Wayne Harris called 911 a little after 1pm on April 20, 1999, with the suspicion that his son Eric may be involved in the shooting at Columbine. The transcript below does not reflect the full call, which lasted about a minute in total, but it gives you a good impression of why Eric’s dad contacted law enforcement in such a direct manner.
WH: “Er, my son is Eric Harris, and I’m afraid that he might be involved in the shooting at Columbine high school.” 911: “Involved how?” WH: “Er, he’s a member of what they’re calling the Trenchcoat Mafia.” 911: “Have you spoken with your son today Mr. Harris?” WH: “No I haven’t! Have they picked up anybody yet or….?” 911: “They’re still looking for suspects. Your son is with who – what gang?” WH: “Well, they’re calling them the Trenchcoat Mafia. I just heard that term on TV.”
On one of the ‘roll calls’ of law enforcement that states which officers were assigned where, I encountered the peculiar sight of four officers having been assigned to the Harris home before Wayne’s phone call happened. I am currently treating this as an anomaly that I cannot fact-check against other evidence just yet, especially because their report about the Harris home does not mention an exact time regarding their arrival. For the sake of this post, we’re just going to focus on the fact that these four were the first on-scene:
Upon their arrival, Wayne and Kathy Harris initially refused police entry into their home. Wayne Harris explicitly stated that their lawyer was on his way. Despite this, the detectives were able to gain entry by explaining that they needed to conduct a search for Eric on the premises.
Detective Wheeldon smelled a very strong odor of automobile engine gasoline throughout the house. When he asked Wayne Harris if this was normal, Eric’s dad responded with “no”. Wheeldon searched the property with the thought about the known involvement of explosives in mind until he located the origin of the scent: it came from the family garage.
Due to the presence of this odor, as well as the possibility of a bomb being located in Eric’s home, Eric’s house was evacuated. Law enforcement decided to evacuate the entire block of houses surrounding it, which was right around the time that news reporters began to arrive at the site as well. Bomb squad and the fire department took control of the scene and began to search the house for explosives. (Also note the arrival of Kevin Harris while the residence was being searched – another part of the evidence mentions that Kevin’s car was searched during this time as well.)
The ‘device’ that was recovered from Eric’s house was reportedly found in Eric’s room. The smell of gasoline, meanwhile, was something that could apparently be smelled from outside the house already and became something outright dangerous for everyone involved.
Note that they mention multiple times that the atmosphere in the garage was at explosive levels! It seems far too unlikely that Eric’s parents and aunt would be in that residence for some time without having noticed the smell or the many, many clues that were left out in the open by Eric inside the house. One of the officers checking the house for explosives noticed the following:
There were two black two gallon AMF “Lane Conditioner” jugs in the garage. These jugs were consistent with the type that were found earlier in the 8000 Block of South Wadsworth (note: diversion bomb!) and associated with the explosion and fire.
I also observed a video camera on the family floor.
While I was in Eric Harris’ room, I found two C02 devices on the desk. [..] These devices were in plain view and were taken at that time in order to remove them as a hazard from the house.
Another officer was called to the house for an additional potential hazard:
I responded back to Eric Harris’ house at S276 South Reed Street, at the request of the investigators on the search warrant. Investigators had found a tool box containing possible bomb building materials and they expressed some concern as to whether or not it may have been a booby trap. This box was checked by me. In that box. I found a clock face, wires, batteries and other bomb making devices that had not yet been connected to any explosive materials.
While law enforcement recovered I.E.D.s from both Eric’s and Dylan’s homes, Eric’s house was the more at-risk of the two due to the presence of the gasoline odor that reached hazardous levels in the house until the two car garage that the scent originated from was appropriately vented. It makes sense for this scent to have been particularly strong in that location, as gasoline was one of the bomb components and the bombs had been constructed in the garage earlier that morning. It is assumed that Eric’s parents were not in the residence during any of their morning activities, which may explain why the bomb construction and other preparations such as the filming of the last basement tape took place at Eric’s house.
Kathy Harris initially refused officers entry into Eric’s room during their first sweep of the house. She stated “I don’t want you going down there”. And, upon reviewing some of the evidence taken from Eric’s room that was sitting out in the open that day, I strongly suspect that Eric’s parents had done their own sweep of the house and stumbled upon the following long before law enforcement even showed up:
These are some of the evidence photos that were taken outside the school. The photos you see above are photos that were taken during the initial investigation on April 21st, 1999, and were later included in the so-called ‘El Paso report’.
We have access to some of this batch of photos due to that particular investigation that was
done by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office regarding Daniel Rohrbough’s death, which had investigators
working to reconstruct what exactly happened and which gun had fired the
killing shot.
As you can see, the red flag evidence markers surround Eric’s coat in the bottom photo and the windows were shot out of the west entrance doors. More eerie are the photos of a bullet’s remnants and the lone shoe sitting on one of the walkways outside the school near what looks to be tracks of vehicles used by SWAT and other first responders on 4/20. This is what remains in the quiet aftermath: silent reminders of the devastation that Eric and Dylan caused.
Crime scene photos from the west entrance of Columbine Highschool, where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered on the day of the shooting. This is where they murdered their first victim, Rachel Scott, who had been sitting on the grass just outside the entrance. She was killed instantly after being hit four times – it is unclear which shooter fired first.
The actual weapons used by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold on display at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, February 26, 2004. The majority of the items displayed include the pump action shotguns, pipe bombs, and multiple knives each carried during the attack on Columbine on April 20, 1999.
In the last image you can see the fake guns used during ‘Radioactive Clothing’. Other photos contain objects they possessed but may not have used during the attack.
“Just A Day” essay Deciphering and decoding Dylan’s writing.
People seem to believe that the essay ‘Just A Day’ was authored by Eric. This notion seems to stem from the belief that the document was found on Eric’s computer. In actuality, it wasn’t. Instead, it’s Item 871 located on Klebold School Server Files [see end of this post]. However, even if it was a document found on Eric’s computer or his school file server, as most people have thought in the TCC, I still would not believe it was authored by Eric Harris Every single time I’ve ever read through this essay trying to remain impartial, I can not help but feel that it is distinctly Dylan’s personality characteristics and idiosyncrasies that we’ve seen patterns of in his style of writings and school work. The earmark clues are all there in the grammar syntax and the use of sophisticated vocabulary inconsistently peppered with lazy shortcut ampersands and dollar-sign censored expletives. Eric would never dare to use expletives in a school assignment. He knew better than to intentionally add bad language which could risk him a lower grade. Eric dutifully abided by the teacher’s rules. On the other hand, Dylan was a bit of a slacker rebel when it came to stuff like this. He didn’t much respect his high school or its’ rules and he occasionally flouted them when/where he could. The clues are also present in his disdainful superiority of the vapid bourgeoisie suburbanites. How he sees the overly domesticated society almost like a pollution infringing upon the eternal, omnipresent beauty that is nature as spoiling his momentary serenity.
So, let’s begin dissecting this essay, revealing 20 stand-out clues which I feel confirm that ‘Just a day’ belongs to Dylan in heart and soul:
1) “They (our fishing trips) were always preempted (planned in advance), never extemporaneously (randomly)..”
Here we see the use of sophisticated language and complex almost archaic, old-fashioned syntax such as:
‘Prempted’ meaning ‘acquire or appropriate (something) in advance’ ‘Extemporaneously’ meaning spur-of-the-moment, impromptu, without planning.
2) “brought out by my father before his intended day of relaxation.”
Here you can see the proper address of ‘Father’ rather than ‘Dad’. Dylan opts for formal rather than casual. Conversely, I tend to think Eric might prefer to use the latter. In scanning through some of Eric’s work, this rings true.
The odd, sophomoric, antiquated use of ‘brought out’ combined with the intellectually stilted “intended day of relaxation’. I have to say it almost sounds a bit like mid-eighteenth century Byronic writing! Well, okay, maybe more like Dylan Thomas. 😉
I will also add in here [even though not numbered] that…
“a barrage of arguments *& pouting”
this wording tends to sound very intellectually posh. It doesn’t at all sound like something Eric would come up with. Besides, Eric would never admit to ever pouting: real men don’t do eat quiche or pout. 😉
3) “This was a good thing, as opposed to getting up for school”
Dylan loathed school; he didn’t want to be there ever. Apart from the fact that he was on the defense in the toxic, clique-y environment, there was nothing engaging for him academically. By contrast, Eric liked school because he enjoyed learning – however, he hated homework. He mentions this in his “Know What I Have/Love” list.
4) “or some other bulls*St.”
Dylan had a nasty, passive-aggressive habit of adding couched expletives in his essays. Again, it’s an amusing juxtaposition to all the other sophisticated manner of speaking in the rest of his essay! He kind of ruins everything else about his beautiful writing when he does this. So, inconsistently, rebelliously him! Another instance of the literary self-sabotaging that landed him a written reprimand from his Creative Writing teacher was his infamous ‘Man in Black’ essay written not weeks before the massacre. His teacher compliments his writing abilities and then proceeds to admonish him at the bottom of the essay that ‘I am offended by the use of profanity. In class we had discussed the approach of using * ! * !.”
5) and *6) “black skies *& coffee bean aromas.I never liked coffee, but I loved the smell.”
Again, simple but effective sorts of descriptors which sensorial picture paint the mood and setting. In that little snapshot, you can just imagine what that would look like as well as the smell of that early morning. Dylan was very astute at setting a mood and atmosphere in his writing style. You can see how gifted he is at describing a setting here in his gunpowder essay. You just feel like you are there experiencing everything with your five senses.
* Instead of typing out ‘and’ he opts for the lazy “&” ampersand. There are quite a few peppered throughout the doc. All his sophistication at the start of his doc goes out the window with each of his lackadaisical shortcut ‘&’.
7)“I would dine on fancy breakfast cuisine, otherwise known as Cocoa Puffs”
A dash of tongue-in-cheek wit with an oxymoron contrast. It’s a playful humor poking fun of his younger, unsophisticated self in happier memories. It’s also reminiscent of his playful sense humor in the cards he gave to Devon Adams.
8) “I always remember my brother trying to impress everyone, and myself thinking what a waste of time that would be.”
This is a bit of a salty, arrogant dig against a brother. It speaks of sibling competitiveness while simultaneously implying that he is above competing for people’s attention.
We know that both boys had older brothers which were much more socially outgoing with people. Of the two boys, Eric looked up to his brother and was known to be supportive of his football games. Still, I’m sure there was the sort of jealousy there for living in the successful shadow of his brother. I honestly don’t ever see Eric taking snooty pot shots at his brother, least of all in a school essay which might be read to the class.
Dylan, on the other hand, was gifted and naturally just ‘impressed’ with his advanced abilities. But perhaps Dylan was jealous that Byron was good with people and managed to naturally ‘impress them’ and win them over with charisma and woo. If that’s the case, Dylan is justifying his lacking in the arena of social skills since he was usually never inadequate at anything else academically speaking. So, here, he prefers to view all of that as jumping through hoops trying to please and win people over and that it’s just a vapid waste of time trying to define oneself by impressing others rather than just simply being who you are and not caring what people think. Winning people over as perhaps Byron naturally did with most people he came in contact with is relegated to simply “a waste of time” by Dylan.
9) and *10) “The drives up to the mountains was always peaceful, *a certain halcyon hibernating within the tall peaks & the armies of pine trees.”
He describes the trips as enjoyable because nature provides an automatic sense of calmness for him. It’s easy to understand when his mental chatter was constantly going all of the time. You could say that being out in nature and suspended in total quiet, soothed his mind and soul. Again, he describes what he is visually experiencing while on the trips up into the mountains in a concise yet, very vivid manner which makes you easily envision it easily.
10) A who else uses the word ‘halcyon’ but Mr. Dylan Klebold? It is his signature word of which he uses repeatedly in his journal. This is a deal breaker for me. Why isn’t it for most people that have read this essay and assumed it’s Erics? ‘a certain halcyon hibernating’ quite a poetically romantic description….
Eric, by contrast, would tend to describe things in a prosaic, very direct manner. By contrast, his writing approach is more action-oriented rather than ‘stop and smell the roses’ reflective.
11)“It seems back then that when the world changed, these mountains would never move. They would remain at peace with themselves and with anyone who would respect them.”
The world changes and advances yet, the mountains remain unalterably everlasting and majestic. Those that trespass but respect these timeless, constant monuments reap the peace and tranquility that is their silent secret.
12)“The lake is almost vacant, except for a few repulsive suburbanite a$$holes.”
Dylan censors an expletive to describe the artificial humanity infringing upon a near pristinely vacant lake.
13) “I never liked those kinds of people. They always seemed to ruin the serenity of the lake.”
No doubt altering the mood of the natural environment with their massive campers, garbage, and noise (and grill) pollution. Once they start to trickle in, the lake begins to lose the still and pure quality that Dylan enjoys witnessing – without having to share it with others who are undeserving of it for lacking in respect.
13) continued… “I loved the water. I never went swimming, but the water was an escape in itself”
Gazing into the water was a way for his mind to figuratively swim elsewhere..and to escape from the troubles of everyday life.
14) “Instead, I went with a lour, even though this was a lake.”
He misspelled ‘lure’ for a fishing lure. Generally, it seems as though he has at least one or two errors in his work. Even his college application letter, which should have been thoroughly proofed and error-free, had a glaring mistake with it’s rather amusing use of a veeeery wrong word. 😉
15) “Cast, reel, etc countless times, and my mind would wander to wherever it would want to go. Time seemed to stop whenever I was fishing.”
Again, you can see that the act of doing something repetitive, out in nature, in an absolute quiet, helped to provide a meditative state for Dylan. Time would become suspended and his mind would transport to where he happily wished to be.
16) and 17) “The lake, the mountains, the trees, all the wildlife *s$*t that people seemed to take for granted, was here.”
The mindful appreciation of the natural world goes unappreciated by most people other than himself. 17) Typical Dylan to ironically sum it up as ‘wildlife s$*t in an cavalier, irreverent fashion even though his point is that no one reveres it as only he can. Again, if we can assume that this is an essay written for school (can’t really get what else it might’ve been created for?), he clearly knows that using profanity is a no-no yet, he passive-aggressively slips it in the essay anyway along with those wildcard characters.
And for humor sake, let’s not forget how he started off this essay using lofty words such as ‘Extemporaneously’ and has no progressed..digressed? to a much different tone by the end of the essay.
18) “It was (as) if their presence was necessary for me to be content.”
I feel as though he forgot to put in ‘as if’ in this sentence. But again, he’s stressing that the breathtaking visuals surrounding him were integral to him finding a sense of contentment. A rare state of being for a Dylan.
19)“Time to go!. Done, Back to society. No regrets, though.”
You’d think most teenage dudes returning from a fishing trip might write it this way: “well, time to go back home! But so worth it!” Dylan rather perceives it more lamentingly like ‘time to go back to (the) society’…yes, back to the artificial world, with all of the humanity’s stupid system and rules. Though, maybe I’m just inferring a bit much here.. lol
However, ‘No regrets though’. For all the hullabaloo of getting up at the crack of dawn, and traveling out that way out into the precious, perfect solitude of nature – so well worth the time spent. No regrets! but instead, fond memories of the spiritual commune with Mountain Gods of nature.
20)“Nature shared the secret serenity with someone who was actually observant enough to notice. Sucks for everyone else.”
Others come out here to just do bunch of stuff out while out in a natural. Pitch a tent, crank up the BBQ, drinking beer and make a lot of noise chattering much a do about nothing. Nature is irrelevant to the suburbanites. As oppose to Dylan, who is there to commune with nature while pensively fishing. In his mindful appreciation, Nature shares a gift of ‘secret serenity’ – his attaining contentment in solitude for a few hours that feel like a state of foreverness. Nobody else gleans the obvious while out in nature but he. For they are too busy to notice.
Here is where this essay was found by Jeffco. If I’ve not persuaded you enough above, then this should be the deal breaker that ‘Just a Day’ belongs to none other than…Mr. Dylan Klebold
p.s. Honestly, just between you and me, I would so love to see all of those 28 essays of Dylan’s that were found on Eric Harris’s computer. Read the source. 😉
What was that, JeffCo?
You don’t want to mention anything beyond propane tanks and pipe bombs? You don’t want any copycats getting ideas? You can’t release the basement tapes to the general public because they’re a how-to-build-your-own-bombs manual?
Maybe you should take another look at the Homeland Security and Governor’s Commission reports, because I don’t think they got your memo on “let’s not mention this stuff”..
FBI documentation regarding Columbine’s aftermath, in which can be seen what the major focuses of their investigation were. Interesting to note is that there were additional threats regarding a potential bombing on April 26, 1999, that they were investigating at the time. There are almost no indications of this in media reports from that period, however, so it’s likely that this threat was kept under wraps.
However, the choice of the term “secondary explosive devices” is rather odd. At a site like Columbine, the bombs in their cars would have been categorised as secondary explosive devices. Secondary explosive devices are primarily used on-scene of an attack to injure/kill emergency responders. They’re not the main focus of the attack, but exist to further confuse and harm people on-scene. Whatever was designed to occur on April 26, these secondary explosive devices mentioned might only be a small part of it.
To add to my latest anon.. I said I didn’t recall Eric ever having said “don’t blame the school”, but I stand corrected on that! The lovely @exousia-skotos found a direct reference to the quote in Peter Langman’s work and was kind enough to let me know about it. ^^ I did a semi-mad dash to figure out the exact origin of it (didn’t look like the basement tapes and his journal turned up nothing, either) and finally found it in Eric’s loose ramble that starts out with “it’d be great if God removed all vaccines and warning labels blablabla”. So, for completion’s sake: you’ve got Eric saying “don’t blame anybody except Dylan and myself for the massacre” in this excerpt. (Which falls in line with other instances in which he’s careful to absolve anyone but Dylan and himself of the blame, even though other moments in his speech betray the level of hatred and other problems he has with things such as the school.)
I’ve been meaning to post something along these lines for a while now, but never quite seemed to find the time or the tone for it. It’s perhaps a little unfortunate to write this now that we’re dealing with a new as-yet-unsourced might-be-real photograph in the case, or perhaps it’s exactly what the community needs to read. I’ll let you all be the judge of what you make of it. I actually just want to talk for a little while about research shenanigans and how to work with a blog like mine in which so much hinges on fact-based stuff and getting stories straight.
One of the most important things I ever learned in history class was how to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. (I love learning history, so it’s no wonder that this stuck with me, but it’s something that is absolutely vital in other areas of life as well.) Primary sources are accounts of an event given by people who experienced and/or witnessed the event in question. They can also include published pieces that were written shortly after the fact, or photographs and videos of the event in question. The function of secondary sources is to interpret all of these primary sources and speculate or draw conclusions based on those. They can occur in the form of a published book about the event or appear as a documentary on TV. An additional rule of thumb is usually that primary sources appear in a certain timeframe, while secondary sources can and do sometimes appear years after the fact.
In terms of Columbine, we can say that we’re dealing with both of these things simultaneously. We’ve got primary sources in the form of journal entries, website print-outs, interviews with witnesses, reports from first responders on scene, and most of the rest of the evidence. Some newspaper articles, particularly the ones written in May 1999, may also apply here. Then, we’ve got all the secondary sources in the world because everybody wants to pitch their two pennies into the mass murder pot. My blog is one such secondary source, as I frequently speculate about things and form my own working opinions based off the evidence that may or may not hold water. Books like Dave Cullen’s are also a secondary source, though they are intended to be a factual retelling of events.
Perhaps you see the problem arise already: how on earth do you decide which source is trustworthy? I don’t wanna hack on good ol’ Dave again (who am I kidding, I will always throw him under the bus when given an excuse to do so), but it goes almost without saying that his book is less trustworthy than my blog. Similarly, there are quotes making the rounds here on Tumblr that were never really said by the individuals involved or other opinions floating around here that have little to no basis in factual reality. To each their right and to each their own, but it’d help a shitload if people stopped jumping the emotional gun every so often.
Three questions to ask: how does the author of the piece know these details, where does this information come from, and are the author’s conclusions based on a single piece of evidence or on multiple pieces of evidence? Once you’ve figured out the source of the information and ascertained the trustworthiness of the information, you can conclude something much more efficiently and believably. I’ve found it’s a good thing when stories from witnesses begin to overlap and when they can be traced back to other pieces of evidence such as journal entries, diversion notes, and other things. Columbine’s case is built upon a mountain of evidence that can be harrowing and daunting to navigate, but can also be the backbone of a speculation that withstands any kind of scrutiny or simply forms the most likely story. Bloggers like myself have a whole lot of back-up sources they trust in case someone asks about the origin of the information. I’ve dug myself so deeply into the evidence that I usually know where to find what and who may have stated what. You can always ask me about the sources I’ve used and I’ve linked some of my most-referred documents in my sidebar for this reason as well. There are no secrets between us: I’m not privy to anything more than you all are, and I’m just making do with what we’ve been given.
Sometimes, I’m asked questions that give way to a more unfounded form of speculation. They’re not my favourites to answer and I sometimes ask “how the fuck should I know?” out loud when reading them, though I will often still entertain them for the speculative value they can have. At times, those things provide different angles and vantage points that don’t have much of a basis in fact but may inspire to view known facts from a different kind of angle all the same. It also becomes difficult when something new finally does arrive, be it a book or a photograph or something else entirely, and I’m asked for my opinion when I’m personally not really sure of anything yet. I’ve found it helps to just simply say I’m not sure, to take readers of this blog through my own thought processes around it, and to keep an open mind until something is definitively proven or disproven. Possible, probable, could-be-true, and not-100%-but-benefit-of-the-doubt are not such bad things to say!
When dealing with Columbine or any other case like this, ask and search for sources. Back yourself up with sources. Get to know the material that has a strong basis in the evidence. Learn to distinguish between a “maybe” and a “definitely” – even within the witness accounts, there is a fair bit of hearsay going on every so often. It’s complicated by the fact that many witnesses saw media interpretations of events prior to being questioned by police: it may have affected the credibility of their witness statements. Look at the dates on the evidence: the further away from 4/20/99 a statement takes you, the more skeptical you should be of it. Don’t be blindsided by claims of psychiatrists or investigators or whatever the hell else, either, because these people can and do get it wrong too and it would be a damn pity to base your own opinion entirely on theirs. Get yourself to the point where you reflexively go “where does this come from?” when seeing something about the case that you don’t quite remember or is brand new. Dare to give something the benefit of the doubt and leave it at that when nothing else happens that helps confirm it further.
Research, for me, is a work of love and care. It’s not something that’s done in a day or a week or even a month. It’s something that changes over the course of time. When you think you know it all, go back to step one and try again. You never know it all. Reassess things from the ground up. Take one piece of evidence and just think it over for a while, look at it from different angles, take it out of your comfort zone and into new perspectives, unleash something new upon it if you dare. Read and review material that coincides with some parts of the evidence, even when you’re considered slightly batshit for having twenty different books about forensic evidence and death investigation and everyone’s tired of you watching shows on TV about SWAT teams. A lot of what I say on here about their psyches is rooted in my past studies of childcare and psychology, for instance, and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to connect that past learning experience to the research in a way that may benefit others. Learn what feels good, know what is right, and play to your own strengths!
I get most of my information from the pile of evidence papers JeffCo scanned and released to the general public, as well as old newspaper articles (Denver Post is particularly good!) and occasional interviews given by people involved in the case. If I need to quick-reference something, I either go to AColumbineSite or use the available transcripts as well as the thematic sorting of the evidence. I’ve linked to the transcripts (diversion papers, journals, and basement tapes) in my sidebar and also included the 11k-by-name-or-section file that is invaluable when reviewing the actual evidence pile.
If there is one good thing I’ll say about Peter Langman’s work, it’s that he’s managed to make the pile a little easier to navigate and has made the entire evidence available on his website. Scroll down here until you hit Columbine, and you’ll find all of JeffCo’s available documents in downloadable PDF-formats! One of the things you’ll notice is that some sections are more interesting than others, but a thing that bugs me personally is the quality of some scans and the fact that they included handwritten pages in several sections.
That’s the baseline of my information, upon which I’ve based my own opinions and everything else. Hope this helps! =)
Two boys who may be Eric and Dylan caught on CCTV, carrying large duffel bags into the cafeteria. You can see them walking in from the left of the screen.
Watch C.V.A.’s video on the possibility of them being Eric and Dylan here. Watch the full cafeteria CCTV here.
The timestamp for “Eric’s” arrival is 10:58:19-39AM (24:28 minutes into the full CCTV footage) and the timestamp for “Dylan’s” arrival is 10:59:49-38AM (25:58 minutes into the full CCTV footage).
This is a truly wonderful find from CVA regarding the bomb placement that morning. I’ve always theorised it to have occurred exactly the way we see here: inconspicuously, calmly, and done by the boys themselves on the morning of. To have this confirmed by actual footage puts a big questionmark to rest. There is even one tiny moment in that footage where you can see Eric taking care not to bump into anyone or anything while carrying those bags. I found myself wishing the video had played the footage on repeat – these gifs are the next best thing!
I think it might be Dylan’s Dr.Pepper. However, it was found next to Daniel Mauser’s body, so I’m not sure.
Uh, this picture makes me so freaking sad…
Pretty sure this is Daniel Rohrbough’s can of Dr. Pepper, as he carried it with him outside for lunch that day and was seen with it in his hand shortly before he got shot. A sad sight that captures the futility of the shooting perfectly..
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.
For a bunch of people supposedly so paranoid about Eric and Dylan inspiring copycats, they do a surprising job of letting unredacted information about the explosive devices that were used in the massacre slip through the mazes of the evidence web. There are more instances like these to be found in official reports and the evidence documents themselves, which could suffice as at least half of an instruction manual if you put all this information together and possess a bit of scientific knowledge.
*forever calls absolute bullshit on the basement tapes not being released because they are a supposed instruction manual for future bombers/shooters*
Interesting little tidbit from the evidence files of doom: this particular JeffCo officer noted that several bombs were attached to one of the suspects. Eric or Dylan? I would say: place your bets! (Feel free to use this post as additional reference as to how they were found in the library, which might lead to more of a clue..)
Sometimes, comparing witness statements in the evidence can be invaluable. Compare Alyssa Sechler’s statement above with Tim Kastle’s statement below. The first clearly says that Tim told Nate Dykeman that Dylan held a gun to his head. The second states that Tim encountered someone who pointed a shotgun at him (no specifics about it being near his head) and that he believed this person to be Dylan simply because he hadn’t been shot. Note also that it is remarked that nothing he observed about the suspect led him to the conclusion that it could have been Dylan – that’s very different from Tim telling Nate in all certainty that it was Dylan, now isn’t it?
These are descriptions from SWAT/Bomb Squad officers concerning finding Eric and Dylan dead in the library. Most of the descriptions from officers aren’t this detailed: I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve read the sentence “two suspects DOA” and nothing more within these statements. It is very hard to determine how exactly their bodies were positioned at the time, as there are very few references to their exact positions in these statements and the quotes above showcase very little.
The only thing these statements do confirm is that their bodies were moved and checked for explosives. They were probably facing one another initially if the first statement is correct and their bodies were seemingly not rolled over altogether until the coroner was present on-scene. I have yet been unable to locate precise descriptions of how their bodies were originally found and how much they were moved prior to their removal from the library. It’s unclear when the photos of their bodies were taken, though I suspect they were taken after that first sweep by bomb squad technicians.
These are just two examples of the myriad of communication issues that arose on 4/20/99 among the agencies responding to the massacre. Every agency operated on different emergency radio channels at different parts of the radio spectrum. JeffCo and the fire dept from Littleton worked off VHF frequencies, while agencies from Denver and Lakewood were on Ericsson 800 MHz. This made it impossible for every emergency responder to be able to communicate directly with others responding to the scene. Groups with similar functions, such as the SWAT teams from which the quotes above are lifted, were even unable to really speak with each other and determine working strategies between them.
The solution? Well, the agencies communicated with their own dispatch centres who’d then relay the information to other agencies or to an agency representative at the central command post. None of the departments had ever trained together pre-Columbine for an emergency of this size and scope, so they were unaware of the communication issues until they were confronted with them at the exact time they needed to be able to communicate with each other.
The real kickers here? The fire alarm system, triggered by the explosives Eric and Dylan carried with them, wailed for a good six hours and officers went around knocking speakers off the walls just to stop the noise. Nobody was able to switch off the system from outside the school, nor were they able to contact anyone who could’ve done it for them. Furthermore, none of the emergency response agencies possessed detailed and accurate maps of the school at the time tragedy struck. For all intents and purposes, they were flying completely blind.
A huge part of the evidence punctures the myth that Cassie Bernall was asked if she believed in God, to which her answer would have been “yes”. As seen in the event recap from the evidence, multiple witnesses place the taunts regarding God as having happened to Val Schnurr. In the days that followed the tragedy, however, it was Cassie’s story that made it out there thanks to Rachel Scott’s brother Craig, who’d been in the library that day and witnessed the events. Investigators later concluded that Craig had seen Val being questioned instead of Cassie, given the table he assigned to the “girl who said yes”, but the damage was already done by then. Val Schnurr’s real story would only sparingly make it ‘out there’.
Valeen Schnurr doesn’t want her fellow freshmen to know her as Val, the
girl from Columbine. Nor does she want to be known as the Girl Who
Really Said Yes, or the Living Saint, or the Almost Martyr, even though
she is all of those things. And she definitely doesn’t want to be known
as the girl who punctured the myth of Cassie Bernall.
Schnurr knows what Cassie’s story means to the people around her, knows
that many who lived through the Columbine High School shootings in April
cling to it as the tragedy’s only redemption. They’ve all heard the
same version over and over: In the school’s library, one of the teenage
killers held a gun to Cassie’s head and asked if she believed in God.
Cassie said “yes” and he “blew her away,” as a friend later reported.
[…]
Schnurr’s story is the same one she’s been telling since she came out of
anesthesia after her first surgery to remove the 34 pellets that
pierced her arms and torso. Her parents, Mark and Shari Schnurr,
remember it perfectly, as they’d been anxiously pacing her hospital room
waiting for her to speak. As she told them in bits and pieces, and
later repeated to the investigators, she and some friends were studying
in the library, along with a few dozen more kids. They heard shotguns
and screams, and everyone crouched under the tables.
At some point, Schnurr looked up and saw boots first and then a shotgun.
She was whispering prayers when the first blast hit her and knocked her
to the floor, bleeding. She whispered more loudly, “Oh my God, oh my
God, don’t let me die.”
Do you believe in God, one of the shooters asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe, and my parents brought me up that way,” she
answered, and crawled away while he reloaded. He didn’t shoot at her
again. “It didn’t really cross my mind that something bad would come
from my answer,” she says now. “He asked and I couldn’t say no. I don’t
think of it as bravery. I think of it as what I said because it’s true,
because it’s just me. What else was I going to say?”
The death of teacher Dave Sanders at Columbine is something many, if not all, researchers believe could have been prevented. Mr Sanders had been shot by Eric out in the hallway, but managed to make it to one of the science rooms with the help of people around him. It was here that he would stay for hours, provided with medical aid from his own students, while a sign on the window was warning law enforcement outside that there was “1 bleeding to death”. Law enforcement outside never communicated this to SWAT inside the building, nor did they undertake any other rescue attempts. The Denver Post has a pretty solid article on the communication issues that surrounded this. Once SWAT made it to the science room and evacuated the students, it became clear that Mr Sanders would not survive without immediate medical aid. Paramedics were called in, but to no avail: Mr Sanders died not long after SWAT’s arrival.
Upon my recent re-read of the evidence, the case became even more confusing than it already was. Above, you are able to read excerpts from three different SWAT officers reporting the factual events of the day for law enforcement’s logs on the case. The two latter (typed) reports both note that Mr Sanders was deceased at the time they stopped by en-route to the library, but there is something weird about the location: both reports state that the body Mr Sanders was observed as lying on his back in a storage room adjacent to one of the teaching rooms and not in the science room the students who’d provided him medical aid were evacuated from.
Then, it gets even weirder. In the handwritten report above, you can read that SWAT cleared the science room until only Mr Sanders was left. They called for medical aid and waited for the paramedic to arrive. Yet, the room they were in wasn’t considered secure. Two officers apparently put Dave Sanders, who was bleeding profusely from his injuries, on a chair. One of them held onto him tightly, while the other dragged the chair through two other rooms. They placed him on the floor in the science room nearest the stairway, so the paramedic would get there faster. By the time help finally showed up, it was too late.
How did Mr Sanders wind up lying on his back in one of the storage rooms adjacent to a science room? My best guess is that that’s where SWAT put him after it became clear that he showed no more signs of life. Did they exacerbate his already precarious physical state by putting him on a chair and dragging him through two different rooms? Most likely, yes. Is this all still so confusing that it needs further sorting? You betcha.
Columbine 