SCHOOL SHOOTINGS RECENT CHRONOLOGY massacre at columbine high Bloodbath leaves 15 dead, 28 hurt By Mark Obmascik Denver Post Staff Writer April 21, 9:15 a.m. MST - Two students, cloaked in black trench coats and armed with guns and bombs, opened fire Tuesday at Columbine High School, killing 15 people and wounding 28 others in the worst school shooting in U.S. history. Police found the two suspects shot to death in the library. All the dead remained in the school overnight as police neutralized 30 bombs and booby traps that had been left behind by the suspects. The final toll of dead and wounded wasn't announced until this morning. The masked shooters first targeted specific victims, especially ethnic minorities and athletes, then randomly sprayed school hallways about 11:30 a.m. with bullets and shotgun blasts, witnesses said. The bloody rampage spanned four hours. "I saw them shoot a girl because she was praying to God,'' said Evan Todd, 15, a sophomore. "They shot a black kid. They called him a nigger. They said they didn't like niggers, so they shot him in the face.'' School hallways were booby-trapped with at least 12 bombs, some on timers, which still were exploding at 10:45 p.m. One suspect's coat was laced with explosive devices, and undetonated pipe bombs were planted around bodies, police said. Students described the shooters as part of an outcast group of a dozen or so suburban high school boys known as the Trench Coat Mafia who often wore dark trench coats and had German slogans and swastikas on their clothes. The suspects were identified as Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. The murders came on the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth. "I've heard numbers as high as 25'' deaths, said Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone, adding that 17 were confirmed. "When we did make entry into the library, it was a pretty gruesome scene.'' He called the murders a "suicide mission.'' Byron Kirkland saw the massacre begin: "There was a girl crouched beneath a desk in the library, and the guy came over and said, "Peekaboo,' and shot her in the neck,'' said Kirkland, a 15-year-old sophomore. "They were hooting and hollering and getting big joy out of this.'' Aaron Cohn, 15, a sophomore, said he was ducking beneath a table when he suddenly felt a gun barrel pressed to his head. A gunman said: "- "All the jocks stand up. We are going to kill you,''' Cohn said. Bree Pasquale, a junior, said: "You could hear them laughing as they ran down the hallways shooting people. He put a gun in my face and said, "I'm doing this because people made fun of me last year.'- '' She escaped unshot but splattered with a fellow student's blood. Meanwhile, Brittany Bollerud, 16, hid under a library table and saw only the gunmen's shoes and long trench coats. "They yelled, "This is revenge,'- '' she said. "They asked people if they were jocks. If they were wearing a sports hat, they would shoot them.'' "I saw (a teacher) on the floor bleeding from everywhere. He was trying to direct kids, but he couldn't talk,'' said Rachel Erbert, a 17-year-old senior. "It was really scary. Kids were falling, and you'd help them up. I thought I might get shot.'' By 3:45 p.m., shots still rang out inside the school. While more than 200 law enforcement officers and four SWAT teams tried to stop the gunmen and evacuate wounded high school students, paramedics frantically treated victims in makeshift triage units on the front lawns of houses outside the suburban Jefferson County school. At one point, a bloody boy dangled down from a second-floor window and was caught by two SWATteam members. Another person held up a sign in a classroom window: "Help, I'm bleeding to death.'' "There are some who were killed as they were hiding under desks,'' said an officer who was inside the school. "Some looked like they were trying to crawl away. They were executed - shot in the head.'' With news of the murders being broadcast locally and nationally on live television, Columbine High School Klebold looked like a war zone. Medical helicopters landed on nearby athletic fields, then whisked the wounded to six local hospitals. More than 2,000 people across metro Denver waited in line to donate blood. Panicked parents rushed to the school for news about their children. Some talked to their trapped children on cell phones. At 6:25 p.m., Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas told parents gathered inside Leawood Elementary School that at least 10 bodies could not be removed immediately from the high school because there were bombs near the bodies. Parents were told to bring their children's dental records. Some parents vomited. Search warrants were executed Tuesday night at the suspects' homes, the district attorney said. The sheriff said the gunmen used at least one automatic assault rifle and several shotguns in the attack. At 8 p.m., Michael Shoels was still awaiting word on his son, Isaiah, an 18-year-old senior. Shoels feared his son was targeted because he was black. "This late, it's not looking good at all,'' Shoels said. "It's like a Harris dream I'm trying to wake up from. ... I just wish everybody would pray for my family.'' Shoels' two other children also attend Columbine, and they were safe. The shootings were the latest in a series of school shootings since 1997 that have shocked the nation and led to calls for tighter security and closer monitoring of troubled students. Two people were killed at a school in Pearl, Miss., three at West Paducah, Ky., five at Jonesboro, Ark., and two at a school in Springfield, Ore. President Clinton opened a news conference Tuesday by calling for prayers for the students, teachers and staff at Columbine. The murders came as Gov. Bill Owens and the Colorado Legislature have tried to pass a bill to liberalize the state's concealed-weapons laws. Jenni LaPlante, 18, said one of the suspected shooters was calm Tuesday morning at a beforeschool bowling class. She said the student was extremely smart. "He knew all the answers. If we were reading Shakespeare, he would know the hidden meaning,'' LaPlante said. "I've never seen them lash out at anyone,'' LaPlante said. "But I would say, "Why do you guys wear all that German stuff? Are you Nazis?' And they would say, "Yeah, Heil Hitler.'- '' LaPlante said she never knew whether the suspects were joking. One shooter was in Michele Fox's creative-writing class. "They hate our school. They hate everything about it,'' said Fox, 18, a senior. "In our class, we have to read out loud and stuff, and they would always write about death. They wore black trench coats with combat boots and their pants tucked into them.'' Ben Grams, a junior, called the Trench Coat Mafia group "a bunch of unwanted kids who were teased and pushed around a lot.'' Another student said the group talked often in class about beheading people, and many often sang and quoted songs by shock-rocker Marilyn Manson. Some also wore bands that read, "I hate people.'' Students said the bloodshed began when two students - dressed in black trench coats and masks that were taken on and off - hurled at least one bomb onto the school roof during the A-track lunch hour. Another bomb was stashed in a backpack and left by the front door. John Cook, 16, a sophomore, was eating lunch outside with friends when the violence started. "These guys opened fire on every thing that looked human,'' Cook said. "They were shooting at some kids down below, then they pointed at us and started shooting. Bullets were bouncing everywhere. Two guys next to me got hit.'' As the gunmen hustled into the school and through the hallways, panic spread. Casey Fisher, 15, was buying his lunch in the cafeteria with a friend. "My friend came out and he was standing 10 feet from the guy, and they shot him and he fell to the ground,'' Fisher said. Karen Nielson, a cafeteria worker, said, "I tried to help the others, but he just kept firing.'' Some witnesses reported hearing as many as 15 bomb blasts. At one point, a bomb exploded and hurt several students, including one girl later hospitalized with eight shards in her chest. "I was running for my life,'' said Crystal Enney, 18, a senior. Smoke spread, and the fire alarm blared. In the chaos, some students sprinted to safety. Others were gunned down in the hall. A few tried locking themselves in bathrooms. In Katie Crona's freshman earthsciences class, students dived under their desks. In the next classroom, students could hear windows being blasted out by gunmen. A few students escaped and told how others had been shot. "We sat there in a circle for four hours. We were huddled together. It was terrifying,'' Crona said. The students heard someone tugging at their classroom doorknob, but it was locked. The gunmen continued on. The worst carnage was in the library, where the gunmen terrorized 45 fellow students with bullets - and maniacal laughs. "They were going around asking people why they should let them live,'' said Todd, the 15-year-old sophomore. "Once when they shot a black kid, one of them said, "Oh my God, look at this black kid's brain! Awesome, man!' "They came up to me, pointed a gun at my head and asked if I was a jock. I said no. Basically I lied. They said, "It's revenge time on jocks for making us outcasts.'- '' Jonathan Vandermark, 16, a sophomore, said he passed three bodies in a stairwell as he and other students were rescued from the biology lab by a SWAT team. Shards of glass were everywhere, he said. Vandermark was about 20 feet away from one of the shooters when gunfire broke out. He described the weapons as being like Uzis. Other witnesses recalled a sawed-off shotgun and at least one handgun. "A teacher who tried to help us was shot in the arm,'' said Vandermark, who hid in the biology lab. Meanwhile, Scott Cornwell, father of senior Matt Cornwell, received a cell-phone call from his trapped son, who was barricaded in the choir room with 40 other students. "He was whispering. He said, "Dad, we're inside. There are 40 of us. What's going on?'- '' The father took his cell phone to a police commander, who told them, "Get away from the door!'' Police said they found the two suspects shot to death in the library. Several bombs were found in one suspect's house, and police later uncovered two cars parked outside the school that had been booby-trapped with bombs. Today the Colorado Legislature had been scheduled to debate a bill to liberalize the state's concealedweapons laws, but all legislative work was canceled because of the shootings. Gov. Owens, who supports liberalized concealed-weapons laws, comforted families at the crime scene with his wife, Frances, but refused to comment on the gun legislation. "We're not immune from the problems you see in other parts of the country,'' Owens said. "Perhaps our innocence is lost today.'' Some Columbine students said some warnings about trouble from the Trench Coat Mafia were scrawled as graffiti on bathroom walls. "You'd go in there and it would have "Columbine will explode some day,'' or "All jocks must die,'' or "Kill all athletes,'- '' said Doug Mohr, a senior football player. "There'd be pictures of guns and swastikas.'' Jefferson County School District administrators said they didn't know about any racist or threatening graffiti. "I visited the students there and it appeared to be a creating environment, where students feel safe,'' said schools superintendent Jane Hammond. "We were not aware of the Trench Coat Mafia until today.'' A photo in last year's yearbook listed one group as the "Trenchcoat Mafia.'' School principal Frank DeAngelis could not be reached for comment. Some students said the tragedy could have been worse had it not been a "senior skip day.'' The day is known in circles as "4-20'' - when students around the country skipped school to smoke marijuana. Aside from it having been April 20, the police code for a drug bust in Los Angeles is also 4-20. "This is the big day for (smoking marijuana),'' said Columbine student Jason Greer, 16. Many students were aware of the day's significance, and many chose not to attend school Tuesday. "I can't believe something like this would happen at Columbine,'' said Joyce Oglesbee, mother of senior Tara Oglesbee. "It's a topclass school, preppy and perfect. We haven't even had a senior prank.'' Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. EXCERPTS By Peggy Lowe Denver Post Staff Writer Dec. 14 - Here are excerpts from the videotapes made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, made available to news media and victims' families by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Monday: - "There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent this, and no one is to blame but me and Vodka. No one else.'' - From Harris during a rambling suicidal monologue made eight days before the massacre. - "It's kinda hard on me, these last few days. This is my last week on Earth and they don't know.'' - From Harris, same monologue, referring to his rejection by the Marines and struggles with his parents. - "I declared war on the human race and war is what it is.'' - Harris. - "If you get p-----, well, go kill some people. Take out some aggression.'' - Harris to anyone angry about the Columbine attack. - "You know who you are. Thanks. You made me feel good. Think about that for a while, f---ing bitches.'' - Harris, after listing five girls "who never even called me back.'' - "This came up so quick. It's pretty weird knowing you're going to die.'' - Harris. - "This is just a two-man war against everything else.'' - Harris about the stress from last-minute preparations. - "This is the book of God'' - Harris, upon opening a journal outlining the Columbine attack. - "Somehow, I'll publish these. This is the thought process, the evolution I've gone through for the past year.'' - Harris on his journal. - "This is the suicide plan.'' - Harris, explaining a hand-drawn armed warrior drawn in his journal. - "Have. Need.'' Two headings above a list of items Harris and Klebold would need for the attack, from Harris' journal. - "Should have died first.'' - From Harris' journal, under a hit list of a dozen students' names. - "We're going to die doing it, you f---ing s----'' - Klebold, after saying he wanted to kill 250 people. - "It's long. It keeps the elements off.'' - Klebold on the black trench coats he and Harris planned to wear during their attack. - "We didn't f---ing plan it, that's why.'' - Klebold, on why he and Harris got caught breaking into a van in Jefferson County in 1998. - "He doesn't deserve the jaw evolution gave him.'' - Klebold, on wanting to kill a sophomore boy, after telling investigators to "look for his jaw. It won't be on his body.'' - "Whatever happened to natural selection?'' - Klebold, ranting that he hates humans. - "Yes, moms stay home. That's what women are supposed to f---ing do.'' - Harris, on the role of women. - "F---ing make me dinner, bitch.'' - Harris, on what he would say to a woman. - "They're not f---ing as smart as white people. They're all spearchuckers while we're shooting guns.'' - Klebold, on blacks. - "I just know I want to kill the little f---ers who f---ed with me. It's going to be like Doom, man.'' - Klebold, referring to his favorite video game. - "I wish I was a f---ing psychopath so I wouldn't have any remorse for this.'' - Harris - "You can't understand what we feel, no matter how much you think you can.'' - Klebold, to his parents. - "I've always loved you guys for that.'' - Klebold, saying his parents gave him "self-awareness, self-reliance.'' - "Hopefully, death is like being in a dream state.'' - Harris. - "What would Jesus do? What would I do? Ka-pow!'' - Klebold, mocking the WWJD bracelets Christians wear, then aiming his finger gun-like at the camera. - "I really am sorry about this, but war's war.'' - Harris to this mother. - "Gotta love the Nazis.'' "Nazis are so efficient.'' - Harris, then Klebold, during a video tour of Harris' bedroom to see all the ammunition stored there. - "Holy s---, that's scary.'' - Harris, as Klebold points a gun at the camera and smiles. - "That is cool, dude. Every faggot's last sight.'' - Klebold, as Harris sights a gun's red laser light on him. - "That's it. Sorry. Goodbye.'' "Goodbye.'' Harris, then Klebold on the final tape. Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed Suicide tapes transcript By Peggy Lowe Denver Post Staff Writer Dec. 21 - Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel was among those killed at Columbine, provided reporters with a transcript Monday from the suicide tapes left behind by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold: Klebold: "I know we're gonna have followers because we're so f---ing God-like.'' Klebold: "We're not exactly hu man - we have human bodies but we've evolved into one step above you f---ing human s---. We actually have f---ing self-awareness.'' Harris: "We need a f---ing kick start. If we have a f---ing religious war - or oil - or anything. We need to get a chain reaction going here.'' Harris: "It's gonna be like Doom man - after the bombs explode. That f---ing shotgun (he kisses a gun) straight out of Doom. Go ahead and change gun laws - how do you think we got ours?'' Harris: "Shut the f--- up, Nick, you laugh too much. And those two girls sitting next to you, they probably want you to shut up, too. Rachel and Jen and whatever.'' Klebold: "Stuck up little b-----s, you f---ing little Christianity, Godly wh---.'' Harris: "Yeah, I love Jesus, I love Jesus, shut the f--- up.'' Klebold: "What would Jesus do? What would I do. Boosh! (points at camera as if holding gun). Harris: "I would shoot you in the motherf---ing head! Go Romans - Thank God they crucified that a------.'' Both: "Go Romans! Go Romans! Yeah! Whooo!'' Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed Web sites worship teen killers By Kristen Go Denver Post Staff Writer Dec. 14 - They wanted cult-hero status. They got it. At least by World Wide Web standards. While authorities have always maintained that one of their primary goals was to keep Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold from attaining the cult-hero status the teenagers so desired, revelations this week defeated those efforts. Web pages and chat rooms on the Internet continue to revere Harris and Klebold, and with the new release of videotaped footage of the two, parents of Columbine High victims are concerned their posthumous popularity will only grow. 0 On the "Lymph Node Institute Discussion Board'' on Monday, at least 100 messages were posted about Harris and Klebold's April 20 rampage. Some of the messages condemn their actions, while others offer full support for an attack that left 15 people - including the two gunmen - dead and nearly two dozen others wounded. "Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris Rule,'' reads the subject line from the bulletin board. "Eric and Dylan should be praised for what they did, not be labeled as monsters. ... They did what so many of us young people wanna do.'' Another Web site displays photos of Harris and Klebold, names them "Colorado's Thrillkill's MVPs'' and contains excerpts from Harris's Internet rantings. The author of the Web site explains that the Thrillkill site is meant to provide "solid evidence of the end results of pushing people too far with tyrannous laws, overbearing social demands and out right abuse.'' Yet another Web page says, "Support Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Our fallen heroes!'' Beth Nimmo, mother of slain Columbine student Rachel Scott, is concerned about the idolization of Harris and Klebold and worries about how the release of the video tapes might play into that attitude. "This makes them look cool to kids, like they're on some higher mission, when it's just pure hatred,'' she said. "No amount of reasoning, tapes or whatever, could ever give them a cause to do what they did. It hurts that anybody is presenting their side of the story.'' "There's a lot of hate out there,'' she said. "Schools are very hard, especially if you're not in the main flow of popularity. There's a lot of picking on, being made fun of. Eric and Dylan weren't special in that - it goes on anyway. I think what's going to happen is kids are going to totally be led astray about why these boys did this.'' Denver Post staff writer Kevin Simpson contributed to this report. Copyright 1999 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Out of Columbine, a National Crusade By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday , April 16, 2000 ; A26 LITTLETON, Colo. They came from Jonesboro and Conyers and Columbine High School just a few miles away – 34 teenagers who had survived the nation's most unfathomable spasms of school violence. Now, on this February Sunday, they lay quietly on the floor of St. James Presbyterian Church, scheming about how they could help prevent another shooting at another school, how they could help when it happens again – as it almost certainly will. "We have something in common I wish we didn't have in common," said Brooke Bolen, a junior at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga. "If they can carry on," she said of the Columbine students, "I have to carry on." Part relief workers, part long-distance support group, this small brigade already is attracting notice. On May 4, a few of its members are to meet in Cincinnati with FBI agents who are forging their own anti-violence campaign. In June, they will be joined in Jonesboro, Ark., by students who survived shootings at seven other U.S. schools. The fledgling brigade also is testament to something larger: the ripple effects that the Columbine shootings continue to have on the people touched directly by the tragedy – and on a far wider circle striving to draw meaning from the enormity of what happened a year ago in this prosperous Denver suburb. Thursday will mark the first anniversary of the morning that seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold crossed a soccer field and burst into their high school with guns blazing, murdering a dozen students and a teacher and wounding 23 others before they killed themselves. In the intervening year, the massacre has galvanized a crusade against school violence – and a determination to be prepared for it – that is evident across the country: In North Carolina, the Blackwater Training Center, a commercial firearms practice site for law enforcement officers, this year added a mock school building to its facilities. Since "RU Ready High" was built last September, more than 500 officers from New York to Hawaii have practiced responding to crises in the 7,000-square-foot building, with its 16 classrooms and an audio system that simulates the alarms, screams, crashing furniture and gunfire of a mass shooting. The Secret Service, the FBI, and national groups representing school counselors, school psychologists and high school principals all have begun major studies on violent students. Cheri Lovre, for two decades one of the nation's leading authorities on managing school crises, wrote a 100-page "Catastrophic Events Resource Manual" for schools after a May 1998 shooting in Springfield, Ore., near her home. It took more than a year for the manual's initial printing to sell out. Now Lovre orders a new printing every few weeks, as entire state school systems have snapped up copies. This transformed landscape of school safety comes even though the number of violent acts in schools actually has declined. But in a climate of anxiety, says Pamela Riley, executive director of the North Carolina-based Center for the Prevention of School Violence, Columbine has served as "the Pearl Harbor of school shootings." Trying to Learn Lessons Tomorrow is the beginning of "Promote the Peace Week" at New Albany High School near Columbus, Ohio. Planned entirely by students, the week will include a lunch table swap – with teenagers assigned to sit next to others they wouldn't ordinarily talk with. Each day, a different local minister will deliver a motivational message. Students will sign cards pledging to tell an adult any time they hear of a threat or know of someone carrying a weapon. "It's taking preventive measures against school shootings and overall violence – stuff like that," said Jacob Thomas, a junior who has planned the week's events. The peace week at the 460-student school is among the many forms that the new attentiveness to school violence has assumed. At Maywood Middle School in Seattle's suburbs, teachers and the school's psychologist soon will begin to quietly identify 10 students in each grade who seem especially isolated or withdrawn. Without the knowledge of these students or their parents, an adult in the school will be assigned to have a friendly conversation with each student at least once a day, in the hope that they will benefit from the extra attention. Other educators have responded with hardware, such as the metal detectors that Columbine itself has shunned. Many schools, meanwhile, have begun "lockdown drills" so that students and teachers will know what to do if their school ever comes under siege. In Maryland, the Baltimore County school system already had begun conducting drills when police launched a manhunt last month for fugitive Joseph C. Palczynski. For more than a week, Sparrows Point High School in Dundalk did what it had practiced. Classroom doors were locked. Teachers roamed the halls with walkie-talkies. Students were not allowed outside for athletics. "Columbine can teach us lessons – what it is that happened and what we don't want to see repeated again," said Wayne Thibeault, the Sparrows Point principal. "We can't hold our society captive, but we can take precautionary measures." A Network of Empathy The office of Jane Hammond, school superintendent in Jefferson County, is ground zero for a seemingly insatiable desire; around the country and around the globe; to find out what she and the other veterans of Columbine have learned from their ordeal. Hammond turns down most speaking invitations, limiting herself to no more than one engagement per month. When she does address school boards, state legislators and fellow school administrators, she talks about the importance of not overreacting, of not yielding to anger and fear. Rejecting measures that have been adopted by many other school systems in the last year – and that some in Littleton have wanted too – Columbine has not created a student dress code or closed its campus during lunch periods, she points out. And while there are more surveillance cameras and security officers now, metal detectors have not been installed. "What we have learned," she said in an interview, "is we must be extraordinarily thoughtful about what we decide to do." While adults turn to school officials for expertise – the school system now is accustomed to getting a telephone call immediately after a mass shooting anywhere in the world – students have formed their own network of empathy. The day of the shootings here, Brandi George came home from Westside Middle School in Jonesboro and told her mother: "Please take me there. I just want to hug them." A year earlier, two of her close friends had been among the five people killed just outside the school gym, and her social studies teacher had been wounded by a bullet that lodged near her spine. And so it was that Brandi, 14, and her mother, Brenda George, were part of the delegation that traveled here in February And so it was that Columbine student Heather Lietz and four friends from her English class traveled 1,400 miles to Conyers, two weeks after a sophomore wounded six students there last May. "Nothing you could have done would have ever stopped this, so don't try to blame yourselves," Heather remembers telling the Georgia students who gathered for a "Party With a Purpose," sponsored by two local Presbyterian churches. "You got out of there. You guys did good. "You'll never get over it," she told them. "But it'll get easier not to think about it all the time." A Mecca of Remembrance After meeting with a new school safety task force one evening a few weeks ago, Hammond, the school superintendent, had just gotten into her car when she was approached by a woman she didn't know. The woman told her she had just moved nearly 2,000 miles from New Hampshire to Littleton because she wanted to help in the massacre's aftermath. "I have contacts with my community," the woman told the superintendent. "They see me as their representative living here." Extraordinary as it seemed, such encounters are not rare here. Columbine had "such an impact on the world, everybody wants to touch it in some way," says Carol DeLockroy, a retired school administrator who has come back to work this year to manage the torrent of donations that still pour into the community. Indeed, school officials expect perhaps 100,000 outsiders to visit here this week for the anniversary. President Clinton chose Denver last week as the backdrop for his latest call for stricter gun control laws. The Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, based in Memphis and run by the grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi, kicked off its annual "Season for Nonviolence" in late January by sponsoring a youth summit here. The storage room at Columbine Connections, a mental health center that opened last August a few blocks from the school, still contains large boxes bearing the names of each person who was wounded or killed. Every week, poems and stuffed animals continue to arrive. Judith Barnett, a housewife married to a piano tuner in Pahrump, Nev., called the school system last summer to say that she wanted to donate a foal, to be named Columbine, that had been conceived on April 20. Her mare, Fanny, miscarried, but Barnett will try to breed her again this spring. "I don't care who you are or where you are from," Barnett said. "Just in a little town like Pahrump, nobody can forget this." Recovery, but Lingering Pain The baseball fields next to the school have been renamed Sanders Field for Dave Sanders, the science teacher and sports coach who died in the attack. Patrick Ireland, the boy captured on television that day bleeding as he tumbled from a school window, was voted this year's homecoming king. Richard Castaldo, who was paralyzed from the chest down but will graduate this spring, has a new girlfiend and a new driver's license. He propelled himself in his wheelchair through Manhattan streets for the Columbus Day parade, next to New York's mayor and the governor. "We continue to show the world the strength, the resilience of our community," says Jefferson County schools spokesman Rick Kaufman. Yet he acknowledges something else, too. "Any time we take two steps forward, we end up taking four steps back." The day before the six-month anniversary of the shootings, a friend of Harris and Klebold was arrested for writing that he would "finish the job." That Friday, Carla Hochalter, whose daughter had been shot and paralyzed, walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a .38-caliber revolver, loaded cartridges she had brought with her, and fired into her right temple. Then, just after midnight on Valentine's Day, two Columbine sophomores were found shot to death behind the counter of a Subway sandwich shop. The murders, apparently unrelated to the rampage last spring, were among what mental health workers here call "re-traumatizing events" for a community trying to surmount its grief. By the end of the first semester, about 30 Columbine students – many of them siblings of the murdered, or witnesses to the attack – still were being taught at home, because they could not bear to enter the school. To this day, some students cannot eat pizza, which was being served for lunch when the shootings began. Conducting fire drills has been difficult. The school altered the sound of the alarm so it would not stir memories of the sound that rang through the building for hours that day. For the first few fire drills this year, students were told ahead of time – and moved outside the building before the alarm went off. Harriet Hall, who directs the county's mental health agency, has been surprised by the number of people throughout the Denver area who seem anxious and depressed, even though they have no direct connection to the school. Healing a community, she has discovered, "is going to take a lot longer than I'd thought." Here as elsewhere around the country, Hall says, "everyone's kind of looking at things this year through Columbine-colored glasses." © 2000 The Washington Post Company
|
||