If you've had an eye on the news the past week, you'd know that today is the 10th Anniversary of the Columbine shooting. For those reading who might not be old enough to remember (wow, that's a hell of a thought for me), April 20, 1999 was the day that two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went into their school with the intent of killing more people than Timothy McVeigh killed at the Oklahoma City bombing. What ended up happening was a school shooting that was covered so quickly by the media that it essentially turned into a circus of badly reported news. As a result, all the "facts" known about Columbine couldn't be farther from the truth, and after ten years, people are just now seeing the real facts.
They were bullied? They were part of the Trench Coat Mafia? They listened to Marilyn Manson? Yes, everything you think you know about Columbine is wrong. I've actually known most of this for years and periodically mention this information when the topic comes up, but I haven't put it all in one place until now.
Myth 1: Marilyn Manson (and similar music) was a big influence. Harris and Klebold actually hated Manson and his music. Manson was singled out because he was well-known to the general public as a "shock rocker" and because his music was vaguely similar to the bands they did listen to, such as Rammstein and Prodegy. However, not only did Manson condemn and pity the boys (when interviewed about the what he would say to the pair, Manson replied that he wouldn't say anything, but just listen), but cancelled his performance dates for the next several weeks, out of respect for the victims.
Myth 2: Violent video games were a big influence. Another target of the media in the aftermath of Columbine was the gaming industry, specifically the makers of the game Doom, which the boys were known to have played. Rather, it was a passtime and a tool. He was certainly an enthusiast, but he also used it in his plans for the massacre, spending time detailing levels based on the school.
Myth 3: Cassie Bernall said "yes." This is probably one of the most widely known misconceptions about the shooting itself. Again, for those that may not know, Cassie was originally reported to have been asked by Harris "do you believe in God" before being shot and killed. Her mother published a book about it and she became known as a martyr for evanglical Christianity. The truth, however, was that Cassie never had time to say anything, and Harris didn't ask her. Instead, it was Valeen Schnurr, who survived, who was asked if she believed in God, but after she had been shot. News reports of Cassie's "martyrdom," as well as Mrs. Bernall's book and the media's delay in reporting the truth (they actually sat on Emily Wyant's, the only living eyewitness to Cassie's death, report for some time), fed the misconception over "who said 'yes.'"
Myth 4: They were members of the Trenchcoat Mafia. While they did have a few friends who were members, they were not. The Trenchcoat Mafia was a loose group that had formed several years prior and most of the members had already graduated by the time of the shootings. The boys wore trenchcoats not because of the TCM, nor because of movies like the then-recently released movie The Matrix, in which one of the action scenes has two of the protagonists wearing trenchcoats into a building. Their reasons were purely functional -- they could easily hide their weapons (and review of Harris' notes show that he had spent quite a bit of time planning this).
Myth 5: They targeted jocks and blacks and had a hit list. Nope, and nope. Review of Harris' diary show that he was an equal opportunity hater who despised the jocks and nerds alike. His plan for that day wasn't to go around shooting people, but instead to blow up the cafeteria (killing several hundred instantly), which would collapse the ceiling and bring down the second floor (killing more), and sit outside and pick off survivors as they left the building. He didn't care who he killed, he just wanted more infamy than Timothy McVeigh. Since the bombs didn't go off, though, he and Klebold went around shooting random people for a short while before shooting themselves.
Myth 6: They were outcasts. Actually, they weren't really outcasts or "loners." They had a small circle of relatively close friends and a somewhat larger network of not-so-close friends. Harris himself was fairly well liked by just about everyone prior to the shootings, and was compared to a character from Leave it to Beaver by at least one teacher, and they both received glowing comments on their report cards, as well as good grades.
Myth 7: Harris and Klebold were bullied. Much to the dismay of those of us who were bullied in school, psychological research has suggested that the pair were, in fact, not bullied, but rather were the bullies. Instead, psychologists think Harris was a psychopath, and Klebold a depressive. Together, they were a veritable molotov cocktail of personalities, resulting in a deadly combination. The massacre was planned at least a year in advance and was intended for infamy, not revenge.
It has, however, affected school policies, which I'll cover in another entry.
References and resources:
Surviving Columbine: What We Got Wrong (ABC, 2009)
Debunking the Myths of Columbine; 10 Years Later (CNN, 2009)
Columbine Shootings 10 Years Later: Students, Teachers Still Haunted by Post-Traumatic Stress (ABC, 2009)
Book: Columbine Shooters Mentally Ill, Not Bullied (ABC, AP, 2009)
Psychology of Virginia Tech, Columbine Killers Still Baffles Experts (ABC, 2009)
The Depressive and the Psychopath: At Last We Know Why The Columbine Killers Did It (Slate, 2004)
High School Armageddon (2001?)
Who Said "Yes"? (Salon News, 1999)
Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Columbine Documents (1999/2000? Warning, very large PDF. This is a collection of Harris' schoolwork and various notes and diary entries.)
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Well, I never thought about much of any of those 'myths'. I was in 6th grade, celebrating my little sister's first birthday about 30 or so miles from the shooting. I remember the teachers being warned not to let any of us know what was going on, and only finding out about it when my mom picked me up from school that day and asking if I had heard about it (it was a rare thing for her to pick me up... she usually worked all day). I remember being shocked that anyone could be so... callous as to go around a school and shooting defenseless students, but that's about as much as I thought about it. And I got more and more annoyed every year when they would have assemblies in memory of the students that died. Yes, it was sad, but did we really need to spend an hour or more memorializing kids who were just running for their lives?
~C
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There had been a rash of school shootings so it seems.
I remember being at my boyfriend's house a year or two after I graduated and hearing all the cop sirens. We were on the balcony and we just looked at each other asking 'WTF'. As it turns out my rival high school had to suffer through a school shooting and we were nervous because his nephew attended school there.
A couple of heros came out this whole ordeal and the nephew was smart enough to leave as fast as he could and call my 'at the time' boyfriend to let him know he was alright and that alot of kids were gathering at 'my' school. One of the kids managed to stay safe and film it...he is a journalist now. A off duty cop who had his weapon in the car had taken action and stopped the boy shooting out of the bathroom.
After that, instead of "memorializing kids who were just running for their lives", they take time every year to bond between the two rivals and raise awareness and prevention. I think this is better then what you said.
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
I realize what I said may have seemed a bit callous. Remembering what happened isn't a bad thing, but when you spend hours, year after year, going over the events of those days just to say how horrible it was, it just seems pointless after a while. It wasn't even assemblies about bullying and prevention of that sort of thing, it was quite literally just talking about how bad it was and that we need to stop it (but not how to stop it).
I was a few miles down the road when the shooters from Denver went to New Life Church on Sunday right after service to go on a shooting rampage. I had friends that went to New Life. I got worried about them, and had no problem with a candlelight vigil that was held later that week for the two girls who died. A moment of silence in years to come would be appropriate. But it just seems pointless to have a long vigil years later when you should be focusing on education and companionship. And that should not be spurred on by the memory of a shooting. It should be something that should be going on year round, so that another shooting really can be prevented.
But maybe that's just my opinion.
~C
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I understood what you are saying and agree, I really was just sharing (especially since it seemed we had a bit of a better way of dealing with it as opposed to obsessing and wallowing).
I was on Peterson not to far from that church (i thought) when that happened too. It was in '07 dec right? My flight chief goes to that church and we sat in the offices sunday watching the news when it popped up. 'The guys' looked shocked and one said 'thats Bob's church and ran to tell him. My boss struggled with the guilt of not having been there to do something and the gladness of having had to work that day.
....
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
is best addressed in myth #3. I thought that bit was especially interesting. It is kind of disturbing to me that someone would try to capitalize on such a tragedy, even if it is in the name of "Faith."
Aside from that, the other myths are very real, and are ones that bothered me when it happened.
I used to wear a black trenchcoat and black combat boots from the Army Navy Surplus Store. I listened to Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, as well as bands like Christian Death and Joy Division. I painted spider webs on my face. Some might have tried to describe me as an outcast, but I had a lot of friends, of every nationality, and from every social group, including jocks.
Columbine bothered me first because of the sickness behind it and the tragedy it was. It bothered me second because it reinforced all of the stereotypes that primarily Christian groups perpetrated about people who looked like me. Its not like I blame them for highlighting those things, or for picking on me. I knew what I was doing, and I enjoyed scaring them and pissing them off. However, their stereotypes were wrong, because I was not an evil person, nor would I have ever done anything like the kids at Columbine.
On one hand, its kind of funny in a way, because kids who dress like that don't really give a crap about what Christians think, that is part of why they do it. On the other hand, reactions like what we see in Myth #3 bring a sort of sick twist into the whole thing. Its not right to teach kids to fear other kids based on appearances alone.
As a parent, I can see the other side a little bit easier, but still, even if my daughter came home with a boy in a trench coat, or worse (in my perception) baggy jeans, with a brightly colored blue or red handkerchief, and a hoodie, I would hesitate to reject him based on his appearances alone. At the root of such personas there is usually an individual that is confused and doesn't know who they are, but that wants to stand out and be identified with, or against, a group.
I think kids who wear mohawks and dress in black and wear chains are relatively harmless compared to kids who wear baggy pants, etc., but you can never really know until you look deeper. As a parent, I would choose to look deeper and to try to discover the person my daughter was attracted to before I would voice any judgment or make any rules about her association with that person, aside from standard proprieties. i would be more concerned with why my daughter chose this person than with how terrible this person could possibly be.
I realize that I have tangented a bit from the subject, but i wanted to explain why I applauded the blog. i think it is important to inform people, especially parents, of the truth when it comes to such things. Using tragedies to reinforce fear around the strange and unfamiliar is not very productive in my opinion. It also ignores some very important issues, such as, how did these boys have access to firearms, and how did they manage to store these supplies in their homes, while plotting such an event without their parents' knowledge? I think that parental indifference and emotional negligence is the most likely culprit in this situation.
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I don't think it was negligence so much as the fact that the boys (especially Harris) were damn good actors. Their parents simply had no idea and no reason to even suspect that they were up to something.
Could they have been more intrusive on their sons? Possibly. Would it have done any good? I doubt it. Harris was very likely a sociopath, and he was very intelligent. He'd have found other ways to hide what he was doing.
Unfortunately, social engineering works just as well for kids as it does for adults.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge