Later, as I worked investigating the story and its aftermath I was one of only about half-dozen reporters who reviewed the home movies videotaped by the killers. Those tapes are now sealed by the court. They showed two very disturbed young men who had descended into the depths of self loathing. These two teens hated themselves and so many others. They laughed at their parents for not checking their rooms and the Harris’s garage where so many of the deadly bombs were made. They laughed and joked about how many they would murder. It was clear throughout that the killers were equally responsible for the attack. The home videos undercut the myth that Harris was the leader and Klebold the follower.
In watching the two, talking about their attack, showing off their weapons, and suiting up for the assault it was so clear they had divorced themselves from the reality of the murders they were about to commit. I found that the most terrifying moment of the video was when Harris fondled his sawed-off shotgun like a demented child with a new toy. At one point Klebold was playing with the shotgun trying to close the slide with a round hung in the chamber. Harris was videotaping and the viewer could see the gun pointed directly at the camera as Klebold struggled with it.
Harris cried out in alarm knowing the shotgun could go off.
It could have killed him.
I caught myself watching … tense, wide-eyed, in-the-moment … wishing it had.
The uncensored version of the leaked 30 second audio from the basement tapes.
Transcript: Eric: Those 2 girls sitting next to you they probably want you to shut the fuck up too! Jesus! Rachel or Jen or whatever the fucks the girl… Dylan: I don’t like you, you fucking ungrateful shit you stuck up little bitches you fucking little fucking christianity godly little whores Eric: Yeah…“I love Jesus!” Yeah shut…the fuck up! Dylan: What would Jesus do? What the fuck would I do? Eric: I would shoot you in your little pussy head! Go romans! Thank God they fucking crucified that asshole!
Then I went to the steam group here. It’s a private group so you can only join if you get invited. I wanted to find out more so I googled “4chan columbine basement tapes”, and there’s a thread that was made ten days ago of people looking for the basement tapes. You can find it here.
If they got leaked on 4chan or anywhere else, we would have them by now. That’s my personal bottom line in this: once something makes it onto the internet, it will get saved and stored and spread by countless individuals in both overt and covert ways. Even people with some experience in the deep web area have hunted for the basement tapes unsuccessfully.
Given the fact that most of the evidence we have on Columbine was made available to us in a digitalised way, it would stand to reason that the basement tapes were copied and digitalised in that same manner. Things that should be kept in the archive for x number of time have a certain format requirement, too. Scanned documents like the 11k all need to be under the format PDF/A, as this allows the documents to remain unaltered and optimised for the years to come. In the case when the file format becomes obsolete or something else happens to the archive, it is the surrounding metadata in the system that becomes important for archiving purposes.
It is very common for an archive to have “destruction lists” upon which the metadata records show which archived pieces were destroyed in which year. It is also common for an archive to have an audit possibility that allows system administrators to see who accessed which record and when and if anything was altered within the record during that time. Some organisations work together and make mutual archiving agreements, too, which might lead to certain records being shared within these respective companies but with the physical location of the original record being in a set location elsewhere. In terms of archiving, the original record is the most important. Copies are essentially useless from an archiving point of view, though experience has taught me that copies will sometimes continue to exist within an archive or organisation despite the original record already having been destroyed.
Should anyone have accessed and spread the record of the basement tapes, you could bet your ass on it that they would exercise the possibility of the audit to determine who had leaked the material. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t just cost you your current job, but also any future jobs that deal in sensitive and personal material. Many government organisations will work similarly to my description above, as there are international norms for archiving that they all need to live up to. There should be a paper/computer trail for the basement tapes, as far as I am aware, even if that original record of them no longer exists. I would find it highly unlikely that somebody leaked them onto the internet so long ago and that they just vanished again afterwards. It is more likely to me that the records of the basement tapes are locked so tight in a controlled and supervised system that getting them out without access permission would be very difficult indeed.
It’s been seven years since the pair walked into Columbine for the last
time, guns blazing. The world has other monsters on its mind now. Yet
there are people who still contend that the words the killers left
behind are so powerful, so evil that the average citizen must never hear
them.
The truth hurts. But the lies can be lethal.
Excellent old article about the basement tapes, as well as the cover-up attempts from JeffCo and other officials, that forms one hell of a strong voice against the so-called ‘copycat’-argument that has been cited time and time again as the reason why some of the evidence never saw the light of day. Want the perfect counter to that argument? Here it is. Crystal clear, voiced not only here but on my blog and in other places countless times.
The world has created its perfect monsters. The world has looked at this, looked at Eric and Dylan, and considered the act and its perpetrators evil. But, so much more than this.. they are human. The act itself, however much we like to deny this for ourselves, is human – callously, brutally, unforgivingly human. It is this that forms the greatest counter to the fear that has lived in law enforcement, educators, and parents: when you humanise Eric and Dylan, the truth will come to you. And that truth is, they weren’t anything different from you or me. They are, perhaps, the world’s ugliest mirror to some, throwing all the chaos of anger and bitterness and hatred out into the open for you to deal with. To others, they are recognition points and voices that carry you when you feel like you can’t make another step. But whatever they are, whatever they were, human is what defines them. Not gods. Not devils. Human beings.
“It’s true that the gunmen wanted their words to find as wide an audience as possible in order to attract followers; but then, they, like the
sheriff’s office, had an exaggerated notion of their own importance. The
county’s efforts to suppress the killers’ writings and tapes have given
them a cachet of consummate evil and menace; being taboo, they’ve
become cool. Yet anyone who’s actually seen the tapes or read the
journal fragments soon recognizes that these fabled mass murderers are
not gods but adolescents. Angry, scared, mocking, disturbed, bitter,
pathological, deluded (fucking self-aware, mind you), emotionally
stunted and deadly, but adolescents just the same. Behind the blather
about being gods and kick-starting a revolution is a bottomless
obsession with their own lack of status and sense of injury. Behind the
bravado, a snivel.”
So ask yourself, what have we lost in all this fear? What do we not see because our eyes are made blind to it? What defines Columbine when we don’t have all the answers? And.. what can we do, what can any of us do, to halt its rise in its tracks?
Well, now.. if JeffCo isn’t lying to us or muddling the waters of truth, then it looks like we just lost the basement tapes and pretty much every other unreleased piece of evidence despite my calling it quite unlikely.
And I just have to get this out. JeffCo, honey, congratulations. Congratulations on yet another mistake. Congratulations on keeping the myth of Eric and Dylan alive indefinitely. Congratulations on showcasing your fear of everything you could never comprehend. Congratulations with your utter incompetence.
You gave these two boys exactly what they wanted. You gave them that untouchable pedestal of being so powerful that their words are not released to the public in full out of fear of what said public will do when they hear that call to arms. You feed into their revolution with every step you take.
Eric and Dylan would have been very grateful to you for giving them this mythic status. That fact alone should fill you with regret over everything you have done in your part of their story. And I hope it’ll haunt you forever once that realisation hits you.
Real talk. If we did lose the basement tapes forever to another round of gross incompetence from JeffCo, I promise I will write the most gloriously hilarious rendition of them in honour of what we lost out on. (I may just do that anyway, hah.)
But I don’t quite buy that the tapes were destroyed altogether. A lot of the material from a case like Columbine would be subject to archiving laws, as globally detailed by yours truly here and here. While it is possible that some of the less important evidence was destroyed following the end of a specific ‘archive holding law’ over those, it is also far more likely that another part of the evidence is subject to be kept on-file for years to come regardless of whether the case is closed or not. The basement tapes are something I firmly believe to be in the ‘keep’-section of that Columbine-related archive.
So, let’s all take a collective deep breath. It’s possible we lost the tapes forever. It’s also entirely possible that JeffCo or the state of Colorado or the town council of Littleton or some other official hoopla still has everything that matters safely tucked away in their (digitalised) records.
As some of you know, I work for the town council in the department where we also do a lot of archiving stuff. I was reading through some of the material on archive laws earlier today and paused for a good while when I saw we’d acquired the archives from local law enforcement a few years before…
But keep in mind this is in Europe, specifically the Netherlands, where privacy laws are much, much stronger than in the US. American companies like Google have been fighting the EU privacy regulations since they’re so much more severe than what exists in the US and makes it more difficult for them since that means they essentially have to have very different rules for different countries when it comes to the distribution of personal information online. So far as I know, the basement tapes are under the jurisdiction of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, who could release them (or not) at their discretion at any time. In fact, I recall a court tossed out claims by the Harris and Klebold lawyers (I think) that the tapes and other personal information would be under copyright and so couldn’t be released unless they said so.
Thank you very much for the addendum about US privacy laws. The laws on privacy over here are very strict, to the point where I need to seal some documents that come in to my job with a confidentiality agreement to prevent other employees from seeing them in our system. I think we might need to start agreeing on a basic law protecting personal data online and offline regardless of country.
It’s good to know they’re still under jurisdiction of JeffCo, as they could easily have been transferred to state jurisdictions or something similar and that would likely make their release even tougher. I don’t think you can successfully argue copyright laws in crime cases where the contested material is a direct explanation of the motivator for the crime, right? Regardless of jurisdiction, though, central archive laws would still apply even when the material itself is kept by JeffCo and seal the material from public viewing for some years. Some of the material in our archives is sent off to be permanently destroyed, but I don’t think the basement tapes can lawfully fall into the “safe to destroy”-category no matter how much JeffCo may want that to happen.
As some of you know, I work for the town council in the department where we also do a lot of archiving stuff. I was reading through some of the material on archive laws earlier today and paused for a good while when I saw we’d acquired the archives from local law enforcement a few years before now. The current archives of law enforcement only hold the unsolved cases and unidentified stuff, while we have the rest of it. There is a holding law in place over this that spans 75 years, essentially sealing the documents from law enforcement that exist in our archives to the public for that amount of time. It’s got something to do with another law that protects your personal data from other people for a set amount of time, with the only exceptions to that particular law being authorities themselves and companies like the ones that come to you when you are really heavily in debt or something.
Now, I don’t know if this is a law that’s international.. but I am banking on the idea that similar laws exist in the US and are adhered to really strictly. The basement tapes will now be in an archive somewhere, be it with law enforcement or with the actual town council of Littleton, and depending on the actual details of that archive law you could be looking at anywhere between 20 to 75 years before they are even considered to be eligible for public viewing. (Not to burst anyone’s bubble.. but I think we’re all desillusioned anyway, no?)
I do not believe that we will get access to the basement tapes at this point in time, if ever, and I believe that our actions concerning the tapes may contribute to their lockdown rather than their release.
I say this even though I feel that the tapes are very instrumental in understanding the ‘why’ of Columbine, or at the very least in understanding the dynamic between Eric and Dylan. I can argue quite strongly that their lack of presence in the evidence is not helpful when it comes to the work people do to help prevent these massacres from happening. I think that there is a very strong merit in their existence, and I still hope that we will one day be in a position where we can finally sit down and learn from them as we never can from their transcripts alone. I believe that authorities should return to these tapes and look at them in a way that helps prevent school violence rather than add to the problem.
The current copycat argument authorities offer as a reason for their withholding can be rebutted, sure, and I could potentially argue with JeffCo about it until I’m blue in the face. (They can be grateful that I am nowhere near Colorado, as I probably would’ve sat in their offices by now requesting somebody to convince me that their release is in fact detrimental to society.) But, their copycat argument is not entirely untrue either. Various shooters have cited the boys as ‘inspirations’, and various wannabe-copycats like the recently arrested John LaDue have been quoted as saying something along the lines of that the boys were their ‘idols’. Now, one could certainly argue that the addition of the basement tapes to the pile of released evidence would not be massively impactful on the amount of shootings we’ve seen since Columbine. I could even argue that their release would perhaps help the boys topple from their near-mythic pedestal and humanise them to a degree where potential shooters would no longer see them as inspirations or idols. But there is also a danger in that their release may indeed inspire more shootings – and I think we’ve all had quite enough of those.
The petitions regarding the release of the tapes only serve one purpose: letting authorities know that we still want/need them. Making them even more aware not only of the heavy research many of us have committed to, but also of an entire community whose perceptions of the boys can be terrifying and easily misunderstood to an ‘outsider’. They worry that Eric and Dylan are seen as human beings worth all the outpour of love and affection that is seemingly present in this community. There is a concern that the release of the basement tapes will only create a bigger dichotomy between the horror of their actions and the warmth the community carries toward them. (Understandably so, as quite a few of the scenes in the tapes read as endearing/touching/interesting even within the limited information of the transcripts.) I believe it would be far better to work with what we have right now, with little mention of the tapes, and see if we can somehow grow beyond the role and concern that authorities have currently assigned us.
If and when the basement tapes come out and we’re still on tumblr we should all tape our reactions to them
Bet you’d get a few kicks out of my responses, lol. I get a little fussy over the transcript already (lots of hand-waving headdesking blowing-the-fuck-up wailing feels going on) and I can’t even imagine reacting to moving pictures. xD
Why do people that are interested in Columbine want to view the basement tapes so bad? I know you can’t speak for everybody so….why do you want to see the basement tapes?
Anon
Well, personally, I’d like to seem them because I want to know what exactly was said. I want to know what was their disposition like. I want to know what was the context of their words were. I want to know what words were enunciated, more pronounced, more emphasized. What emotions do they have? Do they have any? I want to see how they could possibly have hidden their “small arsenal” (as it’s called) from their parents’ view. How did they get away with that? I want to know what’s so disturbing that even with copycats already, we still can’t see them. I just want to see first hand what so many others who’ve seen them try to depict for civilians. I don’t want to make up my own image (things are obviously left out and not as descriptive as the real picture). I want to be able to see it. Hear it. Study it. Did that help/make sense?
I’d also love to know how they interacted with each other when nobody else was around. If they had any gestures or phrases or in-jokes that recurred the way that often happens when you’ve got a best friend you share almost everything with.. =) All the videos we have of them are of them with other people and of them trying to play a different ‘role’, so it’s hard to tell how they were when it was just the two of them sitting in that basement. I’d love to see their expressions, their gestures, and the way they moved overall.. I’d love to hear Eric’s regret about not getting to see his past friends, Dylan’s complaint that he looks fat with all his gear on, Dylan warning Eric to speak more quietly, the whole “dude I made a house”-thing, the part where they knock over a pop can and worry about the mess.. I’d love to hear the tone of their voices, the emphasis placed on some things, the laughter if there was any, the anger and hurt they verbalised so clearly.. I would want to be able to watch everything from them. Just reading it isn’t enough. I want to hear it. See it. Be in that room with them, curled up in one of the chairs, and finally having this part of the case make full sense..
Okay this is probably going to be a really fucking long list, guys. I’ve tentatively titled it Part One of “Lies JeffCo told ‘me’” in my head, because this can really go on forever and ever and I’m sure most of you have plenty of things to add..
Here are some things to get the ball rolling.
…
Another good one. I guess I’ll just go down the list throwing in my penny’s worth.
-I think the copycat excuse for not releasing The Basement Tapes is bullshit, too. The only plausible excuses they might have is that it would be hard on Eric & Dylan’s families, especially Dylan’s because, as his mother was talking about in Far From the Tree, it makes him seem pretty bad. And, even though Eric supposedly cries/shows other vulnerabilities, his comments like “thank god they crucified that asshole [jesus]” still sounds bad I think, even if you aren’t a Christian. Also, 14 years has been a while, it would still be a fairly fresh wound to reopen for survivors. Maybe, hopefully, in years down the road it won’t seem “as bad” to release them for those reasons. Like everyone else here, I would love to see them.
-I sure hope Jeffco has taken steps to preserve the tapes. I can’t imagine them actually doing away with the tapes, but who knows w/ them.
-I don’t think the transcripts are complete. Even w/ the summarizing, it still seems like there should be more to it if the tapes are as long as they say. I’ve also wondered if they’ve even disclosed the correct amount of tapes there were & how long they last.
-I’ve always found it odd that one guy came up w/ a (postmortem) diagnosis & it seems like many of the others just go along w/ him, I guess cuz it’s easier. That leads alot of the journalists/authors/etc. to just go w/ it as well cuz that’s what the “experts” say. And, as others have mentioned, I don’t know why there’s no scratching beneath the surface w/ Eric—I believe anger/rage is often derived from insecurities, hurt, depression, etc. Perhaps Eric’s depression & suicidality manifested/expressed itself in the form of anger & hate. And pegging Dylan a follower makes it sound like the boy didn’t have a mind of his own. Dylan was intelligent & could think for himself, although it appears he desperately needed someone to lean on. His depression & suicidality manifested/expressed itself in the form of loneliness & shyness (that’s not implying he wasn’t genuinely lonely & shy, people—lol). But they both had commonalities that brought them together. Maybe Dylan was “attracted” to Eric because he could identify with Eric’s rage & finally express his own. Maybe Eric was “attracted” to Dylan because he could identify with Dylan’s depression, the deeper part of himself {Eric}, & finally try to express his own. But then again, maybe, esp. us gals, are reading too much into it. The tapes were made for an audience & we have to keep that in mind. They could have just been showing off for the camera or they could have genuinely been ‘feeding’ off each other. It’s all speculation & that makes it so fuckin annoying; cuz armchair psychology only goes so far lol.
-It upsets me as well that the police force/sheriffs dept/SWAT Team/etc. couldn’t do more to help those children (& staff) before it was too late. I understand they were not familiar w/ the layout of the school, & that the shooters were moving, & that they were unsure of how many shooters there were, & that they were concerned about the explosives. I’m sure law enforcement had families &, as human nature would have it, hesitated before going into a life-threatening situation. But, it was their job & surely they knew the possible scenarios before getting into it. It’s things like this that make people lose faith in those sworn to protect us.
-Totally agree they should have kept their mouths shut (esp. to the press) until they had more detailed & accurate information.
-“What the fucking hell do I have to do around here to get my hands and eyes and everything on the basement tapes?” Yep. ‘whose dick do i gotta suck to get new footage of Dylan?’ HAHAHA
**just want to take this opportunity to point out, as I usually try to do, that the views expressed in my comments are only the opinions of me & are subject to change w/o notice 🙂
It would be hard on their families, agreed, but when has JeffCo ever done anything that remotely suggested their empathy with any family involved in the case? (I have to read Far From The Tree.. everything I see from it, I love. Cheaper paperback coming in October, yay!) It’s actually funny you should mention Eric’s comment, because it’s one of the very few that we do have audio from.. It’s a really jarring comment that would definitely alienate a fair few people. (I’ve personally always thought that people’s blind loyalty to their religion was what got to him. It’s maybe not so much a rejection of religion outright, but rather a rejection of the ‘indoctrination’ he saw everywhere around him.)
Let’s just hope JeffCo will one day prove to be more competent than I give them credit for. I hope I’ll be alive to see it. Maybe I’ll be an old lady with a walking stick screaming through the nursing home “WE GOT THE TAPES WE GOT THE TAPES!” and doing a little jig.
What would be on the parts we haven’t been told about, then? I suspect there’s a lot more to the story. It fucking kills me we don’t get this part of the information. =( (I think a part of it was showing off and a part of it was genuinely them feeding off each other. It’d be interesting to see the dynamic between Eric and Dylan away from their friends and everybody else. We have really little to go on in that regard and those freakin’ surveillance tapes don’t give much away in that respect either.)
The problem I have with the widespread psychopath-follower theory is that I can think of at least one alternative interpretation that makes a fuckload of sense. I can certainly see that Eric had some psychopathic traits, but the question is if he had the traits because he was a genuine psychopath or if he had the traits due to a number of circumstances/his struggle to deal with himself. (Eric’s so fascinating I’m not even gonna lie. The things I would do to be able to have a really long conversation with him.. Okay we would probably end up in a shouting match because he pisses me off half the time but still.) There’s no way we can know any of this psychbabble for sure. Everyone comes up with an interpretation that makes sense to them and I think it’s important to recognise that not one interpretation is more meaningful or true than the other. I do think that there were commonalities between the two the way you described it (for the record, I do agree with you on your interpretations of them =)) and that this helped them build their relationship. It’s just really fucking annoying to me that the one theory I can’t quite get behind is the one theory the general public eats up.
Why, though, weren’t they familiar with the lay-out of the school? The school had been remodeled years prior to the massacre, sure, but certainly law enforcement and other ‘first responders’ should have been roughly aware of where everything was? Or find someone who could tell them, such as Mr D? I’m sure there was quite a bit of concern for their own safety, but in no way does this explain the way they approached this..
LOL, I was more thinking along the lines of who do I have to impersonate/manipulate/show my tits to.. xD JeffCo, seriously, give us girls a break and give us one scene or something? (Hint: if it’s the one where Eric’s shirtless you’ll have shut half the tag up for at least a year..)
Okay this is probably going to be a really fucking long list, guys. I’ve tentatively titled it Part One of “Lies JeffCo told ‘me’” in my head, because this can really go on forever and ever and I’m sure most of you have plenty of things to add..
Here are some things to get the ball rolling.
They’re not releasing the basement tapes. Why? Because the FBI said so. Why did the FBI say so? Because they’re scared that other kids will think “oh this is a good idea yeah I’ll totally do the same thing”. Let me ask you a thing, then. Did school shootings magically disappear because you didn’t give us the damn tapes? No. They’re still here. They’re more and more prevalent now than they were back then. So what’s holding you back?
Do you even have the tapes, JeffCo? Did you save them into your nifty little pit of despair you like to call your system? Did you put them on a disc once it became clear nobody was going for this VHS-thing anymore? Are you keeping them in a box? In a safe? In a gateway to hell guarded by three dragons and dear old angel Zachariah? (What’s that? You haven’t seen Supernatural?) Did you decide, though, somewhere down the line.. “oh, who’s going to want these tapes?”.. “yeah let’s just throw them away shall we?”.. or am I giving you the worst of all ideas possible right now?
Is the transcript of the tapes even complete? It seems to me that all those hours of film don’t quite translate so well onto a transcript that doesn’t take that long to recite and mimic.. Are there any scenes you’re omitting from public knowledge? And why? If there’s omission involved, why not omit the crying bits for one thing? If you want the whole damn world to believe that this was the masterwork of a psychopath..
.. speaking of, did it ever cross your mind that maybe (just maybe) you needed more than one mental health professional on the case? Now, I’m not saying Dwayne didn’t do his job. He was competent enough, wasn’t he? Handed the reasons why to you on a silver platter. It all sounded that easy. One kid was the brain and the other just got pulled in to party. But maybe you needed somewhere there to say “hold up wait a sec” and put a different spin on things? I know you like things to be cookie-cutter, JeffCo, but I think you dropped the ball.
Another thing. When there’s a school shooting in progress, you don’t form a perimeter. You don’t try to contain everyone inside that damn school. You make sure SWAT has actual current-day information on where everything is inside that school and that they, oh, I dunno, don’t enter the school on the opposite side of where they actually should be. You make sure that when you see a sign “one bleeding to death”, you send the help those people need any which way you can. You had a goddamn open line to the library and you fucking knew where the shooters were you gross incompetent little.. *grabby hands*
Also, for the love of everything, haven’t you ever heard of keeping your mouth shut until evidence concludes you’re right? Making assumptions about weaponry and shooters really isn’t a strong thing to do. ALSO. Will you please please please brush up on something very important I like to call PEOPLE SKILLS and communicate with the families of the people who died in a respectful and open manner before they find out from the media/others that their loved ones are never ever coming home again?
Rant concluding thusly, for now: what on earth terrified you so much in two boys that you thought staying outside was the safer option, what on earth possessed you to act the way you did throughout the day and throughout the investigation, and what the fucking hell do I have to do around here to get my hands and eyes and everything on the basement tapes? (I’ve probably ruined my chances forever by going off at you, huh. Oh well.)
In addition to other evidence police confiscated five video tapes the teens shot in the basement of Eric’s home (wherein they showed off how well their weapons could be hidden under their trenchcoats). It was in these videos that Dylan’s true dark side showed. No sheep, he; no hapless follower blindly tagging after Eric’s lead. This was a shotgun-cracking angry young man who wanted to hurt people and showed it in his words and body language.
Excerpt from the March 15th, 1999 tape made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the boys who committed the Columbine High School shooting.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are sitting in the Harris home basement-level family room. Eric is sitting on the couch and Dylan’s sitting in a chair nearby. They’re drinking from a Jack Daniels bottle, which Eric points out. The boys begin to discuss a number of topics; they speak of their hope that the videos they’re making will one day be shown all over the world, when their “masterpiece” is done and everyone wants to know why they did it.
Dylan: ”I’d like to make a thank you to Mark John Doe and Phil John Doe. I hope you don’t get fucked.” [Eric laughs. Dylan continues.] “We used them. They had no clue… Don’t blame them. And don’t fucking arrest them. Don’t arrest any of our friends, or family members, or our co-workers. They had no fucking clue. Don’t arrest anyone, because they didn’t have a fucking clue. If it hadn’t been them, it would’ve been someone else over 21.”
They mention the time a clerk from Green Mountain Guns called Eric’s home. Eric’s dad, Wayne Harris, answered the phone. When the clerk told him “Hey, your clips are in.” Wayne — who owned guns himself — told the clerk he hadn’t ordered any clips. Eric said his father never asked whether the caller even had the right phone number. Eric says if either the clerk or his father had asked just one question, “we would have been fucked.”
Dylan: ”We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re going to do.”
The boys talk about the large propane bombs they plan to use on the unsuspecting students in the school cafeteria. They discuss bombs and two containers of “propane and napalm,“ and mention “Mr. Stevens” and the shotgun.
“We’re proving ourselves,” they tell the camera and go on to discuss their philosophies.
Eric says he is avoiding spending time with his family, so that there won’t be any “bonding” and “this won’t be harder to do.“
Eric: ”I’m sorry I have so much rage, but you put it on me.”
Eric then complains about his father and how his family had to move five times. He says he always had to be the new kid in school, and was always at the bottom of the “food chain,” which gave him no chance to earn any respect from his peers, as he always had to “start out at the bottom of the ladder.“ He hated the way people made fun of him: “My face, my hair, my shirts.”
Eric: [Speaking to Dylan, not the camera.] ”More rage. More rage.” [He motions with his hands for emphasis.] “Keep building it on.”
Dylan: ”If you could see all the anger I’ve stored over the past four fucking years…”
Dylan then recalls how popular and athletic his older brother, Byron, was, and how Byron constantly “ripped” on him, as did his brother’s friends. According to Dylan, with the exception of his parents, his extended family treated him like the runt of the litter.
Dylan: ”You made me what I am. You added to the rage.”
Dylan says that as far back as the Foothills Day Care center, he hated the “stuck-up” kids who he felt hated him.
Dylan: “Being shy didn’t help. I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us shit for years.“
JeffCo isn’t going to release the basement tapes because you’re all complaining. Get over it, it’s never going to happen. They weren’t deemed for release in 2027. They aren’t going to be released because you’re all emailing them. The families don’t want them released, they aren’t going to let them be released.
They are all awkward adolescence, with too-big feet and the chortling satisfaction boys find in cracking their knuckles.
They sit side by side in basement recliners, late into the night, munching Slim Jims and candy and occasionally swigging from a big bottle of Jack Daniel’s. They have put a video camera on a tripod to record this farewell to the world, one of several taped messages they will leave, starting weeks before their killing spree at Columbine High School.
They make their young mouths tough with dirty words. They smile over shared schoolboy memories, curse humankind, speak fondly of their parents, and joke about the fun they might have as ghosts, making scary noises. And they explain over and over why they want to kill as many people as they can.
It’s exactly what the whole world has heard by now. Kids taunted them in day care, in elementary school, in middle school, in high school. Adults wouldn’t let them strike back, fight their tormentors the way such disputes once were settled in schoolyards. So they gritted their teeth. And their rage grew.
“It’s humanity,” Dylan Klebold says, flipping an obscene gesture toward the camera. “Look at what you made,“ he tells the world. "You’re fucking shit, you humans, and you need to die,” he says. "Even us,“ Eric Harris adds. We need to die, too. Of course, we’ll fucking die killing you fucking shit.”
They lean back in their recliners, Harris cradling a shotgun and Klebold playing with a toothpick. When they knock over a pop can, they worry, good children, that they have made a mess. Later they model the black suits they will wear on “Judgement Day.“
They talk about books they’ve liked and describe how they will kill classmates who have annoyed them most. "When you find the body of one,” Klebold says, looking straight into the camera, “he’s a sophomore….Look for his jaw. It won’t be on his body.“ Harris talks about scalping another boy.
They say they hope the afterlife—if there is one—is like spending eternity in Doom, the video game they love most. Harris says it would be neat if the afterlife included getting to look at the world’s mysteries, like the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.
They sneer at life in the suburbs, rant obscenely at blacks and feminists and born-again Christians and jocks and people who wear Tommy Hilfiger clothes. They mimic people they think are stupid, using squeaky, funny voices and funny faces.
"I just know I want to kill the fuckers who fucked with me,” Klebold says. They talk about the bombs they will plant at their school. "Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,“ Harris says. They laugh.
They expect to be famous, to have a cult of followers after they die. They have advice for potential followers. "If you’re going to go fuckin’ psycho and kill a bunch of people like us….do it right,” Klebold says.
They expect tougher gun laws to be discussed because of them. Don’t do it, they say; it will only create a black market in guns. “Putting more laws on won’t change that,“ Klebold says.
Then Harris says, “Let’s talk about our parents for a minute." Klebold begins coldly. “It’s my life,” he says. “They gave it to me, I can do with it what I want….If they don’t like it, I’m sorry, but that’s too bad.“ Harris is gentler. “They might have made some mistakes that they weren’t really aware of in their life with me, but they couldn’t have helped it." Both boys say again and again that their parents are great.
The Klebolds saw this tape in the fall. They cried. The Harris parents know the tape exists but haven’t seen it.
"It’s sucks to do this to them,” Harris says. “They’re going to go through hell once we’re finished. They’re never going to see the end of it.“ Klebold promises his parents there was nothing they could have done to stop what will happen. “You can’t understand what we feel; you can’t understand no matter how much you think you can,” he says.
Harris explains why he didn’t spend more time with his family. “I didn’t want to do any more bonding with them. It will be a lot easier on them if I haven’t been around as much.“ Klebold addresses all his relatives. “I’m sorry I have so much rage,” he says. He samples a mouthful of candy with a swig of whiskey.
Harris speaks lovingly of his mother then adds, “I really am sorry about all of this. But war’s war.“
“When you find a body of one,” Klebold says, looking straight into the camera, “He’s a sophomore … Look for his jaw. It won’t be on his body.“ — The Basement Tapes
Lance Kirklin, 16 in 1999, making him a sophomore.
Dylan Klebold came down the stairs and shot him at point-blank range in the face. His jaw and face were rebuilt with bone and tissue from his leg as well as titanium alloy to replace lost bone in his thigh and jaw, a process that took 9 operations.
Coincidence or was Lance the intended target?
That’s an amazing connection. It could very well be true. But, Dylan also says the boy he’s talking about doesn’t deserve the jaw evolution gave him, and Lance’s original jaw isn’t that bad.
Columbine 