Shooting At Columbine

Effective communication is a key ingredient of our everyday lives; from parents telling their children what to do; to taking instructions from our bosses at work. Another key element in effective communication is being able to understand what is being asked of us. In many instances part of the message being conveyed is heard, which could affect the outcome of was actually instructed of one to complete. The instance of the Shooting at Columbine High reminds me of when you take ten people, you tell the first person to pass along a message and by the time you get to the tenth person the original message is so out of context that it unclear what was said to be passed.

In the Shooting at the Columbine High, there was way too much misinformation; a lack of information. One of the many facet of the lack of communication was there was no communication amongst the various officials (Jefferson County Sherriff’s Office, Littleton Fire Department, Arapahoe County Sherriff’s Office, Littleton Police Department, Arvada Police Department, Denver Police Department, and the Golden Police Department) at the shooting. As indicated in the text, “’We didn’t not realize for about that an exchange of gunfire had taken place between the school resource officer and Harris and Klebold at the back of the school,’ says Littleton Fire Chief William Pessemier, who arrived about 20 minutes after Rahne. ‘We didn’t have JeffCo’s channels on our radios and they didn’t have ours.’” There are many other instances where communications was an issue, for instance, the JeffCo Sheriff's office used VHF radios, and Denver and Arapahoe either had analog or digital 800 megahertz systems, neither of which could communicate directly with the VHF systems, or with each other. "I cannot overemphasize how great a problem the incompatibility of our communications systems was that day," says Undersheriff Dunaway. "What that presented was almost unmanageable." The total situation was nothing but