July 23, 2025 • 44 mins
Uncovering The Tragedy At Columbine High： A Mass Shooting Documentary
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In nineteen ninety nine, students Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold
would embark on a massacre that would make history.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Were aging shot all around.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Me, and the name of one Colorado High school synonymous
with tragedy.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Children were running from the school at breakneck s page
and I knew that the world had changed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
As the clock ticked back, the body count rose.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
They would pop underneath a table. They would say something
like peekaboo, and they would shoot someone.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And with it the question why had these two young
men waged war on their classmates and teachers?
Speaker 5 (00:45):
A bought entered the side of my backpack, spun around
and actually shot me in the back.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And committed the world's most notorious killing spree.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
What caused them? They have so much hatred they were
willing to walk in and kill is many people as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
In nineteen ninety nine, the area of Columbine on the
outskirts of Denver, Colorado, had been the epitome of ordinary.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
It's a suburban area, it's pretty quiet, not a lot
of crime. It's overwhelmingly white, middle class, which is to say,
a very homogeneous place.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
But one spring day in nineteen ninety nine would bring
the unremarkable neighborhood, World War notoriety, you know.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
April twentieth of ninety nine was it was a typical day.
I was eager to get my grades bumped up because
I I was fifteen at the time, so getting a
driver's permit was definitely on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
The morning definitely was just a regular day. Starting my shift,
I was an emergency response specialist. I just took regular
phone calls to the Sheriff's office as well as nine
on one phone calls.
Speaker 8 (02:32):
Normal day, we had ran a couple you know, basic calls,
medical calls.
Speaker 9 (02:39):
It was just like any other day, went off to work.
I was leaving that day for a conference and another
part of our state.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Tom's fifteen year old son made his way to Columbine
High School.
Speaker 10 (02:54):
Daniel was.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
Very shy, good, very shy, very reserved, very sweet, very
lovable kid. He was someone who, even as a teenager,
was not ashamed to give his mom a big hug.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Fulfinit's students, sixteen year old Craig Scott and his seventeen
year old sister Rachel. The morning had not started harmoniously.
Speaker 10 (03:21):
My sister was in the car.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
She was honking her horn because I was making us
late and I had to have my hair just perfect.
And we got into the car together, and she was
kind of get onto me about being late, and we
got into an argument.
Speaker 10 (03:45):
This is the road that Rachel and I were on
together to go to school, and Rachel would pull into
here to drop me off.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
She was just asking me not to make us late
all the time, and so we were kind of back
and forth in an argument. And we pulled up to
this school and I got out of the car and
I turned and I looked at her, and I slammed
the car door shut, and I walked in the school.
I had no idea that'd be the last time that
I'd see Rachel live.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Around eleven nineteen am, Columbine School, West Entrance, Sean Graves
and his friend's world was about to change forever.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
For lunch, there was three of us that day that
chose not to eat. Dan Roba, Lance kirk Clan and myself.
We stepped out the side door like we typically would.
We'd usually grab a soda at the vending machines right
there and we'd just jet up and take the path off.
Only that morning things were a little different. We were
(05:00):
looking up at the top of the dirt hill, and
we saw two guys that were wearing all black, their
black trench coats and with them they were carrying a
couple of black Duffel bags. We witnessed them loading weapons
that we just assumed we're toys, and that's when it started.
(05:23):
They showered us with rounds and Dan and Lance both
went down.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
One floor above in the library, Craig and his friend
Matt was sitting revising.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know, we thought that we were hearing fireworks. We
saw students running away from the school. They were trekking
through the soccer field. You know, we thought that, you know,
as a senior prank. It's about that time for the
the end of the year for some silly prank to
app and it was a tree addition.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But this was no prank. A nightmare that would shock
the world had just begun. At approximately eleven nineteen am
on the twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, a deadly
(06:23):
killing spree had begun at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Outside the school cafeteria, fifteen year old student Shorn Graves
and his friends Dan and Lance were being fired on
by two teenagers dressed in black trench coats.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
My body was completely behind a concrete wall, so I
was protected. The only thing on me that was sticking
past that was my backpack. A bullet entered the side
of my backpack, spun around, and actually shot me in
the back and shot out my right hip, and at
that moment I lost my legs completely. I was paralyzed
(07:06):
from the waist down. Immediately.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
What Sean had originally thought was a prank was far
from it.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
I found myself laying halfway in the school and halfway out,
and at that moment, I knew that my worst nightmare
had come true. Months, possibly years before the shooting actually
took place. I had a reoccurring nightmare of somebody in
my family or even myself, being paralyzed. It didn't make
any sense then, but the second I looked back at
(07:46):
my legs, I realized that that dream had come true
and I was the one that was going to be paralyzed.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Sean lay in the doorway of the cafeteria, and for
hundreds of students inside, the reality of what was happening
was beginning to sink in.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
All I remember from that moment was just the fear
in their eyes looking at me, and I'm sure I
had fear looking back, and that's when the firearm went
off and the cafeteria started to evacuate.
Speaker 11 (08:17):
I were one, Yeah, this is st call my high school.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We have got seen part.
Speaker 10 (08:25):
Okay.
Speaker 8 (08:26):
I was in a black plaschool.
Speaker 12 (08:28):
During the fun day they did.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Over the prior year, the two mystery shooters had made
several extraordinary videos, both spoof and serious, that were chillingly
similar to the spree to come. The violent, merciless attacks
played out in the videos had now become a reality.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
The two shooters walked down to try and finish off everyone,
and I watched one of the shooters shoot Glance in
the face.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
At Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, Detective Kate's Betton was just
returning from an early lunch.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I asked what was going on. They said that there
was a shooting at Columbine High School. So at that
point I started driving towards Columbine and that's when it
became surreal because the dispatcher was talking about snipers on
the roof. They were talking about bombs exploding, and I'm
(09:45):
just astounded that this is information that's being relayed in
suburban Littleton.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
My secretary ran in that the door was shut, and
she said there's been a report of shooting or a
gunfire and bombs. Explain night, And I'm thinking, what are
you talking about. I came out of my office and
I ran down here, and as I looked down the corridor,
I saw a gunman coming towards me with the shotgun.
(10:19):
When I was staring down and I made contact, it
seemed like the size of a cannon. All I kept
thinking is what it was going to feel like to
be shot?
Speaker 8 (10:30):
You know?
Speaker 6 (10:31):
I thought of my family. Was I going to die quickly?
Each time a bullet was fired from the gun, then
last would chatter behind me. They hear bullets exploding in
that area. And what really probably saved my life is
girls coming out of the gymnasium in this crossing hall.
(10:53):
They were coming into the crossfire, and I wanted to
make sure that they were not hit by the gunman's
gun fire. I ran down of this hallway and I
was able to get the girls into the gymnasium area.
Speaker 13 (11:08):
Well here, I've got a plan to call from my
daughter's day.
Speaker 8 (11:10):
He's chasing us with a gun and hung up the phone, and.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
You could hear the screaming in the hallway.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Six weeks earlier, March the sixteenth, nineteen ninety nine, in
the mountains south of Columbine, the two shooters recorded another video.
This time the weapons were real.
Speaker 10 (11:38):
Oh the rug. Imagine that someone's grain.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Both were students at Columbine High School, just weeks away
from graduating.
Speaker 10 (11:49):
Oh mitri Exit.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Seventeen year old Dylan Cleebold and eighteen year old Eric Harris.
Speaker 10 (12:04):
No no, no.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
Harris was a young man that was in advanced classes.
You know, he had dreams of going to the military.
He was going to be applied or to enlist in
the Marines. Clee Bought was a kid who a few
weeks prior had visited one of the state universities in Arizona,
(12:27):
so his plan was to go to college. Clee Bought
was at prom three nights prior.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Now, both Harris and clee Bold seemed intent on the
destruction of the school and everyone in it. By eleven
twenty seven am, the two shooters were in an area
near the library where Craig Scott and numerous fellow students
were working.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
We're hearing the firecrackers. We're thinking that as a prank.
We're laughing, we're joking about it. And then that's when
a teacher ran into the room. She ran out over
to the phone. She got on the phone to call
the police.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Steps in tunny nine one one. The phone rings, and
you know, I had a caller on the other end
of the line who stated that something was happening at
Columbine High School.
Speaker 14 (13:18):
There was a student I was a gun.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
He had sought out a way.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was children in the library, and she wanted to obviously,
you know, protect them and take care of them.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
A table kid.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
She saw the shots happen. She knew this was serious.
She knew this is real.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Okay, we got hop on the way, man, Okay, got
stay online the padcast.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Say.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I got under eath the table with my buddy Matt,
and then my friend Isaiah.
Speaker 10 (13:50):
He came and he sat next to me.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Still lying paralyzed in the cafeteria doorway. Fifteen year old
Sean could do nothing but listen.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
I can hear explosions going off upstairs, and I can
hear people screaming, and I can hear gunshots just echoing
throughout the school, and there's just chaos everywhere.
Speaker 13 (14:11):
I thought, on the line a lot.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
We have paramedic to be a fire in the police
on route.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
We're just setting down to lunch and the tones went
off for a reported possible drive by shooting near Columbine
High School. My partner and I jumped into the medic
unit and started heading towards Columbine. As we pulled up,
(14:41):
several students running by, and one young gal had a
bullet hole in her I believe right Calve. We treated her.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
After several minutes shooting and throwing homemade bombs in the
corridor outside Harrison Cleebold now approached the line re entrance,
where the teacher was under the desk on the Line
nine dispatch.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I remember trying to get her to close the doors
and lock them to keep everyone in.
Speaker 12 (15:10):
Is there any way you can block the doors so
no one.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Can get in.
Speaker 13 (15:13):
I do not outside, afraid to go to the door. Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It was trying to keep her calm so that I could,
you know, figure out what was going on.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Oh, rip off your goddamn head.
Speaker 15 (15:38):
Dylan was a family friend of our kids for a
long time.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
He grew up here sort of.
Speaker 11 (15:44):
Dylan was here a lot. The kids met each other
in the first grade and became best friends. Dude, there
were never fights. A lot of kids you have to
send home after a while because you know, it gets
with boys.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
It was great.
Speaker 11 (15:57):
The three of them got along.
Speaker 15 (15:59):
It was a nice, gentle young man.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Dylan Cleebold was born in Colorado and at the time
of the shooting was living in his parents design a
home in a desirable natural area just outside the town.
Speaker 12 (16:13):
Dylan's parents there were intellectuals and artists at heart. They
had met at Ohio State University in the art program.
Speaker 11 (16:22):
They didn't believe in spanking, they didn't believe in guns,
they didn't believe in more. They were pacifists.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Eric Harris's background was also far from underprivileged.
Speaker 12 (16:33):
Eric's father was ex military. It was a decorated Air
Force has pilot.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
It required them to bounce around a bit from city
to city as his father would get transferred, but lived
in normal, middle class neighborhoods, not living in the inner
city and subject to gangs or drugs or violence. It
did affect Erak, however, always having to move to another
school make new friends again, that was tough for him.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold were both deeply into computers,
and both complained they were victims of bullying by sporty
students known as jocks. After settling in the Columbine area,
Harris became friends with Clee Bold and as such also
hung out with Dylan's friend Brooks Brown, but it would
(17:32):
not always be a smooth relationship.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
He had thrown a snowball at Brooks's car and cracked
the windshield, and a kid came up and said that
here's Eric's backpack. I took it while he was throwing snowballs.
So I'm thinking, what's this. I'm going to take the
backpack back. So we drove down in the car and
I rolled down the window and I said to Eric,
I've got your backpack. Meet me at your mom's house.
(17:57):
And we rolled back up the window while he started
banging on the window crazy saying give me my backpack.
He was frantic. That was the first time I saw
that anger, and it was very unusual. It was it
was quick, and it was fast, and it was unrelenting.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
I will freaking tell you, I'm gonna pull a got
him shot gun.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
The twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, eleven twenty nine
am Columbine High School, Western Side. Eric Harris and Dylan
Kleebold entered the library where four staff members and fifty
two students were hiding.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
As soon as they came in, they were shooting off
their guns. They began to yell at students. They were
making some mocking comments.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Nobody, whatever their race, sex, or social status, would be
safe from the killing spree.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
The first person that they killed was Kyle Laskers, who
didn't know to hide. He had a disability and he
likes simple things, his family said. He liked pana bears,
he liked coloring, and they became a boy.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
What would happen next in that library would horrify the world.
Throughout nineteen ninety eight and early ninety nine, Columbine High
School students Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold had made a
(19:35):
number of home videos themed around violence. On April the twentieth,
just weeks before they were both due to graduate, fantasy
became reality. At eleven twenty nine am, they entered the library.
Like his fellow students, sixteen year old Craig Scott was
(19:58):
hiding under a table with his friends Matt and Isaiah.
Speaker 10 (20:02):
A lot of students were being were being.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Quiet, some girls were crying, and some girls were begging
for their life.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Nine One dispatcher, Renee Napoli, was listening into a phone
line left open at the library desk.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I could hear.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Them speaking as well as the children in the library,
and there was the definite sound of gunshots.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
They actually fired out the windows at the police officers,
and two of those police officers or deputy sheriffs fired back.
They then walked over and they started systematically shooting the kids.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
They treated it like it was a game, like they
were having fun. At one point they would pop underneath
a table. They would say something like peekaboo, and they
would shoot some one.
Speaker 11 (21:01):
I think that they.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Were enjoying themselves through a good portion of the shooting.
There was a lot of hooting and hollering and false
bravado between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Three would be shot dead and four injured. Before Harris
and Kleebold worked their way towards Craig Scott.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
They came over to where I was and they saw Isaiah,
and Isaiah was one of the very few African American
students in our school. And I believe Dylan called Eric
over and using a racial slur.
Speaker 10 (21:36):
We have an N word over here.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
At one point he was kind of backing up underneath
the table and then they were At one point he
was being pulled out. And this is something that came
up in my memory later. I remember Isaiah said, I
want to see my mom. They shot Isaiah and then
they turned their gun towards Matt, and they shot Matt.
(22:03):
I had decided to pretend to be dead and not
draw any attention to myself, and so I I laid there.
Speaker 10 (22:17):
And I could hear their last breaths being taken.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Five more students would lose their lives, leaving ten dead
and twelve injured in the deadly library spree before Harris
and Kleebow left the room at eleven thirty six am
and began wreaking further havoc around the school.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Yes to the emergency, Yes we do.
Speaker 14 (22:43):
Yes and lost Hermit, be a paramedics, be a fire, and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
We have to be fun route.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
SWAT sniper Sean Duggan was one of several law enforcement
officers with children at the school.
Speaker 16 (22:56):
I got a page and it said all SWAT spawned
to a critical incident. So I have all my gear
and I'm trying to call my daughter, and she's not
answering her page. And she was a senior in the
school that day, so I'm a little frantic that she's
not responding.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Hundreds of emergency personnel were flocking to the school.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
There was ambulances and fire trucks and police cars and
sheriff's cars parked everywhere, and children were running from the
school at breakneck page as fast as they could.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
I was running for my life, and when I got
behind the police car, I couldn't help but be thinking
about Matt and Isaiah because they were there was still
there was still a little bit of breathing, and I
felt I felt a little like a coward.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
Like you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I lend table working shoot all around me.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
It was overwhelming to see the emotion on these kids' faces,
and I knew that the world had changed.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
And there's so many people.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Everybody was calling nine one one from inside the school,
from outside the school, so the information that we were
getting was conflicting.
Speaker 16 (24:25):
As a sniper, you ask what your rules of engagement
are as it's a deadly forced situation. And I was
told if any any high school age kids come out
in black trench coats with weapons they were to be shot.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Amongst the confusion, the name of one suspect began to
trickle out.
Speaker 14 (24:44):
I suspect information.
Speaker 8 (24:49):
I think that from the guy Okay, what's last name
of parents?
Speaker 14 (24:55):
Ago?
Speaker 11 (24:56):
And then you started acting.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It would be revealed that Eric Harris's behavior had already
been seriously worrying some people.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Along the way.
Speaker 12 (25:10):
Eric did let out a different lot of signs he
had on his website talking about how we wanted to
kill all sorts of people, hundreds of people wanted to
kill everybody in Denver, and in particular Brooks Brown, as
former friend.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Disputes like the incident with the broken windshield had put
Brown on Harris's hit list.
Speaker 11 (25:30):
Brooks was supposed to pick Eric up for school, and
Brooks was terrible with being on time, and Brooks slept
in and didn't pick him up, and that was it.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
That was it.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
And I said to Brooks, can you smooth it over?
And Brooks said, it doesn't work that way with Eric,
And so that was the indication. Eric doesn't forgive. He
was an injustice collector.
Speaker 12 (25:51):
Dylan, who was still friends with and had been lifelong
friends with Brook's ward Brooks to go to a website
and see what was going on.
Speaker 15 (26:01):
He was posting threads about wanting to kill Brooks, and
that's the thing we took to the police, and from
when he started making the death threats, he wasn't allowed
in our house anymore. We knew that Eric was dangerous,
we did not know.
Speaker 11 (26:14):
Don't when we turned them into the police. Eric was
into pipe bombs and he was talking about it on
his website.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
It was actually a search warrant drawn up, but then
was never taken before a judge to search Eric's house.
That was never followed up on because there was another
series of murders in the town where the person investigating
sort of went off that case for a while and
then never picked it up again. X.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But Harrison Cleebold's plan involved something much worse than homemade
pipe bomb grenades. As Sean Graves, still paralyzed and bleeding
half inside the cafeteria door, was about to experience, I.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Started hearing the gunshots getting closer, and that's when I
realized that they were coming down the stairs in the cafeteria.
They just kept getting closer and closer and closer, and
I started hearing explosions, but every time there was a shot,
and then one of those larger boombs went off. I flinched.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Harris and Clebold's killing spree had not just been planned
as a shooting. Before they had opened fire that morning,
they had placed two large explosive devices in the canteen.
They had been timed to explode at eleven seventeen am,
and the two students had planned to wait outside to
pick off any survivors fleeing the scene.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Marek Harris had even gone so far as to study
how many people were in the cafeteria at any given
time during the lunch hour, so he set those bombs
to go off when he would have the mass casualty.
Approximately four hundred and fifty is what he was estimating,
and we had four hundred and fifty five.
Speaker 10 (27:55):
Kids down there.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
The bombs timers had not worked, which is why Harris
and Kleebold had begun their killing spree with their guns. However,
they'd not given up on their dream of blowing up
the school.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Well.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
I didn't know it at the time. There was actually
a propane canister bomb essentially that was no more than
five feet from where I was laying, and they were
shooting at it trying to get the bomb to go off.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Their new attempts to detonate the bombs only succeeded in
a relatively small partial explosion and fire, but they were
a sign of a highly planned, premeditated suicide mission.
Speaker 14 (28:42):
These two students did not just snap in this case.
It was clear they began talking about doing something like
this just about a little.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
Over a year.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Before.
Speaker 14 (28:58):
Eric Harrison's first entry.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
In his journal.
Speaker 14 (29:01):
In his notebook is April tenth, nineteen ninety eight. The
first words I read, I think, kind of set the tone,
and it was I hate the effing world.
Speaker 12 (29:10):
You know, he's not talking about hitting jocks, He's not
talking about, you know, any kind of particular group. Later
he makes fun of just about everybody. People who drive
too slow in the fast lane, people who say across
instead of a cross, or you know, mispronounced words, you know,
any trivial thing. You know, there's nothing too trivial for
Eric to have contempt for you.
Speaker 14 (29:33):
Dylan also had a lot of writings and notes that
he left his centered rounds, his emotions, his feelings. He
clearly stated he was depressed. He clearly stated that his
life was a mess.
Speaker 12 (29:48):
Dylan's journal went on for two years, In the very
first page, he talks about killing himself. He had a
miserable perception of himself and often complete aws with reality.
Speaker 14 (30:00):
He was, in my mind, a classic adolescent depressive or
going through an adolescent depressive episode. When confronted with some
of his inappropriate behavior, he would get extremely angry, Whereas
when people confronted Eric with some of his earlier misbehaviors,
he would respond in a classic psychopathic way. He would
(30:20):
tell you what you wanted to hear, promised never to
do it again, and would be looking in the eyes
and deliberately telling you what he thought you wanted to hear.
Speaker 13 (30:30):
Harris had a personality disorder that made him lacking in
empathy for the suffering of victims, made him very manipulative
and crafty. You know, he had an uncanny ability to
present himself any way he wanted, so he looked like
(30:51):
a good guide to many people, but actually he didn't
have a conscience or what Sigmund Freud called a super ego.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Brooks Brown's mother experienced Eric's excuses. When his father sent
him around to apologize for damaging her son's windscreen.
Speaker 11 (31:11):
He looked at me and he said, missus Brown I'm sorry.
I didn't mean any harm. And I said, look, Eric,
you can pull the wall over everyone's eyes, but you're
not going to do it over mind. You come by
this house, you threaten my kid, you do damage, I'm
going to call the police. So you stay away from
our house and stay away from me. And he said,
are you calling me a liar? And I said yes,
(31:32):
I am, and don't come around the house again.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
And he got bright red.
Speaker 11 (31:37):
I mean, he was so angry at me.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And he left the house together. Eric Harris and Dylan
Cleebold had become a deadly partnership, and the two killers
were now wreaking havoc not only inside the school, but
outside too, as parents feared for the fate of their children.
Speaker 16 (31:57):
About the time I got to my sniper position, my
phone rang and it was my daughter and I said,
are you okay, Shusy, I'm home And I said, okay,
I have to go.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
I love you, and we hung up.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Many parents, including Daniel Moose's father, learned of the unfolding
events through the media.
Speaker 9 (32:16):
There on the television was news coverage. It looked terrible.
But I said to myself, well, if there's something going
wrong at the school. Certainly, my son wouldn't be involved.
He was not somebody who'd be in trouble or being
(32:37):
targeted by somebody. When I got home, my wife had
a very concerning look on her face. Why wasn't he
calling us? So I agreed to go to another school
where a number of students were being taken in school
buses after they escaped. And as I was driving, I
(32:58):
was listening to the news coverage and at one point
I heard them mention that they were taking some students
to the hospital and one of the ones they mentioned
was a fifteen year old boy who was shot. So,
of course, the first thing I thought was fifteen years old,
that's how Daniel is. What if that's Daniel?
Speaker 10 (33:21):
Could that be my son?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
At the nearby elementary school, many parents would be reunited
with their traumatized kids.
Speaker 9 (33:32):
I saw parents walking out children, and I just said
to myself, I want to be one of them. I
want to get this over with. I want to be
one of those people.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
By twelve oh two pm, Columbine High School cafeteria exit
student Sean Graves, bleeding profusely, had passed out. Meanwhile, two
medic units approached his location.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
I drove around the south side is We're pulling into
the parking lot through all the cars, see several students
hiding behind cars. Several deputies with their weapons streamed on
the building.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
I couldn't figure out what woke me up, but when
I did snap back to it, there was some commotion
behind me. As I overlooked my shoulder, there was an
ambulance sitting right behind me. I saw two paramedics. One
jumped out of the driver's seat and the other from
the back of the ambulance, and they grabbed me, picked
me up by my shirt and my belt, and they
(34:31):
were dragging me out, and I remember just looking down
to see my arms and my legs dangling. And that's
when the shooters realized that somebody was down there helping us,
and I could see the concrete just poofs of white dust.
They were opening fire on us. They were trying to
kill us again.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Hold up amongst the dead and injured in the library,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold now had their weapons trained
on the paramedics and casualties below. By twelve oh two
pm on the twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, Eric
(35:12):
Harris and Dylan Cleebold had been running a muck in
Columbine High School for more than forty minutes, leaving a
trail of dead and injured in their wake. Then, as
fire department paramedics moved in to assist casualties like Sean
Graves and his friends, Harris and Cleebold began firing on
(35:32):
the kids and rescuers.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
I found medic thirteen screw were struggling to get Sean
Graves loaded up into the medic unit. So I came
up in the middle of him, and one had the head,
the other had the feet, and we stepped into the ambulance.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
They threw me in.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
First saw another young man laying by the fence, and
then he turned his head and made eye contact with
me and said, help me. Scooped up and dumped the
young man literally into the back of the ambulance so
that they could get out of the gunfire.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
I just remember hearing that the sounds of bullets hitting
the top of the ambulance, just the metal tinging, and
that I'll take that away from all of that as
being a sound that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
It would be among the last acts of Harris and
Klebold's killing spree.
Speaker 7 (36:27):
They were shooting at the cops, they were taking potshots,
and police were firing back. I think they realized the
only escape was going to be into the long arm
of the law and prosecution and jail and prison. And
I think there was a thought of let's end this
the way we wanted to end. Let's control our own destiny.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
At around twelve o eight pm, Eric Harris and Dylan
Tleebold took their own lives. But for the children of
Columbine High School and their parents, the nightmare was far
from over.
Speaker 6 (37:09):
Kids would leave Columbine and they would be placed on
a bus and reunified with their parents. And as the
night went on, buses were not arriving and there were
still parents left.
Speaker 9 (37:25):
After nothing happening for a while, they informed us that
there was one last school bus that was coming, one
last school bus with students.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
But for some desperate parents clinging on to the hope
that their children would return, there was to be no
happy ending.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Later on.
Speaker 9 (37:47):
The authorities confirmed to us that they made a terrible mistake.
There was no last school bus.
Speaker 14 (38:01):
The end of the day, we had thirteen innocent people killed,
which were twelve students and one teacher. In addition, Harrison
Clayball also did by a parent suicide in the library.
So we knew we had fifteen fatalities, most of the
(38:22):
fatalities in the library.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
For Craig Scott, who had suffered the trauma of having
his friends murdered beside him in the library, there was
worse to come when he learned of the fate of
his sister.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Rachel was the first one that was killed, and she
had been killed right outside the school library. And I
realized that when I ran out of the school, I
had ran right by Rachel.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
And my son was one of the last that was shot.
(39:15):
He was next to last who was shot. And from
the reports that we have, Eric Harris looked at Daniel
and insulted him. I believe it was he called him
four eyes. I guess he wore glasses, and he fired
a shot that went into Daniel's hand. Daniel fought back.
(39:41):
He took the chair that was there and he pushed
it towards Eric Harris, and for that he paid with
his life. Eric Harris fired one more time and shot
him in the face, killed him.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So what caused these two students, both just weeks away
from graduating, to have such disdain for human life.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
These two kids did not come out of their mother's
womb hating what happened from the time they were born
to the time that they carried out this horrific act.
Speaker 14 (40:22):
One thing that is erroneous is to talk about why
they did this, implying that it was for the same reasons.
There were two basically different guys. In my colloquialisms, I
would say Eric Harris was filled with anger, with rage.
He wanted to hurt other people and didn't care if
(40:44):
he died. Dylan, on the other hand, I believe was
hurting inside and at various times wanted to die because
he felt so bad. He just saw no reason to
keep on living.
Speaker 12 (40:56):
People who study these call them dieads. And you know,
there's a long history of Bonnie and Clyde Leopoldo Lobe
and very often, most often you have a stronger person
and a weaker person. In this case, Dylan had incredibly
low self esteem needed somebody to validate him make him
feel good about himself.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Some consider bullying at the school to be the primary facta.
Speaker 15 (41:19):
Once you hate the bullies and no one does anything
to defend you, you hate the people in the class
that don't say anything. You hate, the teacher that doesn't
say anything, You hate the counselors that allow it to happen.
They in essence end up hating the school. Not just
the bullies. They hate the school and they want to
kill the school.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
I think that they didn't see that they had a
lot going for them. They became isolated, and that isolation
and then exposure to a lot of negative influences in
their life that they chose to focus on, I think
really took them towards a darker and darker place.
Speaker 13 (41:56):
What about Harris was the dominant person who would inspired
the Columbine massacre, and I think Kleebot went along to
get along. It was that chemistry that created this insane
circumstance where they were able to kill lots of people
with moral impunity.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
For the Columbine teachers, students, and parents, life would never
be the same again.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
I was paralyzed from the waist down.
Speaker 8 (42:30):
I spent.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Months in the hospital. They didn't foresee me ever walking again.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
And I was angry.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
I was very angry about that, But at the same time,
I'm extremely stubborn, so I didn't let that be the
end of it. I made a goal for myself to
walk across the stage at graduation. I wanted to be
able to graduate knowing that I didn't let those two
(43:00):
control my life and didn't let them ruin my life.
And I've actually been walking ever since.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
For nine dispatcher Renne Napoli, who listened as ten children
were murdered in the library, the enormity of what she'd
heard soon hit home.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
My first day off, I went to pick up my
children from high school, and I had a really hard
time picking up my own children from high school, so
much so that my son had to drive home. And
that's when it really hit me, is that I am
(43:42):
able to pick up my children from high school and
somebody else is not able to do that.
Speaker 9 (43:50):
The words that we have here were written by my wife.
She did a great job of summing up Daniel's life
and what this means to us to have this here
to honor him.
Speaker 10 (44:03):
Wow, selectly did it for Daniel
In nineteen ninety nine, students Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold
would embark on a massacre that would make history.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Were aging shot all around.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Me, and the name of one Colorado High school synonymous
with tragedy.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Children were running from the school at breakneck s page
and I knew that the world had changed.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
As the clock ticked back, the body count rose.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
They would pop underneath a table. They would say something
like peekaboo, and they would shoot someone.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And with it the question why had these two young
men waged war on their classmates and teachers?
Speaker 5 (00:45):
A bought entered the side of my backpack, spun around
and actually shot me in the back.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And committed the world's most notorious killing spree.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
What caused them? They have so much hatred they were
willing to walk in and kill is many people as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
In nineteen ninety nine, the area of Columbine on the
outskirts of Denver, Colorado, had been the epitome of ordinary.
Speaker 7 (01:40):
It's a suburban area, it's pretty quiet, not a lot
of crime. It's overwhelmingly white, middle class, which is to say,
a very homogeneous place.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
But one spring day in nineteen ninety nine would bring
the unremarkable neighborhood, World War notoriety, you know.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
April twentieth of ninety nine was it was a typical day.
I was eager to get my grades bumped up because
I I was fifteen at the time, so getting a
driver's permit was definitely on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
The morning definitely was just a regular day. Starting my shift,
I was an emergency response specialist. I just took regular
phone calls to the Sheriff's office as well as nine
on one phone calls.
Speaker 8 (02:32):
Normal day, we had ran a couple you know, basic calls,
medical calls.
Speaker 9 (02:39):
It was just like any other day, went off to work.
I was leaving that day for a conference and another
part of our state.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Tom's fifteen year old son made his way to Columbine
High School.
Speaker 10 (02:54):
Daniel was.
Speaker 9 (02:56):
Very shy, good, very shy, very reserved, very sweet, very
lovable kid. He was someone who, even as a teenager,
was not ashamed to give his mom a big hug.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Fulfinit's students, sixteen year old Craig Scott and his seventeen
year old sister Rachel. The morning had not started harmoniously.
Speaker 10 (03:21):
My sister was in the car.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
She was honking her horn because I was making us
late and I had to have my hair just perfect.
And we got into the car together, and she was
kind of get onto me about being late, and we
got into an argument.
Speaker 10 (03:45):
This is the road that Rachel and I were on
together to go to school, and Rachel would pull into
here to drop me off.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
She was just asking me not to make us late
all the time, and so we were kind of back
and forth in an argument. And we pulled up to
this school and I got out of the car and
I turned and I looked at her, and I slammed
the car door shut, and I walked in the school.
I had no idea that'd be the last time that
I'd see Rachel live.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Around eleven nineteen am, Columbine School, West Entrance, Sean Graves
and his friend's world was about to change forever.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
For lunch, there was three of us that day that
chose not to eat. Dan Roba, Lance kirk Clan and myself.
We stepped out the side door like we typically would.
We'd usually grab a soda at the vending machines right
there and we'd just jet up and take the path off.
Only that morning things were a little different. We were
(05:00):
looking up at the top of the dirt hill, and
we saw two guys that were wearing all black, their
black trench coats and with them they were carrying a
couple of black Duffel bags. We witnessed them loading weapons
that we just assumed we're toys, and that's when it started.
(05:23):
They showered us with rounds and Dan and Lance both
went down.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
One floor above in the library, Craig and his friend
Matt was sitting revising.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
You know, we thought that we were hearing fireworks. We
saw students running away from the school. They were trekking
through the soccer field. You know, we thought that, you know,
as a senior prank. It's about that time for the
the end of the year for some silly prank to
app and it was a tree addition.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But this was no prank. A nightmare that would shock
the world had just begun. At approximately eleven nineteen am
on the twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, a deadly
(06:23):
killing spree had begun at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Outside the school cafeteria, fifteen year old student Shorn Graves
and his friends Dan and Lance were being fired on
by two teenagers dressed in black trench coats.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
My body was completely behind a concrete wall, so I
was protected. The only thing on me that was sticking
past that was my backpack. A bullet entered the side
of my backpack, spun around, and actually shot me in
the back and shot out my right hip, and at
that moment I lost my legs completely. I was paralyzed
(07:06):
from the waist down. Immediately.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
What Sean had originally thought was a prank was far
from it.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
I found myself laying halfway in the school and halfway out,
and at that moment, I knew that my worst nightmare
had come true. Months, possibly years before the shooting actually
took place. I had a reoccurring nightmare of somebody in
my family or even myself, being paralyzed. It didn't make
any sense then, but the second I looked back at
(07:46):
my legs, I realized that that dream had come true
and I was the one that was going to be paralyzed.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Sean lay in the doorway of the cafeteria, and for
hundreds of students inside, the reality of what was happening
was beginning to sink in.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
All I remember from that moment was just the fear
in their eyes looking at me, and I'm sure I
had fear looking back, and that's when the firearm went
off and the cafeteria started to evacuate.
Speaker 11 (08:17):
I were one, Yeah, this is st call my high school.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We have got seen part.
Speaker 10 (08:25):
Okay.
Speaker 8 (08:26):
I was in a black plaschool.
Speaker 12 (08:28):
During the fun day they did.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Over the prior year, the two mystery shooters had made
several extraordinary videos, both spoof and serious, that were chillingly
similar to the spree to come. The violent, merciless attacks
played out in the videos had now become a reality.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
The two shooters walked down to try and finish off everyone,
and I watched one of the shooters shoot Glance in
the face.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
At Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, Detective Kate's Betton was just
returning from an early lunch.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I asked what was going on. They said that there
was a shooting at Columbine High School. So at that
point I started driving towards Columbine and that's when it
became surreal because the dispatcher was talking about snipers on
the roof. They were talking about bombs exploding, and I'm
(09:45):
just astounded that this is information that's being relayed in
suburban Littleton.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
My secretary ran in that the door was shut, and
she said there's been a report of shooting or a
gunfire and bombs. Explain night, And I'm thinking, what are
you talking about. I came out of my office and
I ran down here, and as I looked down the corridor,
I saw a gunman coming towards me with the shotgun.
(10:19):
When I was staring down and I made contact, it
seemed like the size of a cannon. All I kept
thinking is what it was going to feel like to
be shot?
Speaker 8 (10:30):
You know?
Speaker 6 (10:31):
I thought of my family. Was I going to die quickly?
Each time a bullet was fired from the gun, then
last would chatter behind me. They hear bullets exploding in
that area. And what really probably saved my life is
girls coming out of the gymnasium in this crossing hall.
(10:53):
They were coming into the crossfire, and I wanted to
make sure that they were not hit by the gunman's
gun fire. I ran down of this hallway and I
was able to get the girls into the gymnasium area.
Speaker 13 (11:08):
Well here, I've got a plan to call from my
daughter's day.
Speaker 8 (11:10):
He's chasing us with a gun and hung up the phone, and.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
You could hear the screaming in the hallway.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Six weeks earlier, March the sixteenth, nineteen ninety nine, in
the mountains south of Columbine, the two shooters recorded another video.
This time the weapons were real.
Speaker 10 (11:38):
Oh the rug. Imagine that someone's grain.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Both were students at Columbine High School, just weeks away
from graduating.
Speaker 10 (11:49):
Oh mitri Exit.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Seventeen year old Dylan Cleebold and eighteen year old Eric Harris.
Speaker 10 (12:04):
No no, no.
Speaker 6 (12:07):
Harris was a young man that was in advanced classes.
You know, he had dreams of going to the military.
He was going to be applied or to enlist in
the Marines. Clee Bought was a kid who a few
weeks prior had visited one of the state universities in Arizona,
(12:27):
so his plan was to go to college. Clee Bought
was at prom three nights prior.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Now, both Harris and clee Bold seemed intent on the
destruction of the school and everyone in it. By eleven
twenty seven am, the two shooters were in an area
near the library where Craig Scott and numerous fellow students
were working.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
We're hearing the firecrackers. We're thinking that as a prank.
We're laughing, we're joking about it. And then that's when
a teacher ran into the room. She ran out over
to the phone. She got on the phone to call
the police.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Steps in tunny nine one one. The phone rings, and
you know, I had a caller on the other end
of the line who stated that something was happening at
Columbine High School.
Speaker 14 (13:18):
There was a student I was a gun.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
He had sought out a way.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
There was children in the library, and she wanted to obviously,
you know, protect them and take care of them.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
A table kid.
Speaker 10 (13:33):
She saw the shots happen. She knew this was serious.
She knew this is real.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
Okay, we got hop on the way, man, Okay, got
stay online the padcast.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Say.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I got under eath the table with my buddy Matt,
and then my friend Isaiah.
Speaker 10 (13:50):
He came and he sat next to me.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Still lying paralyzed in the cafeteria doorway. Fifteen year old
Sean could do nothing but listen.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
I can hear explosions going off upstairs, and I can
hear people screaming, and I can hear gunshots just echoing
throughout the school, and there's just chaos everywhere.
Speaker 13 (14:11):
I thought, on the line a lot.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
We have paramedic to be a fire in the police
on route.
Speaker 8 (14:19):
We're just setting down to lunch and the tones went
off for a reported possible drive by shooting near Columbine
High School. My partner and I jumped into the medic
unit and started heading towards Columbine. As we pulled up,
(14:41):
several students running by, and one young gal had a
bullet hole in her I believe right Calve. We treated her.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
After several minutes shooting and throwing homemade bombs in the
corridor outside Harrison Cleebold now approached the line re entrance,
where the teacher was under the desk on the Line
nine dispatch.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I remember trying to get her to close the doors
and lock them to keep everyone in.
Speaker 12 (15:10):
Is there any way you can block the doors so
no one.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Can get in.
Speaker 13 (15:13):
I do not outside, afraid to go to the door. Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It was trying to keep her calm so that I could,
you know, figure out what was going on.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Oh, rip off your goddamn head.
Speaker 15 (15:38):
Dylan was a family friend of our kids for a
long time.
Speaker 8 (15:41):
He grew up here sort of.
Speaker 11 (15:44):
Dylan was here a lot. The kids met each other
in the first grade and became best friends. Dude, there
were never fights. A lot of kids you have to
send home after a while because you know, it gets
with boys.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
It was great.
Speaker 11 (15:57):
The three of them got along.
Speaker 15 (15:59):
It was a nice, gentle young man.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Dylan Cleebold was born in Colorado and at the time
of the shooting was living in his parents design a
home in a desirable natural area just outside the town.
Speaker 12 (16:13):
Dylan's parents there were intellectuals and artists at heart. They
had met at Ohio State University in the art program.
Speaker 11 (16:22):
They didn't believe in spanking, they didn't believe in guns,
they didn't believe in more. They were pacifists.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Eric Harris's background was also far from underprivileged.
Speaker 12 (16:33):
Eric's father was ex military. It was a decorated Air
Force has pilot.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
It required them to bounce around a bit from city
to city as his father would get transferred, but lived
in normal, middle class neighborhoods, not living in the inner
city and subject to gangs or drugs or violence. It
did affect Erak, however, always having to move to another
school make new friends again, that was tough for him.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold were both deeply into computers,
and both complained they were victims of bullying by sporty
students known as jocks. After settling in the Columbine area,
Harris became friends with Clee Bold and as such also
hung out with Dylan's friend Brooks Brown, but it would
(17:32):
not always be a smooth relationship.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
He had thrown a snowball at Brooks's car and cracked
the windshield, and a kid came up and said that
here's Eric's backpack. I took it while he was throwing snowballs.
So I'm thinking, what's this. I'm going to take the
backpack back. So we drove down in the car and
I rolled down the window and I said to Eric,
I've got your backpack. Meet me at your mom's house.
(17:57):
And we rolled back up the window while he started
banging on the window crazy saying give me my backpack.
He was frantic. That was the first time I saw
that anger, and it was very unusual. It was it
was quick, and it was fast, and it was unrelenting.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
I will freaking tell you, I'm gonna pull a got
him shot gun.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
The twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, eleven twenty nine
am Columbine High School, Western Side. Eric Harris and Dylan
Kleebold entered the library where four staff members and fifty
two students were hiding.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
As soon as they came in, they were shooting off
their guns. They began to yell at students. They were
making some mocking comments.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Nobody, whatever their race, sex, or social status, would be
safe from the killing spree.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
The first person that they killed was Kyle Laskers, who
didn't know to hide. He had a disability and he
likes simple things, his family said. He liked pana bears,
he liked coloring, and they became a boy.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
What would happen next in that library would horrify the world.
Throughout nineteen ninety eight and early ninety nine, Columbine High
School students Eric Harris and Dylan Cleebold had made a
(19:35):
number of home videos themed around violence. On April the twentieth,
just weeks before they were both due to graduate, fantasy
became reality. At eleven twenty nine am, they entered the library.
Like his fellow students, sixteen year old Craig Scott was
(19:58):
hiding under a table with his friends Matt and Isaiah.
Speaker 10 (20:02):
A lot of students were being were being.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Quiet, some girls were crying, and some girls were begging
for their life.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Nine One dispatcher, Renee Napoli, was listening into a phone
line left open at the library desk.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
I could hear.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Them speaking as well as the children in the library,
and there was the definite sound of gunshots.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
They actually fired out the windows at the police officers,
and two of those police officers or deputy sheriffs fired back.
They then walked over and they started systematically shooting the kids.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
They treated it like it was a game, like they
were having fun. At one point they would pop underneath
a table. They would say something like peekaboo, and they
would shoot some one.
Speaker 11 (21:01):
I think that they.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Were enjoying themselves through a good portion of the shooting.
There was a lot of hooting and hollering and false
bravado between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Three would be shot dead and four injured. Before Harris
and Kleebold worked their way towards Craig Scott.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
They came over to where I was and they saw Isaiah,
and Isaiah was one of the very few African American
students in our school. And I believe Dylan called Eric
over and using a racial slur.
Speaker 10 (21:36):
We have an N word over here.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
At one point he was kind of backing up underneath
the table and then they were At one point he
was being pulled out. And this is something that came
up in my memory later. I remember Isaiah said, I
want to see my mom. They shot Isaiah and then
they turned their gun towards Matt, and they shot Matt.
(22:03):
I had decided to pretend to be dead and not
draw any attention to myself, and so I I laid there.
Speaker 10 (22:17):
And I could hear their last breaths being taken.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Five more students would lose their lives, leaving ten dead
and twelve injured in the deadly library spree before Harris
and Kleebow left the room at eleven thirty six am
and began wreaking further havoc around the school.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
Yes to the emergency, Yes we do.
Speaker 14 (22:43):
Yes and lost Hermit, be a paramedics, be a fire, and.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
We have to be fun route.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
SWAT sniper Sean Duggan was one of several law enforcement
officers with children at the school.
Speaker 16 (22:56):
I got a page and it said all SWAT spawned
to a critical incident. So I have all my gear
and I'm trying to call my daughter, and she's not
answering her page. And she was a senior in the
school that day, so I'm a little frantic that she's
not responding.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Hundreds of emergency personnel were flocking to the school.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
There was ambulances and fire trucks and police cars and
sheriff's cars parked everywhere, and children were running from the
school at breakneck page as fast as they could.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
I was running for my life, and when I got
behind the police car, I couldn't help but be thinking
about Matt and Isaiah because they were there was still
there was still a little bit of breathing, and I
felt I felt a little like a coward.
Speaker 9 (23:55):
Like you.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I lend table working shoot all around me.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
It was overwhelming to see the emotion on these kids' faces,
and I knew that the world had changed.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
And there's so many people.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Everybody was calling nine one one from inside the school,
from outside the school, so the information that we were
getting was conflicting.
Speaker 16 (24:25):
As a sniper, you ask what your rules of engagement
are as it's a deadly forced situation. And I was
told if any any high school age kids come out
in black trench coats with weapons they were to be shot.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Amongst the confusion, the name of one suspect began to
trickle out.
Speaker 14 (24:44):
I suspect information.
Speaker 8 (24:49):
I think that from the guy Okay, what's last name
of parents?
Speaker 14 (24:55):
Ago?
Speaker 11 (24:56):
And then you started acting.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
It would be revealed that Eric Harris's behavior had already
been seriously worrying some people.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Along the way.
Speaker 12 (25:10):
Eric did let out a different lot of signs he
had on his website talking about how we wanted to
kill all sorts of people, hundreds of people wanted to
kill everybody in Denver, and in particular Brooks Brown, as
former friend.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Disputes like the incident with the broken windshield had put
Brown on Harris's hit list.
Speaker 11 (25:30):
Brooks was supposed to pick Eric up for school, and
Brooks was terrible with being on time, and Brooks slept
in and didn't pick him up, and that was it.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
That was it.
Speaker 11 (25:41):
And I said to Brooks, can you smooth it over?
And Brooks said, it doesn't work that way with Eric,
And so that was the indication. Eric doesn't forgive. He
was an injustice collector.
Speaker 12 (25:51):
Dylan, who was still friends with and had been lifelong
friends with Brook's ward Brooks to go to a website
and see what was going on.
Speaker 15 (26:01):
He was posting threads about wanting to kill Brooks, and
that's the thing we took to the police, and from
when he started making the death threats, he wasn't allowed
in our house anymore. We knew that Eric was dangerous,
we did not know.
Speaker 11 (26:14):
Don't when we turned them into the police. Eric was
into pipe bombs and he was talking about it on
his website.
Speaker 12 (26:21):
It was actually a search warrant drawn up, but then
was never taken before a judge to search Eric's house.
That was never followed up on because there was another
series of murders in the town where the person investigating
sort of went off that case for a while and
then never picked it up again. X.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
But Harrison Cleebold's plan involved something much worse than homemade
pipe bomb grenades. As Sean Graves, still paralyzed and bleeding
half inside the cafeteria door, was about to experience, I.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
Started hearing the gunshots getting closer, and that's when I
realized that they were coming down the stairs in the cafeteria.
They just kept getting closer and closer and closer, and
I started hearing explosions, but every time there was a shot,
and then one of those larger boombs went off. I flinched.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Harris and Clebold's killing spree had not just been planned
as a shooting. Before they had opened fire that morning,
they had placed two large explosive devices in the canteen.
They had been timed to explode at eleven seventeen am,
and the two students had planned to wait outside to
pick off any survivors fleeing the scene.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Marek Harris had even gone so far as to study
how many people were in the cafeteria at any given
time during the lunch hour, so he set those bombs
to go off when he would have the mass casualty.
Approximately four hundred and fifty is what he was estimating,
and we had four hundred and fifty five.
Speaker 10 (27:55):
Kids down there.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
The bombs timers had not worked, which is why Harris
and Kleebold had begun their killing spree with their guns. However,
they'd not given up on their dream of blowing up
the school.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Well.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
I didn't know it at the time. There was actually
a propane canister bomb essentially that was no more than
five feet from where I was laying, and they were
shooting at it trying to get the bomb to go off.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Their new attempts to detonate the bombs only succeeded in
a relatively small partial explosion and fire, but they were
a sign of a highly planned, premeditated suicide mission.
Speaker 14 (28:42):
These two students did not just snap in this case.
It was clear they began talking about doing something like
this just about a little.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
Over a year.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Before.
Speaker 14 (28:58):
Eric Harrison's first entry.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
In his journal.
Speaker 14 (29:01):
In his notebook is April tenth, nineteen ninety eight. The
first words I read, I think, kind of set the tone,
and it was I hate the effing world.
Speaker 12 (29:10):
You know, he's not talking about hitting jocks, He's not
talking about, you know, any kind of particular group. Later
he makes fun of just about everybody. People who drive
too slow in the fast lane, people who say across
instead of a cross, or you know, mispronounced words, you know,
any trivial thing. You know, there's nothing too trivial for
Eric to have contempt for you.
Speaker 14 (29:33):
Dylan also had a lot of writings and notes that
he left his centered rounds, his emotions, his feelings. He
clearly stated he was depressed. He clearly stated that his
life was a mess.
Speaker 12 (29:48):
Dylan's journal went on for two years, In the very
first page, he talks about killing himself. He had a
miserable perception of himself and often complete aws with reality.
Speaker 14 (30:00):
He was, in my mind, a classic adolescent depressive or
going through an adolescent depressive episode. When confronted with some
of his inappropriate behavior, he would get extremely angry, Whereas
when people confronted Eric with some of his earlier misbehaviors,
he would respond in a classic psychopathic way. He would
(30:20):
tell you what you wanted to hear, promised never to
do it again, and would be looking in the eyes
and deliberately telling you what he thought you wanted to hear.
Speaker 13 (30:30):
Harris had a personality disorder that made him lacking in
empathy for the suffering of victims, made him very manipulative
and crafty. You know, he had an uncanny ability to
present himself any way he wanted, so he looked like
(30:51):
a good guide to many people, but actually he didn't
have a conscience or what Sigmund Freud called a super ego.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Brooks Brown's mother experienced Eric's excuses. When his father sent
him around to apologize for damaging her son's windscreen.
Speaker 11 (31:11):
He looked at me and he said, missus Brown I'm sorry.
I didn't mean any harm. And I said, look, Eric,
you can pull the wall over everyone's eyes, but you're
not going to do it over mind. You come by
this house, you threaten my kid, you do damage, I'm
going to call the police. So you stay away from
our house and stay away from me. And he said,
are you calling me a liar? And I said yes,
(31:32):
I am, and don't come around the house again.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
And he got bright red.
Speaker 11 (31:37):
I mean, he was so angry at me.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And he left the house together. Eric Harris and Dylan
Cleebold had become a deadly partnership, and the two killers
were now wreaking havoc not only inside the school, but
outside too, as parents feared for the fate of their children.
Speaker 16 (31:57):
About the time I got to my sniper position, my
phone rang and it was my daughter and I said,
are you okay, Shusy, I'm home And I said, okay,
I have to go.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
I love you, and we hung up.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Many parents, including Daniel Moose's father, learned of the unfolding
events through the media.
Speaker 9 (32:16):
There on the television was news coverage. It looked terrible.
But I said to myself, well, if there's something going
wrong at the school. Certainly, my son wouldn't be involved.
He was not somebody who'd be in trouble or being
(32:37):
targeted by somebody. When I got home, my wife had
a very concerning look on her face. Why wasn't he
calling us? So I agreed to go to another school
where a number of students were being taken in school
buses after they escaped. And as I was driving, I
(32:58):
was listening to the news coverage and at one point
I heard them mention that they were taking some students
to the hospital and one of the ones they mentioned
was a fifteen year old boy who was shot. So,
of course, the first thing I thought was fifteen years old,
that's how Daniel is. What if that's Daniel?
Speaker 10 (33:21):
Could that be my son?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
At the nearby elementary school, many parents would be reunited
with their traumatized kids.
Speaker 9 (33:32):
I saw parents walking out children, and I just said
to myself, I want to be one of them. I
want to get this over with. I want to be
one of those people.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
By twelve oh two pm, Columbine High School cafeteria exit
student Sean Graves, bleeding profusely, had passed out. Meanwhile, two
medic units approached his location.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
I drove around the south side is We're pulling into
the parking lot through all the cars, see several students
hiding behind cars. Several deputies with their weapons streamed on
the building.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
I couldn't figure out what woke me up, but when
I did snap back to it, there was some commotion
behind me. As I overlooked my shoulder, there was an
ambulance sitting right behind me. I saw two paramedics. One
jumped out of the driver's seat and the other from
the back of the ambulance, and they grabbed me, picked
me up by my shirt and my belt, and they
(34:31):
were dragging me out, and I remember just looking down
to see my arms and my legs dangling. And that's
when the shooters realized that somebody was down there helping us,
and I could see the concrete just poofs of white dust.
They were opening fire on us. They were trying to
kill us again.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Hold up amongst the dead and injured in the library,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold now had their weapons trained
on the paramedics and casualties below. By twelve oh two
pm on the twentieth of April nineteen ninety nine, Eric
(35:12):
Harris and Dylan Cleebold had been running a muck in
Columbine High School for more than forty minutes, leaving a
trail of dead and injured in their wake. Then, as
fire department paramedics moved in to assist casualties like Sean
Graves and his friends, Harris and Cleebold began firing on
(35:32):
the kids and rescuers.
Speaker 8 (35:35):
I found medic thirteen screw were struggling to get Sean
Graves loaded up into the medic unit. So I came
up in the middle of him, and one had the head,
the other had the feet, and we stepped into the ambulance.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
They threw me in.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
First saw another young man laying by the fence, and
then he turned his head and made eye contact with
me and said, help me. Scooped up and dumped the
young man literally into the back of the ambulance so
that they could get out of the gunfire.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
I just remember hearing that the sounds of bullets hitting
the top of the ambulance, just the metal tinging, and
that I'll take that away from all of that as
being a sound that I'll never forget.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
It would be among the last acts of Harris and
Klebold's killing spree.
Speaker 7 (36:27):
They were shooting at the cops, they were taking potshots,
and police were firing back. I think they realized the
only escape was going to be into the long arm
of the law and prosecution and jail and prison. And
I think there was a thought of let's end this
the way we wanted to end. Let's control our own destiny.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
At around twelve o eight pm, Eric Harris and Dylan
Tleebold took their own lives. But for the children of
Columbine High School and their parents, the nightmare was far
from over.
Speaker 6 (37:09):
Kids would leave Columbine and they would be placed on
a bus and reunified with their parents. And as the
night went on, buses were not arriving and there were
still parents left.
Speaker 9 (37:25):
After nothing happening for a while, they informed us that
there was one last school bus that was coming, one
last school bus with students.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
But for some desperate parents clinging on to the hope
that their children would return, there was to be no
happy ending.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Later on.
Speaker 9 (37:47):
The authorities confirmed to us that they made a terrible mistake.
There was no last school bus.
Speaker 14 (38:01):
The end of the day, we had thirteen innocent people killed,
which were twelve students and one teacher. In addition, Harrison
Clayball also did by a parent suicide in the library.
So we knew we had fifteen fatalities, most of the
(38:22):
fatalities in the library.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
For Craig Scott, who had suffered the trauma of having
his friends murdered beside him in the library, there was
worse to come when he learned of the fate of
his sister.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Rachel was the first one that was killed, and she
had been killed right outside the school library. And I
realized that when I ran out of the school, I
had ran right by Rachel.
Speaker 9 (38:53):
And my son was one of the last that was shot.
(39:15):
He was next to last who was shot. And from
the reports that we have, Eric Harris looked at Daniel
and insulted him. I believe it was he called him
four eyes. I guess he wore glasses, and he fired
a shot that went into Daniel's hand. Daniel fought back.
(39:41):
He took the chair that was there and he pushed
it towards Eric Harris, and for that he paid with
his life. Eric Harris fired one more time and shot
him in the face, killed him.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
So what caused these two students, both just weeks away
from graduating, to have such disdain for human life.
Speaker 6 (40:11):
These two kids did not come out of their mother's
womb hating what happened from the time they were born
to the time that they carried out this horrific act.
Speaker 14 (40:22):
One thing that is erroneous is to talk about why
they did this, implying that it was for the same reasons.
There were two basically different guys. In my colloquialisms, I
would say Eric Harris was filled with anger, with rage.
He wanted to hurt other people and didn't care if
(40:44):
he died. Dylan, on the other hand, I believe was
hurting inside and at various times wanted to die because
he felt so bad. He just saw no reason to
keep on living.
Speaker 12 (40:56):
People who study these call them dieads. And you know,
there's a long history of Bonnie and Clyde Leopoldo Lobe
and very often, most often you have a stronger person
and a weaker person. In this case, Dylan had incredibly
low self esteem needed somebody to validate him make him
feel good about himself.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Some consider bullying at the school to be the primary facta.
Speaker 15 (41:19):
Once you hate the bullies and no one does anything
to defend you, you hate the people in the class
that don't say anything. You hate, the teacher that doesn't
say anything, You hate the counselors that allow it to happen.
They in essence end up hating the school. Not just
the bullies. They hate the school and they want to
kill the school.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
I think that they didn't see that they had a
lot going for them. They became isolated, and that isolation
and then exposure to a lot of negative influences in
their life that they chose to focus on, I think
really took them towards a darker and darker place.
Speaker 13 (41:56):
What about Harris was the dominant person who would inspired
the Columbine massacre, and I think Kleebot went along to
get along. It was that chemistry that created this insane
circumstance where they were able to kill lots of people
with moral impunity.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
For the Columbine teachers, students, and parents, life would never
be the same again.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
I was paralyzed from the waist down.
Speaker 8 (42:30):
I spent.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Months in the hospital. They didn't foresee me ever walking again.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
And I was angry.
Speaker 5 (42:40):
I was very angry about that, But at the same time,
I'm extremely stubborn, so I didn't let that be the
end of it. I made a goal for myself to
walk across the stage at graduation. I wanted to be
able to graduate knowing that I didn't let those two
(43:00):
control my life and didn't let them ruin my life.
And I've actually been walking ever since.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
For nine dispatcher Renne Napoli, who listened as ten children
were murdered in the library, the enormity of what she'd
heard soon hit home.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
My first day off, I went to pick up my
children from high school, and I had a really hard
time picking up my own children from high school, so
much so that my son had to drive home. And
that's when it really hit me, is that I am
(43:42):
able to pick up my children from high school and
somebody else is not able to do that.
Speaker 9 (43:50):
The words that we have here were written by my wife.
She did a great job of summing up Daniel's life
and what this means to us to have this here
to honor him.
Speaker 10 (44:03):
Wow, selectly did it for Daniel
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