February 3, 2025 • 31 mins
What if everything you thought you knew about the Columbine tragedy was built on a foundation of myths and misconceptions? Join us as we untangle the complex web of misinformation that shaped public perception of this devastating event. By dissecting the myths of outcast goths, the so-called "Trenchcoat Mafia," and misguided narratives about the attackers targeting specific groups, we reveal how these falsehoods gained traction and provided a misleading sense of understanding during chaotic times. Hear about the role of stereotypes, misunderstood motives, and the heavy burden placed on groups unjustly blamed in the wake of the tragedy.
We navigate the murky waters of media portrayal and societal bias, examining how early reports and rumors were amplified into dominant narratives. Explore the intricate dynamics within Columbine High School, where issues like bullying were oversimplified and sensationalized beyond reality. Through witness testimonies, media analysis, and a critical look at the challenges faced by journalists and researchers, we shed light on the daunting task of piecing together an accurate account of the events and their profound impact on the community. By the end, gain insights into the true nature of Columbine and the lessons learned from a story still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara.
I'm a little bit under theweather, but this is part seven
of unraveling the Columbinetragedy.
Let's begin.
We remember Columbine as a pairof outcasts goths from the
Trenchcoat Mafia snapping andtearing through their high
(00:24):
school, hunting down jocks toset a long-running few.
Almost none of that happened nogoths, no outcasts, nobody
snapping, no targets, no few andno trenchcoat mafia.
Most of these elements existedat Columbine, which is what gave
(00:45):
them such currency.
They just have nothing to dowith the murders.
The lesser myths are equallyunsupported no connection to
Marilyn Manson, hitler'sbirthday, minorities or
Christians.
Media defenders blame the chaos2,000 witnesses, wildly
(01:06):
conflicted reports.
Who could get all those factsstraight?
But facts were not the problem,nor did time sort them out.
The first print story arrivedin an extra edition of the Rocky
Mountain News.
It went to press at threeo'clock on Tuesday afternoon
before the bodies in the librarywere found.
(01:27):
The Rockies' 900-word summaryof the massacre was an
extraordinary piece ofjournalism Gripping, empathetic,
astonishingly accurate.
It nailed the details and thebig picture Two ruthless killers
picking off studentsindiscriminately.
It was the first storypublished that spring to get the
(01:51):
essence of the attack right andone of the last One hour into
the Columbine Horror, newsstations were informing the
public that two or more gunmenwere behind it.
Two hours in the trench coatmafia were to blame.
The TCM were portrayed as acult of homosexuals, homosexual
(02:13):
goths in makeup, orchestrating abizarre death pact for the year
2000.
Ludicrous or not, the TCM mythwas the most defensible of the
big media blunders.
The killers did wear trenchcoats.
A small group had namedthemselves after the garment a
(02:34):
year earlier.
A few kids put the two togetheruntil it's hard to blame them.
It seemed like a tidy fit.
It seemed like a tidy fit.
But the crucial detail onreported Tuesday afternoon was
that most kids in Clement Parkwere not citing the TCM.
Few were even naming Eric andDylan.
(02:55):
In a school of 2,000, most ofthe student body didn't even
know the boys.
Nor had many seen gunfiredirectly.
Initially most students toldreporters they had no idea who
(03:17):
attacked them.
That changed fast.
Most of the 2,000 gotthemselves to a television or
kept a constant cell phone vigilwith viewers.
It took only a few TV mentionsfor the trenchcoat connection to
take hold.
It sounded so obvious.
Of course, trenchcoats,trenchcoat Mafia.
Tv journalists were actuallycareful.
They used attribution anddisclaimers like believed to be
(03:40):
or described as.
Some wondered out loud aboutthe killer's identities and then
described the TCM, leavingviewers to draw the link.
Repetition was the problem.
Only a handful of studentsmentioned the TCM during the
first five hours of CNN coverage, virtually all fed from local
(04:04):
news stations.
But reporters honed in on theidea they were responsible about
how they addressed the rumors,but blind to the impact of how
often Kids knew the TCM wasinvolved because witnesses and
news anchors had said so On TV.
(04:28):
They confirmed it with friendswatching similar reports.
Word spread fast.
Conversation was the only teenactivity in South Jeffco Tuesday
afternoon.
Pretty soon most of thestudents had multiple
independent confirmations.
They believed they knew the TCMwas behind the attack as a fact
(04:50):
.
From 1 to 8 pm the number ofstudents in Clement Park citing
the group went from almost noneto nearly all.
They were not making it up,they were just repeating it back
.
The second problem was afailure to question.
(05:10):
In those first five hours not asingle person on the CNN feeds
asked a student how they knewthe killers were part of the
Trenchcoat Mafia.
Print reporters, talk showhosts and the rest of the media
chain repeated those mistakes.
(05:31):
Most of the myths were in placeby nightfall.
By then it was given that thekillers had been targeting jocks
.
The target myth was the mostinsidious because it went
straight to motive.
The public believes Columbinewas an act of retribution, a
(05:51):
desperate reprisal forunspeakable jock abuse.
Like the other myths, it beganwith a kernel of truth.
In the first few hours ashattered junior named Bree
Pasquale became the marqueewitness of the tragedy.
She had escaped unharmed butsplattered in blood.
(06:14):
Bree described the libraryhorror in convincing detail.
Radio and television stationsreplayed her testimony
relentlessly.
She said quote they wereshooting anyone of color wearing
a white hat or playing a sport,she said, and they didn't care
(06:35):
who it was and it was all atclose range.
Everyone around me got shot andI begged him for 10 minutes not
to shoot me.
End quote.
The problem with Represquale'saccount is the contradiction
between facts and conclusionthat's typical of witnesses
(06:57):
under extreme duress.
If the killers were shootingeveryone, didn't that include
jocks, minorities and hatwearers?
Four times in that briefstatement she described random
killing.
Yet reporters gloamed on to theanomaly in her statement
(07:20):
Bullying and racism.
Those were known threats.
Explaining it away wasreassuring way was reassuring.
By evening the target theory wasdominating most broadcasts.
Nearly all the major papersfeaturing the Rocky and the
(07:41):
Washington Post refused toembrace the targeting theory all
week, but they were the onlydissenters.
Initially, most witnessesrefuted the emerging consensus.
Nearly all described thekilling as random.
Most of the papers advanced thetheory with just one student
(08:01):
who had actually seen it andsome had zero.
Reuters attributed the theoryto many witnesses and USA Today
attributed it to students.
(08:24):
Student equals witness Witnessto everything that happened that
day and anything about thekillers.
It was a curious leap.
Reporters would not make thatmistake at a car wreck.
Witness to everything thathappened that day and anything
about the killers.
It was a curious leap.
Reporters would not make thatmistake at a car wreck.
Did you see it?
If not, they move on.
But journalists felt likeforeigners stepping into teen
culture.
They knew kids can hideanything from adults, but not
(08:48):
from each other.
That was the mentality.
Police detectives rejected theuniversal witness concept and
they relied on traumatizedwitnesses for observations, not
conclusions.
They never saw targeting asplausible.
They were baffled by the mediaconsensus.
(09:09):
Journalists were not relyingexclusively on students.
The entire industry wasdepending on the Denver Post.
The paper sent 54 reporters, 8photographers, 5 artists into
the field.
They have the most resourcesand the best contacts.
(09:33):
Day one they were four hoursahead of the National Park.
The first week they were a dayahead of most developments.
The Rocky Mountain News had apresence as well, but they had a
smaller staff and the nationalpress trusted the post.
It did not single-handedlycreate any of the myths.
(10:02):
In the meantime the Jeffco Parksand Recreation District began
hauling truckloads of bales intoClement Park Because it was a
mess.
Thousands of people gathered atthe northeast corner of the
park on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands appeared onThursday and Friday.
The snow had begun flutteringdown Wednesday and the food
(10:26):
traffic tore the field.
To shreds.
County workers scattered thicklayers of hay in winding paths
all along the makesh to shredsCounty.
Workers scattered thick layersof hay and winding paths all
along the makeshift memorials.
They didn't know it yet, butthey had no idea that there was
a name for it.
But many of the survivors hadentered the early stages of
(10:49):
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Many had not.
It wasn't a matter of how closethey have been to witnessing or
experiencing violence.
Lens and severity of exposureincreased their odds of mental
health trouble down the road.
But long-term responses werehighly varied depending on each
(11:10):
individual.
Dr Frank Oxberg, a professor inpsychiatry at Michigan State
University and a leading experton PTSD, would be brought in by
the FBI a few months later andwould spend years advising
mental health workers on thecase.
(11:30):
A far milder and more commonresponse was also underway
survivor's guilt.
It began playing out almostimmediately in the hallways of
the six local hospitals wherethe injured were recovering.
At St Anthony's the first week,the waiting rooms were packed
with students coming to seePatrick Eisland.
(11:53):
Every seat in every room wastaken.
Dozens of students waited inthe hallways.
They just needed to be thereAll day.
(12:14):
Some of them stay well into theevening.
The staff started bringing foodin once they realized that some
of the kids had not been eating.
In the hospital there wasPatrick Ireland and Patrick's
situation looked grim.
His doctors were just hoping tokeep him alive and they advised
(12:39):
his parents, john and Kathy, tokeep expectations low.
Whatever condition theyobserved, the first day or two
would be the prognosis for therest of his life.
John and Kathy accepted thisand they saw a paralyzed boy
struggling mightily to speakgibberish.
(13:00):
Patrick's friend Makai wasreleased from St Anthony's
Friday and he had been shot inthe knee alongside Patrick.
Reporters were invited into thehospital library for a press
conference broadcast on CNN.
Makai was in a wheelchair.
It turned out that he had knownDylan and he said that they
(13:26):
have taken the same French classand work together on school
projects.
And MacKay said you know, hewas a nice guy, never treated me
bad.
He wasn't the kind of personhe's being portrayed as.
Patrick Garland made improvementwith his speech for the first
(13:47):
week and his vitals beganreturning to normal.
On Friday he was moved out ofthe ICU and into a regular room.
Once he had settled in, hisparents decided it was time to
ask him the burning question hadhe gone out the library window
(14:08):
window?
They knew.
They just have to know.
If he did, did he know why hewas there?
Was the trauma of the truthstill ahead?
And he stammered?
He said yeah, well, yeah, werethey just figuring that out?
(14:36):
And Cassie later said he wasincredulous.
He looked at us like how couldhe be?
How can you be so ignorant?
But Kathy was okay with thatbecause all she felt was relief.
That same week, dr AlanWeintraub, who is a neurologist
from Craig Hospital, came to seePatrick.
Craig is one of the leadingrehab centers in the world,
according to many sources, andthey specialize in brain and
(15:03):
spinal cord injuries.
It's located in Jeffco, not farfrom the Ireland's home.
Dr Weintraub examined Patrick,reviewed his charts and gave
John and Kathy his assessment.
The first thing I can say toyou, he said, is there's hope.
So when they hear this, ofcourse they were astounded, they
(15:28):
were relieved, they wereperplexed and later the
discrepancy made sense to them.
The staffs had differentexpertise and different
perspectives.
St Anthony's specialized intrauma.
The goal is to save lives.
At Craig's, the goal is torebuild them.
(15:51):
The goal is to rebuild them.
They began making arrangementsto transfer Patrick to Craig by
Thursday.
Students in Clement Park wereangry.
The killers were dead.
So much of the anger wasdeflected onto Goths, marilyn
Manson, the TCM, anyone wholooked, dressed or acted like
(16:14):
the killers, or the media'sportrayal of them.
The killers were quickly castas outcasts and fags.
They used that word.
Remember, this is 1999.
A sophomore from a soccer teamcalled them freaks and said
nobody really liked them justbecause they.
(16:37):
And then he paused and hecouldn't say something for a
while.
Then he said well, the majorityof them were gay, so everyone
would make fun of them, them.
Several jocks reported havingseen the killers and friends
(16:59):
touching in the hallways orgroping each other or holding
hands.
A football player captivatedreporters with tales of groups
showering.
But this gay rumor was almostinvisible in the media.
Rumor was almost invisible inthe media but rampant in Clement
Park.
The stories were vague,everything was third-hand.
(17:19):
None of the storytellers evenknew the killers.
Everyone in Clement Park heardthe rumors.
Most of the students sawthrough them.
They were disgusted at thejocks for defaming the killers
the same way as they had in life.
Clearly gay was one of theworst epithets one kid could
(17:43):
hurl against against anotherperson.
You know in the town in Defco,eric and Dylan's friends.
Generally they shrug off thestories.
One of them was outraged andsaid, quote the media's taken my
(18:07):
friends and made them to be gayand neo-Nazis and all these
hater stuff.
They're portraying my friendsas idiots".
The Angry Boy was a brawnysix-foot senior who rented for
hours dressed in camouflage andhe was soon all over the
(18:27):
national press.
Sometimes he looked a littleridiculous.
He stopped talking and hisfather then began screening
media calls.
The father put a stop to it.
A few papers mentioned the gayrumors and passing Reverend
Jerry Falwell described thekillers as gay on Geraldo Rivera
(18:53):
Live, a talk show that he usedto have or a news show that he
used to have.
Most significantly, the DrudgeReport quoted internet postings
claiming that the TrenchcoatMafia was a gay conspiracy to
(19:15):
kill jocks, but most major mediacarefully sidestep the gay
rumor.
The press failed to show similardeference to Goths.
Some of the most witheringattacks were reserved for that
group, a morose actingsubculture best known for powder
(19:39):
white face paint and blackclothes, black lips and black
fingernails, assented by heavydripping mascara.
They were mistakenly associatedwith the killers on Tuesday by
students unfamiliar with thegoth concept.
Equally clueless reportersamplified the rumor.
(20:02):
One of the most egregiousreports was an extended 2020
segment ABC aired just one nightafter the attack.
Diane Sawyer introduced it bynoting that unnamed police said
quote the boys may have beenpart of a dark underground
(20:24):
national phenomena known as theGothic movement and that some of
these Goths may have killedbefore.
It was true, goths had killedbefore, as had members of every
conceivable background andsubculture.
Most of the reporting was firstrate was first rate.
(20:52):
The Rocky passed on most of themyths and the polls, and the
Times ran excellent bios on thekillers.
On TV, several correspondentshelped survivors convey their
stories with empathy, dignityand insight.
Katie Curry, she, was aparticular standout in doing
(21:17):
that.
Several papers tried to rein inthe goth scare and one of the
statements that USA Today saidin one of its stories was, quote
Whatever the two young men inColorado might have imagined
themselves to be, they were notgods.
(21:37):
End quote.
The morose community, much toodiffuse to be called a movement,
it's, it's um, as is.
Hard, quiet, introverted,pacifistic gods tend to be
(21:59):
outcasts, not because they'reviolent or aggressive, but the
opposite.
All the talk of bullying andalienation provided an easy
motive.
48 hours after the massacre,usaa today pulled the threads
(22:21):
together in a stunning coverstory that fused the myths of
junk hunting, bully, revenge andthe TNC, the Trenchcoat Mafia.
It says, quote Students arebeginning to describe how a long
, simmering rivalry between thesolid members of their clique,
the TCM and the school'sathletes, escalated and
(22:44):
ultimately exploded in thisweek's deadly violence End quote
.
Deadly violence End quote.
It described tension theprevious spring, including daily
fistfights, and the detailswere accurate.
The conclusion, however, waswrong.
(23:10):
Most of the media followed andit was acceptable as fact.
There is no evidence thatbullying led to murder, but
considerable evidence.
It was a problem at ColumbineHigh.
After the tragedy, dr D or Mr D,I should say took a look a lot
(23:34):
of.
He took a lot of flack forbullying, particularly since he
insisted he was unaware it hadit was going on.
It was going on.
He said quote.
As long as I have been anadministrator here if I'm aware
(23:54):
of a situation then I deal withthat situation and I believe our
teachers and I believe ourcoaches.
I turned my own son in.
I believe that strongly inrules End quote.
That might have been part ofthe downfall Mr D did believe
(24:16):
that strongly in the rules.
He held his staff to the samestandard and seemed to believe
they would meet it.
His unusual rapport with thekids also created a blind spot.
He was all smiles when Mr Dstrolled down the corridor.
They sincerely warmed at thesight of him and sought to
(24:39):
please him as well.
Sometimes he mistook that joyfor pervasive bliss in his high
school.
Personal affinities alsoobscured the problem, mr D.
He was drawn to sports and heworked hard to offset that by
(25:01):
attending debate, tournaments,drama tryouts, art shows.
He conferred regularly with thestudent senate.
But those were all successstories.
Mr D balanced athletics andacademics better than
(25:21):
overachievers and unders.
And he said quote, I don'tthink you know it is said.
I don't think that he had apreference on purpose.
This is somebody that it wasinterviewed.
He says he's got a lot ofschool spirit and I think he
aims at that direction.
(25:42):
He's more comfortable with likeschool sports student congress.
Comfortable with like schoolsports student congress.
Now the Kraus and Clement Parkare growing and kept growing,
but the students among themdwindled.
(26:02):
Wednesday afternoon they theypour their house out to
reporters.
Wednesday evening they watch agrotesque portrait of their
school on television.
It was a charitable picture atfirst but it grew steadily more
sinister as the week wore by atoxic, abominable place.
(26:25):
It was terrorized by abandonedjob lords ruled by an Irish,
trump and the latest Abercrombieand Fitch line.
Some of that was true, which isto say it was high school.
But Columbine came to embodyeverything noxious about
(26:49):
adolescence in America.
A few students were happy tosee some ugly truths about their
high school expose, but mostwere appalled.
The media version was a grosscaricature of how they saw it
and of what they thought theyhave described.
(27:11):
It makes it difficult forsocial scientists or journalists
to come to Littleton Coloradolater to study the community in
depth and see what was reallygoing on.
How bad were the Columbinebullies?
How horribly were the killerstreated?
(27:32):
Every scrap of testimony afterday two is tainted.
During the third week of April,littleton was observed beyond
all recognition.
Hundreds of journalists were inthe field and nearly as many
(27:56):
detectives were documentingtheir findings and police
reports.
Those reports would remainsealed for 19 months.
Virtually all the early newsstories were infested with
erroneous assumptions, comicallywrong conclusions.
But the data is there.
(28:17):
We'll be right back.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara.
I'm a little bit under theweather, but this is part seven
of unraveling the Columbinetragedy.
Let's begin.
We remember Columbine as a pairof outcasts goths from the
Trenchcoat Mafia snapping andtearing through their high
(00:24):
school, hunting down jocks toset a long-running few.
Almost none of that happened nogoths, no outcasts, nobody
snapping, no targets, no few andno trenchcoat mafia.
Most of these elements existedat Columbine, which is what gave
(00:45):
them such currency.
They just have nothing to dowith the murders.
The lesser myths are equallyunsupported no connection to
Marilyn Manson, hitler'sbirthday, minorities or
Christians.
Media defenders blame the chaos2,000 witnesses, wildly
(01:06):
conflicted reports.
Who could get all those factsstraight?
But facts were not the problem,nor did time sort them out.
The first print story arrivedin an extra edition of the Rocky
Mountain News.
It went to press at threeo'clock on Tuesday afternoon
before the bodies in the librarywere found.
(01:27):
The Rockies' 900-word summaryof the massacre was an
extraordinary piece ofjournalism Gripping, empathetic,
astonishingly accurate.
It nailed the details and thebig picture Two ruthless killers
picking off studentsindiscriminately.
It was the first storypublished that spring to get the
(01:51):
essence of the attack right andone of the last One hour into
the Columbine Horror, newsstations were informing the
public that two or more gunmenwere behind it.
Two hours in the trench coatmafia were to blame.
The TCM were portrayed as acult of homosexuals, homosexual
(02:13):
goths in makeup, orchestrating abizarre death pact for the year
2000.
Ludicrous or not, the TCM mythwas the most defensible of the
big media blunders.
The killers did wear trenchcoats.
A small group had namedthemselves after the garment a
(02:34):
year earlier.
A few kids put the two togetheruntil it's hard to blame them.
It seemed like a tidy fit.
It seemed like a tidy fit.
But the crucial detail onreported Tuesday afternoon was
that most kids in Clement Parkwere not citing the TCM.
Few were even naming Eric andDylan.
(02:55):
In a school of 2,000, most ofthe student body didn't even
know the boys.
Nor had many seen gunfiredirectly.
Initially most students toldreporters they had no idea who
(03:17):
attacked them.
That changed fast.
Most of the 2,000 gotthemselves to a television or
kept a constant cell phone vigilwith viewers.
It took only a few TV mentionsfor the trenchcoat connection to
take hold.
It sounded so obvious.
Of course, trenchcoats,trenchcoat Mafia.
Tv journalists were actuallycareful.
They used attribution anddisclaimers like believed to be
(03:40):
or described as.
Some wondered out loud aboutthe killer's identities and then
described the TCM, leavingviewers to draw the link.
Repetition was the problem.
Only a handful of studentsmentioned the TCM during the
first five hours of CNN coverage, virtually all fed from local
(04:04):
news stations.
But reporters honed in on theidea they were responsible about
how they addressed the rumors,but blind to the impact of how
often Kids knew the TCM wasinvolved because witnesses and
news anchors had said so On TV.
(04:28):
They confirmed it with friendswatching similar reports.
Word spread fast.
Conversation was the only teenactivity in South Jeffco Tuesday
afternoon.
Pretty soon most of thestudents had multiple
independent confirmations.
They believed they knew the TCMwas behind the attack as a fact
(04:50):
.
From 1 to 8 pm the number ofstudents in Clement Park citing
the group went from almost noneto nearly all.
They were not making it up,they were just repeating it back
.
The second problem was afailure to question.
(05:10):
In those first five hours not asingle person on the CNN feeds
asked a student how they knewthe killers were part of the
Trenchcoat Mafia.
Print reporters, talk showhosts and the rest of the media
chain repeated those mistakes.
(05:31):
Most of the myths were in placeby nightfall.
By then it was given that thekillers had been targeting jocks
.
The target myth was the mostinsidious because it went
straight to motive.
The public believes Columbinewas an act of retribution, a
(05:51):
desperate reprisal forunspeakable jock abuse.
Like the other myths, it beganwith a kernel of truth.
In the first few hours ashattered junior named Bree
Pasquale became the marqueewitness of the tragedy.
She had escaped unharmed butsplattered in blood.
(06:14):
Bree described the libraryhorror in convincing detail.
Radio and television stationsreplayed her testimony
relentlessly.
She said quote they wereshooting anyone of color wearing
a white hat or playing a sport,she said, and they didn't care
(06:35):
who it was and it was all atclose range.
Everyone around me got shot andI begged him for 10 minutes not
to shoot me.
End quote.
The problem with Represquale'saccount is the contradiction
between facts and conclusionthat's typical of witnesses
(06:57):
under extreme duress.
If the killers were shootingeveryone, didn't that include
jocks, minorities and hatwearers?
Four times in that briefstatement she described random
killing.
Yet reporters gloamed on to theanomaly in her statement
(07:20):
Bullying and racism.
Those were known threats.
Explaining it away wasreassuring way was reassuring.
By evening the target theory wasdominating most broadcasts.
Nearly all the major papersfeaturing the Rocky and the
(07:41):
Washington Post refused toembrace the targeting theory all
week, but they were the onlydissenters.
Initially, most witnessesrefuted the emerging consensus.
Nearly all described thekilling as random.
Most of the papers advanced thetheory with just one student
(08:01):
who had actually seen it andsome had zero.
Reuters attributed the theoryto many witnesses and USA Today
attributed it to students.
(08:24):
Student equals witness Witnessto everything that happened that
day and anything about thekillers.
It was a curious leap.
Reporters would not make thatmistake at a car wreck.
Witness to everything thathappened that day and anything
about the killers.
It was a curious leap.
Reporters would not make thatmistake at a car wreck.
Did you see it?
If not, they move on.
But journalists felt likeforeigners stepping into teen
culture.
They knew kids can hideanything from adults, but not
(08:48):
from each other.
That was the mentality.
Police detectives rejected theuniversal witness concept and
they relied on traumatizedwitnesses for observations, not
conclusions.
They never saw targeting asplausible.
They were baffled by the mediaconsensus.
(09:09):
Journalists were not relyingexclusively on students.
The entire industry wasdepending on the Denver Post.
The paper sent 54 reporters, 8photographers, 5 artists into
the field.
They have the most resourcesand the best contacts.
(09:33):
Day one they were four hoursahead of the National Park.
The first week they were a dayahead of most developments.
The Rocky Mountain News had apresence as well, but they had a
smaller staff and the nationalpress trusted the post.
It did not single-handedlycreate any of the myths.
(10:02):
In the meantime the Jeffco Parksand Recreation District began
hauling truckloads of bales intoClement Park Because it was a
mess.
Thousands of people gathered atthe northeast corner of the
park on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands appeared onThursday and Friday.
The snow had begun flutteringdown Wednesday and the food
(10:26):
traffic tore the field.
To shreds.
County workers scattered thicklayers of hay in winding paths
all along the makesh to shredsCounty.
Workers scattered thick layersof hay and winding paths all
along the makeshift memorials.
They didn't know it yet, butthey had no idea that there was
a name for it.
But many of the survivors hadentered the early stages of
(10:49):
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Many had not.
It wasn't a matter of how closethey have been to witnessing or
experiencing violence.
Lens and severity of exposureincreased their odds of mental
health trouble down the road.
But long-term responses werehighly varied depending on each
(11:10):
individual.
Dr Frank Oxberg, a professor inpsychiatry at Michigan State
University and a leading experton PTSD, would be brought in by
the FBI a few months later andwould spend years advising
mental health workers on thecase.
(11:30):
A far milder and more commonresponse was also underway
survivor's guilt.
It began playing out almostimmediately in the hallways of
the six local hospitals wherethe injured were recovering.
At St Anthony's the first week,the waiting rooms were packed
with students coming to seePatrick Eisland.
(11:53):
Every seat in every room wastaken.
Dozens of students waited inthe hallways.
They just needed to be thereAll day.
(12:14):
Some of them stay well into theevening.
The staff started bringing foodin once they realized that some
of the kids had not been eating.
In the hospital there wasPatrick Ireland and Patrick's
situation looked grim.
His doctors were just hoping tokeep him alive and they advised
(12:39):
his parents, john and Kathy, tokeep expectations low.
Whatever condition theyobserved, the first day or two
would be the prognosis for therest of his life.
John and Kathy accepted thisand they saw a paralyzed boy
struggling mightily to speakgibberish.
(13:00):
Patrick's friend Makai wasreleased from St Anthony's
Friday and he had been shot inthe knee alongside Patrick.
Reporters were invited into thehospital library for a press
conference broadcast on CNN.
Makai was in a wheelchair.
It turned out that he had knownDylan and he said that they
(13:26):
have taken the same French classand work together on school
projects.
And MacKay said you know, hewas a nice guy, never treated me
bad.
He wasn't the kind of personhe's being portrayed as.
Patrick Garland made improvementwith his speech for the first
(13:47):
week and his vitals beganreturning to normal.
On Friday he was moved out ofthe ICU and into a regular room.
Once he had settled in, hisparents decided it was time to
ask him the burning question hadhe gone out the library window
(14:08):
window?
They knew.
They just have to know.
If he did, did he know why hewas there?
Was the trauma of the truthstill ahead?
And he stammered?
He said yeah, well, yeah, werethey just figuring that out?
(14:36):
And Cassie later said he wasincredulous.
He looked at us like how couldhe be?
How can you be so ignorant?
But Kathy was okay with thatbecause all she felt was relief.
That same week, dr AlanWeintraub, who is a neurologist
from Craig Hospital, came to seePatrick.
Craig is one of the leadingrehab centers in the world,
according to many sources, andthey specialize in brain and
(15:03):
spinal cord injuries.
It's located in Jeffco, not farfrom the Ireland's home.
Dr Weintraub examined Patrick,reviewed his charts and gave
John and Kathy his assessment.
The first thing I can say toyou, he said, is there's hope.
So when they hear this, ofcourse they were astounded, they
(15:28):
were relieved, they wereperplexed and later the
discrepancy made sense to them.
The staffs had differentexpertise and different
perspectives.
St Anthony's specialized intrauma.
The goal is to save lives.
At Craig's, the goal is torebuild them.
(15:51):
The goal is to rebuild them.
They began making arrangementsto transfer Patrick to Craig by
Thursday.
Students in Clement Park wereangry.
The killers were dead.
So much of the anger wasdeflected onto Goths, marilyn
Manson, the TCM, anyone wholooked, dressed or acted like
(16:14):
the killers, or the media'sportrayal of them.
The killers were quickly castas outcasts and fags.
They used that word.
Remember, this is 1999.
A sophomore from a soccer teamcalled them freaks and said
nobody really liked them justbecause they.
(16:37):
And then he paused and hecouldn't say something for a
while.
Then he said well, the majorityof them were gay, so everyone
would make fun of them, them.
Several jocks reported havingseen the killers and friends
(16:59):
touching in the hallways orgroping each other or holding
hands.
A football player captivatedreporters with tales of groups
showering.
But this gay rumor was almostinvisible in the media.
Rumor was almost invisible inthe media but rampant in Clement
Park.
The stories were vague,everything was third-hand.
(17:19):
None of the storytellers evenknew the killers.
Everyone in Clement Park heardthe rumors.
Most of the students sawthrough them.
They were disgusted at thejocks for defaming the killers
the same way as they had in life.
Clearly gay was one of theworst epithets one kid could
(17:43):
hurl against against anotherperson.
You know in the town in Defco,eric and Dylan's friends.
Generally they shrug off thestories.
One of them was outraged andsaid, quote the media's taken my
(18:07):
friends and made them to be gayand neo-Nazis and all these
hater stuff.
They're portraying my friendsas idiots".
The Angry Boy was a brawnysix-foot senior who rented for
hours dressed in camouflage andhe was soon all over the
(18:27):
national press.
Sometimes he looked a littleridiculous.
He stopped talking and hisfather then began screening
media calls.
The father put a stop to it.
A few papers mentioned the gayrumors and passing Reverend
Jerry Falwell described thekillers as gay on Geraldo Rivera
(18:53):
Live, a talk show that he usedto have or a news show that he
used to have.
Most significantly, the DrudgeReport quoted internet postings
claiming that the TrenchcoatMafia was a gay conspiracy to
(19:15):
kill jocks, but most major mediacarefully sidestep the gay
rumor.
The press failed to show similardeference to Goths.
Some of the most witheringattacks were reserved for that
group, a morose actingsubculture best known for powder
(19:39):
white face paint and blackclothes, black lips and black
fingernails, assented by heavydripping mascara.
They were mistakenly associatedwith the killers on Tuesday by
students unfamiliar with thegoth concept.
Equally clueless reportersamplified the rumor.
(20:02):
One of the most egregiousreports was an extended 2020
segment ABC aired just one nightafter the attack.
Diane Sawyer introduced it bynoting that unnamed police said
quote the boys may have beenpart of a dark underground
(20:24):
national phenomena known as theGothic movement and that some of
these Goths may have killedbefore.
It was true, goths had killedbefore, as had members of every
conceivable background andsubculture.
Most of the reporting was firstrate was first rate.
(20:52):
The Rocky passed on most of themyths and the polls, and the
Times ran excellent bios on thekillers.
On TV, several correspondentshelped survivors convey their
stories with empathy, dignityand insight.
Katie Curry, she, was aparticular standout in doing
(21:17):
that.
Several papers tried to rein inthe goth scare and one of the
statements that USA Today saidin one of its stories was, quote
Whatever the two young men inColorado might have imagined
themselves to be, they were notgods.
(21:37):
End quote.
The morose community, much toodiffuse to be called a movement,
it's, it's um, as is.
Hard, quiet, introverted,pacifistic gods tend to be
(21:59):
outcasts, not because they'reviolent or aggressive, but the
opposite.
All the talk of bullying andalienation provided an easy
motive.
48 hours after the massacre,usaa today pulled the threads
(22:21):
together in a stunning coverstory that fused the myths of
junk hunting, bully, revenge andthe TNC, the Trenchcoat Mafia.
It says, quote Students arebeginning to describe how a long
, simmering rivalry between thesolid members of their clique,
the TCM and the school'sathletes, escalated and
(22:44):
ultimately exploded in thisweek's deadly violence End quote
.
Deadly violence End quote.
It described tension theprevious spring, including daily
fistfights, and the detailswere accurate.
The conclusion, however, waswrong.
(23:10):
Most of the media followed andit was acceptable as fact.
There is no evidence thatbullying led to murder, but
considerable evidence.
It was a problem at ColumbineHigh.
After the tragedy, dr D or Mr D,I should say took a look a lot
(23:34):
of.
He took a lot of flack forbullying, particularly since he
insisted he was unaware it hadit was going on.
It was going on.
He said quote.
As long as I have been anadministrator here if I'm aware
(23:54):
of a situation then I deal withthat situation and I believe our
teachers and I believe ourcoaches.
I turned my own son in.
I believe that strongly inrules End quote.
That might have been part ofthe downfall Mr D did believe
(24:16):
that strongly in the rules.
He held his staff to the samestandard and seemed to believe
they would meet it.
His unusual rapport with thekids also created a blind spot.
He was all smiles when Mr Dstrolled down the corridor.
They sincerely warmed at thesight of him and sought to
(24:39):
please him as well.
Sometimes he mistook that joyfor pervasive bliss in his high
school.
Personal affinities alsoobscured the problem, mr D.
He was drawn to sports and heworked hard to offset that by
(25:01):
attending debate, tournaments,drama tryouts, art shows.
He conferred regularly with thestudent senate.
But those were all successstories.
Mr D balanced athletics andacademics better than
(25:21):
overachievers and unders.
And he said quote, I don'tthink you know it is said.
I don't think that he had apreference on purpose.
This is somebody that it wasinterviewed.
He says he's got a lot ofschool spirit and I think he
aims at that direction.
(25:42):
He's more comfortable with likeschool sports student congress.
Comfortable with like schoolsports student congress.
Now the Kraus and Clement Parkare growing and kept growing,
but the students among themdwindled.
(26:02):
Wednesday afternoon they theypour their house out to
reporters.
Wednesday evening they watch agrotesque portrait of their
school on television.
It was a charitable picture atfirst but it grew steadily more
sinister as the week wore by atoxic, abominable place.
(26:25):
It was terrorized by abandonedjob lords ruled by an Irish,
trump and the latest Abercrombieand Fitch line.
Some of that was true, which isto say it was high school.
But Columbine came to embodyeverything noxious about
(26:49):
adolescence in America.
A few students were happy tosee some ugly truths about their
high school expose, but mostwere appalled.
The media version was a grosscaricature of how they saw it
and of what they thought theyhave described.
(27:11):
It makes it difficult forsocial scientists or journalists
to come to Littleton Coloradolater to study the community in
depth and see what was reallygoing on.
How bad were the Columbinebullies?
How horribly were the killerstreated?
(27:32):
Every scrap of testimony afterday two is tainted.
During the third week of April,littleton was observed beyond
all recognition.
Hundreds of journalists were inthe field and nearly as many
(27:56):
detectives were documentingtheir findings and police
reports.
Those reports would remainsealed for 19 months.
Virtually all the early newsstories were infested with
erroneous assumptions, comicallywrong conclusions.
But the data is there.
(28:17):
We'll be right back.
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