Columbine School Shootings: the Myth and the Truth

On April 20, 1999, two teenagers dressed in long trench coats entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and began shooting. Although many people watched the news stories that seemed to never end in the weeks that followed, the Columbine school shooting incident remains to this day steeped in shadow and mystery. Much of what was thought was known about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold turned out to be untrue. Why they attacked their schoolmates and their school became popularized untruths, speculation and supposition became truths, and what was actually true was superseded by myth.

And like most myths, there is little truth or verifiable proof to corroborate or support its existence. Yet exist it does.

Within minutes after the Columbine massacre occurred, news teams were on the ground, reporting from the scene. Confused witness reports and conflicting stories came from various agencies: the school officials, the news media, and the investigating officials. Added to the growing pool of knowledge of what was actually was a massive amount of information fueled by the speculative.

What most people believe occurred on April 20, 1999, is that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into Columbine High School and began a killing spree that left 13 people dead and 23 wounded. Klebold and Harris had decided to kill all the jocks in the school because it was Hitler's birthday and they, as members of the Trenchcoat Mafia, were out to get revenge on the jocks, the African-Americans, and all those that had mocked and bullied them through the years.

According to CNN, Dave Cullen, a journalist who covered the Columbine school shooting from the very beginning, says that that what people believe occurred is actually not the case in many instances. In his book, Columbine, Cullen shows that even many of the so-called eye-witness accounts were wrong about certain things.

An example he gives is of Cassie Bernall, who was said to have told the killers she was a Christian before she was shot and killed. According to Cullen, all information gathered, including that of eyewitnesses, point to another student, Valeen Schnurr, as the actual person who told the killers she was a Christian. Schnurr was shot and survived.

Cullen maintains that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were never part of some clique called the Trenchcoat Mafia. Nor were they after jocks or any other clique or group within the school. According to Cullen, despite popular belief that Klebold and Harris were specifically targeting some of the students, ten years of studying videos, diaries, school papers and other items has led him (and other investigators) to believe that the people they killed were just targets of opportunity.

Another popular myth that Dave Cullen debunks is that Klebold and Harris settled on April 20 because it was Adolph Hitler's birthday. They had actually planned their attack for April 19, the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and the day the Waco Compound caught fire, killing scores of the members of the Branch Davidian Church. They spoke of these events often, especially the Timothy McVeigh-led bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, professing their desire to destroy their school in much the same fashion. Certain aspects of their planned didn't gel so the attack was pushed back one day. And they actually had set up devices with which to blow up the school but they failed to detonate.

Dave Cullen's book, Columbine, along with other expository books like Jeff Kass' Columbine: A True Crime Story, which explores the massacre from its beginning to its far-reaching consequences, will go a long way in dispelling the myths surrounding what truly occurred at Columbine on April 20, 1999. But the myth will go on in most of the public's collective memory. It has become part of urban legend, just like gang initiation headlight flashing killings. But with time and better informed news stories and documentaries, the Columbine school shootings tragedy will be somewhat understood. And if not understood, at least what is truly known about the event can be considered without mythic bias.

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Source:

CNN.com

Amazon.com