafeteria approximately twenty minutes before they fired the first of many bullets. They cunningly planted the bombs in duffle bags to blend in with the 480 backpacks that would soon clutter the cafeteria floor during the lunch hour. The two boys each wore black trench coats during the shooting, further supporting the rumour of them being members in the “Trench Coat Mafia”. However, they simply wore the coats to conceal the deadly firearms they were carrying on their person. They each labeled their clothing, Dylan’s coat saying “wrath” on the back and Eric’s t-shirt saying “natural selection” on the front. Both carried duffle bags containing savage items such as shotguns, pipe bombs, CO2 canisters, ammunition and several knives. Harris and Klebold triggered their cars so that after they had
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2952757654925Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacking Columbine High School cafeteria http://acolumbinesite.com/event/cafeteria.jpg 0Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacking Columbine High School cafeteria http://acolumbinesite.com/event/cafeteria.jpg 2952753425825001238252644775Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131105002750/criminalminds/images/a/a6/Harris_and_Klebold.jpg 00Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131105002750/criminalminds/images/a/a6/Harris_and_Klebold.jpg -6000754252392Smoke from pipe bombs during Columbine Shooting http://www.columbine-online.com/columbine-online-img/killers-friends/killers-from-library-windows.jpg 0Smoke from pipe bombs during Columbine Shooting http://www.columbine-online.com/columbine-online-img/killers-friends/killers-from-library-windows.jpg -689610418655500307721041795700030765754249420A student jumping out of a window to be rescued after being shot http://chelsysayshi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/columbine_window_escape.jpg 0A student jumping out of a window to be rescued after being shot http://chelsysayshi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/columbine_window_escape.jpg 20320-470535001905081915Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/17/timestopics/columbine_395.jpg Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/17/timestopics/columbine_395.jpg committed suicide and the students were dead, their cars would explode.
The boys hoped to also kill all of the emergency personnel and the families of the children they had murdered who were surrounding the building (Larkin, 8). After planting the bombs in the cafeteria, both Dylan and Eric quickly departed the school and positioned themselves near their cars to shoot fleeing students from a distance. After waiting a considerable period of time, it was clear that their bombs were defective. The boys quickly ran back into the school, shooting several students on the way into the building. A member of faculty called the police upon hearing the gunshots. Students began to panic and frantically tried to escape. The failed detonation of the bombs caught the boys off guard. Eric and Dylan ran up and down the hallway, detonating bombs in their tracks. They made their way to the library where fifty-two students were hiding, terrified under the tables and in cabinets. They entered the library and asked for anyone who wore a white cap – all varsity athletes at the time wore white caps – to get on their feet. Eric and Dylan murdered anyone wearing a white cap and the people around the athletes. After shooting the students in the library, they moved to the cafeteria. Harris and Klebold fired several bullets at the defective bombs, hoping to ignite them, but instead started an accidental fire. They soon gave up on the bombs and returned to the library where they committed suicide. The …show more content…
rampage only lasted a total of 45 minutes, yet it took the authorities four hours to secure the premises (Larkin, 8). The question was obvious: who were these boys and was there any apparent warning signs that they had such dire plans in mind?
In the public’s eyes, there must have been something that drove Eric and Dylan into committing such a gruesome act and they made a point of finding out. As soon as the shooting was over the general public began to question what the two boys’ motives were that lead them to commit such a horrific act. In the beginning people believed that Harris and Klebold were victims of bullying and were perceived as outcasts. However, more recently we have begun to re-analyze the evidence found about the two young men. It became more obvious that they were neither outcasts nor bullied. They often dated, went to prom and were part of a large friend circle (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre). Each of them had jobs at a local pizzeria and played video games. The Columbine High School’s current principal and also at the time of the shooting, Frank DeAngelis says that the two young men were average students; Eric was even in some upper level classes. The FBI’s top physiatrist, Dr. Frank Ochberg and Supervisory Special Agent, Dwayne Fuselier stated, “Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were radically different individuals, with vastly different motives and opposite mental conditions.” Klebold has been described as “hotheaded, depressive and suicidal,” as Ochberg and Fuselier said. Eric however, was more of a mystery. He was well-spoken and had a kind face, yet was cruel and homicidal. Psychiatrics who analyze the case more recently say that Harris was on a more escalated level of “troubled”; he was a psychopath. “Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people,” Fuselier said. When combined, their vastly different personalities formed a deadly combination. In reflection, there were many obvious warning signs which foreshadowed the pair’s fearful plans (The Depressive and the Psychopath, Cullen).
Eric and Dylan weren’t overly careful when planning the shooting and there was some compelling evidence discovered beforehand that was either ignored or underestimated. One year before April 20th the two boys had already begun compiling an arsenal of various bombs and firearms in their bedrooms. They used the internet, a relatively new feature in homes, to find recipes for pipe bombs and to discuss their plans with strangers. Eric had a website containing pictures of pipe bombs, plans of making pipe bombs and paragraphs bragging about detonating pipe bombs in nearby forests. On the same website, Harris made a threat towards a childhood friend, Brooks Brown. In the midst of rant on said website, Eric stated, “All I want to do is kill…as many of you as I can…especially a few people like Brooks Brown.” Brown’s parents scanned Eric’s website. Alarmed, they contacted the local authorities and filed a report against Eric Harris. It was only after Dylan and Eric were dead that the Browns were informed that no such investigation had ever been carried out. A teacher was disturbed by an essay turned in by Dylan Klebold. In the essay, Dylan described a character who was dressed in a black coat and sets out on a shooting spree. The teacher confronted both Dylan and his parents. When Klebold’s parents approached him, he defended himself and said that it was nothing but imaginative. The boys also video recorded themselves testing their illegally owned guns in a nearby forest. Individually, each piece of evidence might not be considered alarming on a regular basis. However, when considered as a whole they become startling. New and popular technology such as cellular phones, first-person shooter games and the internet, made the Columbine Massacre the first of its kind (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre).
The Columbine school shooting caused an immediate and shocking change in schools and perspectives all over the United States, as well as the world.
There had been school shootings before Columbine. However, Columbine was the first where cell phones played a substantial role. Cell phones were rising in popularity and many students had one. Many teachers and students called the authorities as well as the local news stations from inside of the school. They were able to give live accounts of what they were seeing, who was injured and where the shooters were (CNN, Kay Jones). The police were also able to gain vital information through discarded phones that were still on call with 911 by listening to conversations and exchanges between the shooters and other victims (LiveLeak, Columbine Massacre). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the school at 11:09a.m. and had committed suicide by 12:08. Knowing virtually nothing, the press descended on the school by 12:30p.m. Watching the massacre unfold they reported anything they saw or heard. The news stations often interviewed students who had fled from the building, as well as anxious parents waiting for word. News anchors covered anything and everything they could get their hands on. The majority of the information received by the police immediately after the shooting was assumptions, rumors or figments of the imagination and the police refused to release any information to the
public.
Interview and NarrativeCarly Baker was interviewed on the 18th of March 2014, regarding her reactions to the Columbine Massacre and the aftermath of the bloodshed. She was born on the 28th of September 1975 in Champagne, Illinois in the United States of America. Carly lived in Bardlesville, Oklahoma during the year of 1999 and was 7 months pregnant. At the time of the Columbine Massacre she was working with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and autistic middle school students. She was spending a day off at home watching television. As she switched channels she briefly paused on her local news station to be met with breaking news regarding a large-scale school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. As she watched the scene unravel, her initial reaction was to be filled with horror. During the interview, she recalled the anxiety that accompanied her watching the live coverage of a school shooting that was not yet over. It took the authorities a total of four hours to secure the building, and the whole of America was watching live on their television sets in the comfort of their own homes. “It was a live news feed. So, it was on every news station. You couldn’t have gotten away from it if you had wanted to. You were glued to it,” Carly recollected. She began to explain how each news station had different information, from different sources. Flicking from station to station, she was able to collect a range of information, a lot of which turned out to be rumours. Carly explained how the authorities and the media didn’t have much information; instead they were all waiting for something, anything to happen. “They didn’t know how many people were in the school [shooting] doing it, they didn’t know if it [the shooters] were students, they didn’t know if they [the students] were being held hostage, they didn’t how if anyone was injured, they didn’t know how many students were in the school, were all of the students at gunpoint, etc.” she explained. Carly remembered seeing SWAT officers surrounding the school, further justifying the severity of the situation. She recalled then seeing the SWAT officers catching a boy jumping from a window after being shot. “And some students had a sign that said Help or Bleeding to death, or something, which just made you feel sick and terrified because you empathized with the person. You can barely imagine how it would feel to be standing on the other side of a window and not be able to receive any help,” she remembered seeing students pleading for help through windows after a teacher had been shot and dragged back into the classroom by his students (Carly Baker).
The media had a huge influence on Columbine, and to Carly, it played a large part in the aftermath of the massacre. Carly explained how, at the time, the media was booming. “You could watch live car chases and murder trials were televised live in your living room. With the internet and the media, the public was hungry, a developing starvation for immediate gratification,” She said, “It was the time that the media really exploded, all existing information was everywhere. No one seemed to had learned how to filter information as appropriate or inappropriate for the public, and it made the Columbine Massacre more painful for others with no connection to the victims than it would have been otherwise,” she explained. As the conversation focused more on the perception of the media, she struggled for a way to describe what the media did that tugged so many heart strings. “The media exploited the situation. They exploited the situation in every way, shape and form. I mean, the montages of parents discovering that their children had been killed, students holding on to other students as they fled the building, candle-light vigils were all set to music. Over and over again, designed to do nothing but get an emotional reaction out of the public. It was real enough without making it like a movie. It is real.”
She then went on to explain the nature of the media during the shooting and how the live feed impacted the audience. Carly described the agony that accompanies watching a child running and screaming from the school, pleading for help, and how you knew it was happening right then. “The crying children fleeing from the school, the parents on their knees, the bodies being dragged from the school as you see the reactions of the public, and again, the media had no sense of when enough was enough.” Carly recalled how several of her friends grasped for some form of emotional connection that didn’t necessarily exist other than ordinary sympathy. “Because of the constant news feed and the media, it seemed like people wanted to be directly involved. They tried to form some pretty far-fetched connections with the town, the people or the school” (Carly Baker).
Beginning to migrate to more personal views, Carly explained the general public’s reaction to Columbine, “Columbine tied into the “devil” of media, the “devil” of entertainment in the home and the new-age issue of video games, and the internet. The internet had become this new entity. But no one was thinking about the fact yet, that their children could access such a broad spectrum of information on the internet. No one was checking what their kids were looking at. And in the case of the shooters, we now know they were looking at bombs and guns. Nobody even thought, as a parent, as a society, as anything, that maybe we should look at what people are putting on the internet, like “I’m going to go shoot everybody at my school on April 20th” and that was a big flaw at the time. Our thinking had not yet caught up with technology.” Upon being asked what effects Columbine had on public schools in the United States, she repeated one phrase more than a few times: “knee-jerk reaction”. She explained how school security rose from a total lack there-of, to an extreme amount of security. For example, after Columbine, most students were required to carry clear back-packs, students were frisked at the door, metal detectors were instilled in several schools, more counselors were hired, and students were put on watch-lists and so on. Carly remembered how quickly “intruder alerts” were put into action after columbine, “It never occurred to anybody, not even myself as a teacher, that there would be anything more serious happen than a fire or a tornado. We never even considered it a possibility that someone would ever try to kill kids.” Carly explained how school was regarded as a “safe place” where the parents felt secure leaving their kids during the day. “If they were at school, they were safe.” She described how the aftermath of Columbine was so multi-faceted, and affected everybody who heard about it. “The reactions appeared to be quick and sometimes irresponsible, but you had to appreciate that people were frantically trying to blame someone or something, to try to figure out why these kids would have done this. This was so we could protect ourselves in the future,” (Carly Baker).
Upon being asked whether as a teacher she ever feared something similar happening at her school, Carly explained that although she was working with ADHD students at the time, there were also students with some psychological issues. She recollected that she began to worry about “copy-cats” who would gain ideas from the Columbine Massacre, and would perhaps attempt similar actions. “Of course it went through your mind, what if someone got an idea from watching Columbine happen or what if a student began planning something as horrible and as devastating as the shooting. But no matter what, it would be your job to protect these students, and it also went through your mind whether you would follow the intruder drills. Or would you try to get your students out as soon as possible.” Moving forward from the past, and focusing more on the present day, Carly gave her opinions on the Columbine Massacre now, as a mother and as a teacher in the modern world. She emphasized that although she felt Columbine was horrible at the time, now as a mother and a more experienced teacher, she feels the grief on a whole new level. “As a teacher now of 15 years, whenever I walk into a new classroom, I consider where I would put the kids if an intruder alert would happen. I always consider the cabinets, under the desks, under the lab benches and so on. But then I think, would that be good idea? You play over so many scenarios in your head. I do this because of Columbine and other tragedies like it.” As the interview came to a gradual close, Carly searched for any information that she had forgotten or wanted to re-emphasize. The ending sentence of the interview was honest and remarkably true, “Overall, when I look back on it, the one phrase that most accurately describes Columbine is, embarrassingly enough, Morbid Curiosity,” (Carly Baker).
Two young men destroyed the lives of many people without any hesitation, murdering the sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of their friends and neighbors. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold marched into their own high school, prepared to kill hundreds but stopping at tens before taking their own lives. People such as Carly Baker, a teacher, have been affected forever by the Columbine Massacre. The tragic shooting altered schools all over the world, and changed several views forever. Whether it presents itself in an obvious manner or not, Columbine had an effect on us all.
Analysis of Interview and Source ReliabilityCarly Baker was my chosen interview subject and was interviewed on the 18th March, 2014. Carly Baker was chosen as a reliable source because of her career and experience in schools around the world. I was eager to choose her as an interview subject because she was a new teacher at the time of the shooting and was beginning her teaching career when major changes were made to the education industry. Another reason for her interviewing was that I knew previously she had watched the live feed of the Columbine Massacre on television and had vivid memories of the shooting happening, minute by minute, although she was in a different state. She has very emotional and interesting views regarding the shooting; both present day opinions and past opinions. The value of the information provided by Carly Baker is quite high, and an outside teacher’s perspective is perhaps a more overlooked category when focusing on school shootings such as Columbine. I would consider the information provided by Carly Baker highly reliable, although I was not expecting her to remember such detailed aspects of Columbine. Various limitations when interviewing Carly became apparent while interviewing her. Limitations such as, her mixed opinions on gun control, the fact that she lived in a different state at the time, her perspectives have changed as she has become a mother, and her living in Europe present day, where conditions are slightly different. Despite the small limitations, a highly valuable interview emerged from my few guideline questions provided. Carly Baker was a very eager interview partner and provided true and extremely detailed information concerning Columbine.
Evaluation of Series of EventsThe process of the Oral History Report went rather smoothly, presenting a few minor challenges along the way. I began the process by writing a plan of investigation and a brief outline of the report. My next step was to begin gathering information regarding the Columbine Massacre and was able to find a hefty amount of resources. After gathering my resources I analyzed all of the information to highlight vital facts that would later be needed for my report. Once I had analyzed and broken down all of my collected data, I could move on to writing the interview questions and deciding upon whom to interview. It only took me a few minutes to decide to interview my mother and it took a few days to perfect the interview guidelines. I set the interview date for the 18th March 2014 and the interview lasted around 1 hour and a half. My mother provided an immense amount of information and had a very educated view on the shooting. The interview was recorded and I took brief notes on the conversation. In a few days’ time, I began writing the basics of my report, following my outline and plan of investigation. The background information took a matter of two days, whereas the interview narrative only took one. The challenges faced were a lack of time due to other reports; however I was able to use break times, after school periods and weekends to appropriately distribute tasks to various days. I ended the process by proof reading my paper and updating my plan of investigation. Overall, the process was easy and interesting, and I gained an abundance of information while researching Columbine.
Resource ListBaker, Carly. "Columbine Massacre Interview." Personal interview. 18 Mar. 2014.
Cullen, Dave. "At Last We Know Why the Columbine Killers Did It." Slate Magazine. N.p., 20 Apr. 2004. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"The Final Report | Columbine Massacre." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Jones, Kay. "Covering Columbine – 10 Years Ago Today." Anderson Cooper 360 RSS. N.p., 20 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
"Littleton, Colorado." (CO) Profile: Population, Maps, Real Estate, Averages, Homes, Statistics, Relocation, Travel, Jobs, Hospitals, Schools, Crime, Moving, Houses, News. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"LiveLeak.com - Columbine Massacre, with Sound - GRAPHIC." Columbine Massacre, with Sound. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Rosenburg, Jennifer. "Columbine Massacre." About.com 20th Century History. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Morbid Curiosity: The Columbine Massacre
MP4A History
Addison Baker (142251)
3/21/2014
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Plan of Investigation PAGEREF _Toc383629668 \h 2Historical Context PAGEREF _Toc383629670 \h 3Interview and Narrative PAGEREF _Toc383629671 \h 8Analysis of Interview and Source Reliability PAGEREF _Toc383629672 \h 11Evaluation of Series of Events PAGEREF _Toc383629673 \h 12Resource List PAGEREF _Toc383629674 \h 13
Plan of Investigation-1372235128333500
Historical ContextOn April 20th, 1999 two young men, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began an attack on their own high school and on their fellow peers inside. They entered Columbine high school armed with various means of firepower and were prepared …show more content…
to murder 500 people. When the assault ended, 24 people were injured and 15 were dead including the killers themselves, leaving countless lives changed forever. Eric and Dylan had been planning their attack on Columbine High School for up to one year before hand and their reasons behind the shooting will remain forever unknown. Columbine was the first school shooting of its kind due to its live coverage and influence of the media on the general public (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre).
Columbine high school is situated in Littleton, Colorado in the United States. Littleton Colorado is a suburban town in Colorado with a current population of 40,340 people and a per capita income of $34,203 ( City-Data, Littleton). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attended Columbine along with two thousand other adolescents in the year 1999. The two teenagers took their time to plan the columbine massacre and began planning as early as one year before April 20th. Harris and Klebold were arrested on January 30th, 1998, for breaking into a van and stealing various electronics. They were entered in a juvenile diversion program to help them break their bad habits and resist future urges. Shortly after entering this support group, Eric began a journal where the idea of a school shooting was first outlined. Eric and Dylan were both suspected to be members in a local gang, the “Trench Coat Mafia”. Members of this gang wore black trench coats and were known to stir up trouble. They were however, not members of the gang. They left alarming messages and illustrations in each other’s yearbooks including a man holding a large gun surrounded by dead bodies with the caption: “You’re only alive because someone has decided to let you live,” written underneath. Eric and Dylan surfed the internet with no supervision, finding recipes for pipe bombs and other explosives. They later compiled an arsenal hidden under their beds and in their closets. Klebold and Harris began observing student activity in the cafeteria, noting when the lunch rush was at its peak and what time the students began to resume classes. The diabolical teenagers had been anxious for April 20th to arrive and finally, it had (Columbine Massacre, Rosenberg).
The attack itself only took a total of 45 minutes and was much messier and unorganized than planned. Harris and Klebold planted bombs in the cafeteria approximately twenty minutes before they fired the first of many bullets. They cunningly planted the bombs in duffle bags to blend in with the 480 backpacks that would soon clutter the cafeteria floor during the lunch hour. The two boys each wore black trench coats during the shooting, further supporting the rumour of them being members in the “Trench Coat Mafia”. However, they simply wore the coats to conceal the deadly firearms they were carrying on their person. They each labeled their clothing, Dylan’s coat saying “wrath” on the back and Eric’s t-shirt saying “natural selection” on the front. Both carried duffle bags containing savage items such as shotguns, pipe bombs, CO2 canisters, ammunition and several knives. Harris and Klebold triggered their cars so that after they had
295275-59055000
2952757654925Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacking Columbine High School cafeteria http://acolumbinesite.com/event/cafeteria.jpg 0Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attacking Columbine High School cafeteria http://acolumbinesite.com/event/cafeteria.jpg 2952753425825001238252644775Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131105002750/criminalminds/images/a/a6/Harris_and_Klebold.jpg 00Eric Harris (left) and Dylan Klebold (right) http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131105002750/criminalminds/images/a/a6/Harris_and_Klebold.jpg -6000754252392Smoke from pipe bombs during Columbine Shooting http://www.columbine-online.com/columbine-online-img/killers-friends/killers-from-library-windows.jpg 0Smoke from pipe bombs during Columbine Shooting http://www.columbine-online.com/columbine-online-img/killers-friends/killers-from-library-windows.jpg -689610418655500307721041795700030765754249420A student jumping out of a window to be rescued after being shot http://chelsysayshi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/columbine_window_escape.jpg 0A student jumping out of a window to be rescued after being shot http://chelsysayshi.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/columbine_window_escape.jpg 20320-470535001905081915Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/17/timestopics/columbine_395.jpg Columbine High School, Littleton Colorado http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/17/timestopics/columbine_395.jpg committed suicide and the students were dead, their cars would explode.
The boys hoped to also kill all of the emergency personnel and the families of the children they had murdered who were surrounding the building (Larkin, 8). After planting the bombs in the cafeteria, both Dylan and Eric quickly departed the school and positioned themselves near their cars to shoot fleeing students from a distance. After waiting a considerable period of time, it was clear that their bombs were defective. The boys quickly ran back into the school, shooting several students on the way into the building. A member of faculty called the police upon hearing the gunshots. Students began to panic and frantically tried to escape. The failed detonation of the bombs caught the boys off guard. Eric and Dylan ran up and down the hallway, detonating bombs in their tracks. They made their way to the library where fifty-two students were hiding, terrified under the tables and in cabinets. They entered the library and asked for anyone who wore a white cap – all varsity athletes at the time wore white caps – to get on their feet. Eric and Dylan murdered anyone wearing a white cap and the people around the athletes. After shooting the students in the library, they moved to the cafeteria. Harris and Klebold fired several bullets at the defective bombs, hoping to ignite them, but instead started an accidental fire. They soon gave up on the bombs and returned to the library where they committed suicide. The …show more content…
rampage only lasted a total of 45 minutes, yet it took the authorities four hours to secure the premises (Larkin, 8). The question was obvious: who were these boys and was there any apparent warning signs that they had such dire plans in mind?
In the public’s eyes, there must have been something that drove Eric and Dylan into committing such a gruesome act and they made a point of finding out. As soon as the shooting was over the general public began to question what the two boys’ motives were that lead them to commit such a horrific act. In the beginning people believed that Harris and Klebold were victims of bullying and were perceived as outcasts. However, more recently we have begun to re-analyze the evidence found about the two young men. It became more obvious that they were neither outcasts nor bullied. They often dated, went to prom and were part of a large friend circle (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre). Each of them had jobs at a local pizzeria and played video games. The Columbine High School’s current principal and also at the time of the shooting, Frank DeAngelis says that the two young men were average students; Eric was even in some upper level classes. The FBI’s top physiatrist, Dr. Frank Ochberg and Supervisory Special Agent, Dwayne Fuselier stated, “Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were radically different individuals, with vastly different motives and opposite mental conditions.” Klebold has been described as “hotheaded, depressive and suicidal,” as Ochberg and Fuselier said. Eric however, was more of a mystery. He was well-spoken and had a kind face, yet was cruel and homicidal. Psychiatrics who analyze the case more recently say that Harris was on a more escalated level of “troubled”; he was a psychopath. “Klebold was hurting inside while Harris wanted to hurt people,” Fuselier said. When combined, their vastly different personalities formed a deadly combination. In reflection, there were many obvious warning signs which foreshadowed the pair’s fearful plans (The Depressive and the Psychopath, Cullen).
Eric and Dylan weren’t overly careful when planning the shooting and there was some compelling evidence discovered beforehand that was either ignored or underestimated. One year before April 20th the two boys had already begun compiling an arsenal of various bombs and firearms in their bedrooms. They used the internet, a relatively new feature in homes, to find recipes for pipe bombs and to discuss their plans with strangers. Eric had a website containing pictures of pipe bombs, plans of making pipe bombs and paragraphs bragging about detonating pipe bombs in nearby forests. On the same website, Harris made a threat towards a childhood friend, Brooks Brown. In the midst of rant on said website, Eric stated, “All I want to do is kill…as many of you as I can…especially a few people like Brooks Brown.” Brown’s parents scanned Eric’s website. Alarmed, they contacted the local authorities and filed a report against Eric Harris. It was only after Dylan and Eric were dead that the Browns were informed that no such investigation had ever been carried out. A teacher was disturbed by an essay turned in by Dylan Klebold. In the essay, Dylan described a character who was dressed in a black coat and sets out on a shooting spree. The teacher confronted both Dylan and his parents. When Klebold’s parents approached him, he defended himself and said that it was nothing but imaginative. The boys also video recorded themselves testing their illegally owned guns in a nearby forest. Individually, each piece of evidence might not be considered alarming on a regular basis. However, when considered as a whole they become startling. New and popular technology such as cellular phones, first-person shooter games and the internet, made the Columbine Massacre the first of its kind (FULLEHQ, The Final Report | Columbine Massacre).
The Columbine school shooting caused an immediate and shocking change in schools and perspectives all over the United States, as well as the world.
There had been school shootings before Columbine. However, Columbine was the first where cell phones played a substantial role. Cell phones were rising in popularity and many students had one. Many teachers and students called the authorities as well as the local news stations from inside of the school. They were able to give live accounts of what they were seeing, who was injured and where the shooters were (CNN, Kay Jones). The police were also able to gain vital information through discarded phones that were still on call with 911 by listening to conversations and exchanges between the shooters and other victims (LiveLeak, Columbine Massacre). Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the school at 11:09a.m. and had committed suicide by 12:08. Knowing virtually nothing, the press descended on the school by 12:30p.m. Watching the massacre unfold they reported anything they saw or heard. The news stations often interviewed students who had fled from the building, as well as anxious parents waiting for word. News anchors covered anything and everything they could get their hands on. The majority of the information received by the police immediately after the shooting was assumptions, rumors or figments of the imagination and the police refused to release any information to the
public.
Interview and NarrativeCarly Baker was interviewed on the 18th of March 2014, regarding her reactions to the Columbine Massacre and the aftermath of the bloodshed. She was born on the 28th of September 1975 in Champagne, Illinois in the United States of America. Carly lived in Bardlesville, Oklahoma during the year of 1999 and was 7 months pregnant. At the time of the Columbine Massacre she was working with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and autistic middle school students. She was spending a day off at home watching television. As she switched channels she briefly paused on her local news station to be met with breaking news regarding a large-scale school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. As she watched the scene unravel, her initial reaction was to be filled with horror. During the interview, she recalled the anxiety that accompanied her watching the live coverage of a school shooting that was not yet over. It took the authorities a total of four hours to secure the building, and the whole of America was watching live on their television sets in the comfort of their own homes. “It was a live news feed. So, it was on every news station. You couldn’t have gotten away from it if you had wanted to. You were glued to it,” Carly recollected. She began to explain how each news station had different information, from different sources. Flicking from station to station, she was able to collect a range of information, a lot of which turned out to be rumours. Carly explained how the authorities and the media didn’t have much information; instead they were all waiting for something, anything to happen. “They didn’t know how many people were in the school [shooting] doing it, they didn’t know if it [the shooters] were students, they didn’t know if they [the students] were being held hostage, they didn’t how if anyone was injured, they didn’t know how many students were in the school, were all of the students at gunpoint, etc.” she explained. Carly remembered seeing SWAT officers surrounding the school, further justifying the severity of the situation. She recalled then seeing the SWAT officers catching a boy jumping from a window after being shot. “And some students had a sign that said Help or Bleeding to death, or something, which just made you feel sick and terrified because you empathized with the person. You can barely imagine how it would feel to be standing on the other side of a window and not be able to receive any help,” she remembered seeing students pleading for help through windows after a teacher had been shot and dragged back into the classroom by his students (Carly Baker).
The media had a huge influence on Columbine, and to Carly, it played a large part in the aftermath of the massacre. Carly explained how, at the time, the media was booming. “You could watch live car chases and murder trials were televised live in your living room. With the internet and the media, the public was hungry, a developing starvation for immediate gratification,” She said, “It was the time that the media really exploded, all existing information was everywhere. No one seemed to had learned how to filter information as appropriate or inappropriate for the public, and it made the Columbine Massacre more painful for others with no connection to the victims than it would have been otherwise,” she explained. As the conversation focused more on the perception of the media, she struggled for a way to describe what the media did that tugged so many heart strings. “The media exploited the situation. They exploited the situation in every way, shape and form. I mean, the montages of parents discovering that their children had been killed, students holding on to other students as they fled the building, candle-light vigils were all set to music. Over and over again, designed to do nothing but get an emotional reaction out of the public. It was real enough without making it like a movie. It is real.”
She then went on to explain the nature of the media during the shooting and how the live feed impacted the audience. Carly described the agony that accompanies watching a child running and screaming from the school, pleading for help, and how you knew it was happening right then. “The crying children fleeing from the school, the parents on their knees, the bodies being dragged from the school as you see the reactions of the public, and again, the media had no sense of when enough was enough.” Carly recalled how several of her friends grasped for some form of emotional connection that didn’t necessarily exist other than ordinary sympathy. “Because of the constant news feed and the media, it seemed like people wanted to be directly involved. They tried to form some pretty far-fetched connections with the town, the people or the school” (Carly Baker).
Beginning to migrate to more personal views, Carly explained the general public’s reaction to Columbine, “Columbine tied into the “devil” of media, the “devil” of entertainment in the home and the new-age issue of video games, and the internet. The internet had become this new entity. But no one was thinking about the fact yet, that their children could access such a broad spectrum of information on the internet. No one was checking what their kids were looking at. And in the case of the shooters, we now know they were looking at bombs and guns. Nobody even thought, as a parent, as a society, as anything, that maybe we should look at what people are putting on the internet, like “I’m going to go shoot everybody at my school on April 20th” and that was a big flaw at the time. Our thinking had not yet caught up with technology.” Upon being asked what effects Columbine had on public schools in the United States, she repeated one phrase more than a few times: “knee-jerk reaction”. She explained how school security rose from a total lack there-of, to an extreme amount of security. For example, after Columbine, most students were required to carry clear back-packs, students were frisked at the door, metal detectors were instilled in several schools, more counselors were hired, and students were put on watch-lists and so on. Carly remembered how quickly “intruder alerts” were put into action after columbine, “It never occurred to anybody, not even myself as a teacher, that there would be anything more serious happen than a fire or a tornado. We never even considered it a possibility that someone would ever try to kill kids.” Carly explained how school was regarded as a “safe place” where the parents felt secure leaving their kids during the day. “If they were at school, they were safe.” She described how the aftermath of Columbine was so multi-faceted, and affected everybody who heard about it. “The reactions appeared to be quick and sometimes irresponsible, but you had to appreciate that people were frantically trying to blame someone or something, to try to figure out why these kids would have done this. This was so we could protect ourselves in the future,” (Carly Baker).
Upon being asked whether as a teacher she ever feared something similar happening at her school, Carly explained that although she was working with ADHD students at the time, there were also students with some psychological issues. She recollected that she began to worry about “copy-cats” who would gain ideas from the Columbine Massacre, and would perhaps attempt similar actions. “Of course it went through your mind, what if someone got an idea from watching Columbine happen or what if a student began planning something as horrible and as devastating as the shooting. But no matter what, it would be your job to protect these students, and it also went through your mind whether you would follow the intruder drills. Or would you try to get your students out as soon as possible.” Moving forward from the past, and focusing more on the present day, Carly gave her opinions on the Columbine Massacre now, as a mother and as a teacher in the modern world. She emphasized that although she felt Columbine was horrible at the time, now as a mother and a more experienced teacher, she feels the grief on a whole new level. “As a teacher now of 15 years, whenever I walk into a new classroom, I consider where I would put the kids if an intruder alert would happen. I always consider the cabinets, under the desks, under the lab benches and so on. But then I think, would that be good idea? You play over so many scenarios in your head. I do this because of Columbine and other tragedies like it.” As the interview came to a gradual close, Carly searched for any information that she had forgotten or wanted to re-emphasize. The ending sentence of the interview was honest and remarkably true, “Overall, when I look back on it, the one phrase that most accurately describes Columbine is, embarrassingly enough, Morbid Curiosity,” (Carly Baker).
Two young men destroyed the lives of many people without any hesitation, murdering the sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of their friends and neighbors. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold marched into their own high school, prepared to kill hundreds but stopping at tens before taking their own lives. People such as Carly Baker, a teacher, have been affected forever by the Columbine Massacre. The tragic shooting altered schools all over the world, and changed several views forever. Whether it presents itself in an obvious manner or not, Columbine had an effect on us all.
Analysis of Interview and Source ReliabilityCarly Baker was my chosen interview subject and was interviewed on the 18th March, 2014. Carly Baker was chosen as a reliable source because of her career and experience in schools around the world. I was eager to choose her as an interview subject because she was a new teacher at the time of the shooting and was beginning her teaching career when major changes were made to the education industry. Another reason for her interviewing was that I knew previously she had watched the live feed of the Columbine Massacre on television and had vivid memories of the shooting happening, minute by minute, although she was in a different state. She has very emotional and interesting views regarding the shooting; both present day opinions and past opinions. The value of the information provided by Carly Baker is quite high, and an outside teacher’s perspective is perhaps a more overlooked category when focusing on school shootings such as Columbine. I would consider the information provided by Carly Baker highly reliable, although I was not expecting her to remember such detailed aspects of Columbine. Various limitations when interviewing Carly became apparent while interviewing her. Limitations such as, her mixed opinions on gun control, the fact that she lived in a different state at the time, her perspectives have changed as she has become a mother, and her living in Europe present day, where conditions are slightly different. Despite the small limitations, a highly valuable interview emerged from my few guideline questions provided. Carly Baker was a very eager interview partner and provided true and extremely detailed information concerning Columbine.
Evaluation of Series of EventsThe process of the Oral History Report went rather smoothly, presenting a few minor challenges along the way. I began the process by writing a plan of investigation and a brief outline of the report. My next step was to begin gathering information regarding the Columbine Massacre and was able to find a hefty amount of resources. After gathering my resources I analyzed all of the information to highlight vital facts that would later be needed for my report. Once I had analyzed and broken down all of my collected data, I could move on to writing the interview questions and deciding upon whom to interview. It only took me a few minutes to decide to interview my mother and it took a few days to perfect the interview guidelines. I set the interview date for the 18th March 2014 and the interview lasted around 1 hour and a half. My mother provided an immense amount of information and had a very educated view on the shooting. The interview was recorded and I took brief notes on the conversation. In a few days’ time, I began writing the basics of my report, following my outline and plan of investigation. The background information took a matter of two days, whereas the interview narrative only took one. The challenges faced were a lack of time due to other reports; however I was able to use break times, after school periods and weekends to appropriately distribute tasks to various days. I ended the process by proof reading my paper and updating my plan of investigation. Overall, the process was easy and interesting, and I gained an abundance of information while researching Columbine.
Resource ListBaker, Carly. "Columbine Massacre Interview." Personal interview. 18 Mar. 2014.
Cullen, Dave. "At Last We Know Why the Columbine Killers Did It." Slate Magazine. N.p., 20 Apr. 2004. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"The Final Report | Columbine Massacre." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Jones, Kay. "Covering Columbine – 10 Years Ago Today." Anderson Cooper 360 RSS. N.p., 20 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
"Littleton, Colorado." (CO) Profile: Population, Maps, Real Estate, Averages, Homes, Statistics, Relocation, Travel, Jobs, Hospitals, Schools, Crime, Moving, Houses, News. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
"LiveLeak.com - Columbine Massacre, with Sound - GRAPHIC." Columbine Massacre, with Sound. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Rosenburg, Jennifer. "Columbine Massacre." About.com 20th Century History. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.