Premium Essay

Klebold: The Columbine High School Massacre

Submitted By
Words 1521
Pages 7
On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Davis Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold went into the Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado, and went on a rampage killing spree leaving 12 students and 1 teacher dead and over 20 people injured before killing themselves. This crime is known as one of the most deadliest school massacres in the United States history (Pittaro).
On the day of the massacre, previously to the attack both Erick D. Harris and Dylan B. Klebold placed small fire bombs in a field three miles away from the Columbine High School and another one a couple of miles away from the fire station. They had set the bombs to explode at 11:14 to distract all emergency personnel away from the school. The two boys then headed to the school …show more content…
Harris and Dylan B. Klebold had been bullied in school which gave them more motive to do it. It was later discovered by documentation left by the killers that they hadn’t been bullied. (Toppo). Most of the rumors started about the “Trench Coat Mafia”, were developed by the media because they saw it as a way to spice up the headlines in the news, so people would find the story even more entertaining; most of the myths took place before the bodies were even found …show more content…
Also both killers had already posted writings on the internet such as rants, essays, descriptions of vandalism, hate lists, death threats, journals, and recorded themselves on video. They recorded basement tapes in which they revealed motives for the shootings, said goodbye to their parents, and talked about their theories of revolution. They raised the public consciousness that the rampage was caused by mere revenge to political act. The killers wanted to destroy the school to “kick-start a revolution” among the inclined and scorned students of the world. The massacre raised public awareness addressed by the president of the Unites States. It started a national debate on many issues including school violence, gun control, bullying, child rearing, parental responsibility, school climates, video games, violent media, social permissiveness, race, and religion. The main concern of the shooting was why it happened instead of what happened. After the worldwide news media coverage of the Columbine massacre, students started making fake bomb threats to their schools, drawing enemy’s lists, issuing death threats, and taking guns to school. The Columbine Massacre gave voice to outsiders, and those left out, that were victims of bullying by “jocks” and “preps”. Since then the States have also implemented more punitive juvenile justice sentencing

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Columbine Shooting Research Paper

...Running head: SERIAL KILLER PAPER Serial Killer Paper: The Columbine Tragedy Carsyn Ehlinger DMACC   Abstract The Columbine Massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 20th, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado. Shooters Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold killed 13 in what was then the biggest school shooting. The Columbine massacre is a topic of interest because it was one of the first heavily reported mass shootings, and had been handled poorly by law enforcement. Today Columbine stands as an example for law enforcement, and is one of the most popular copy-cat murders. On April 20th, 1999, only seventeen days before senior graduation, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School and killing twelve students, one teacher, and injuring many more before taking their own lives....

Words: 465 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Motivated To Murder: The Columbine High School Massacre

...Motivated to Murder The Columbine High School Massacre occurred April 20th 1999, this was the first mass school shooting that occurred in our nation's history, this horrendous event took place in Columbine, Colorado and was committed by the two deeply disturbed individuals Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. One of the individuals Eric Harris was raised by a former US Marine and frequently moved from place to place and from school district to school district. Harris was noted to have a drive to enlist in the marines just like his father, but was denied enlistment due to psychiatric medication “Luvox” which was prescribed to him for the depression he had been experiencing. Harris seemed to be a happy child, but he was having problems adjusting to the frequent changing of school. When he first came to Columbine High he was noted to dress...

Words: 555 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

English 1301

...Dr. Luciano English 1301-169 October 9, 2013 Going Out in Flames Imagine this, you're in class at school and you hear what you think is firecrackers. All of the sudden your teacher comes running in the room and is telling everyone to hide under their desk and not to make a sound. That is what happened to hundreds of students at Columbine High School in Colorado. The two boys killed 12 students, 1 teacher and injured 21 others. Even though 34 people were physically affected by the boys, many others were emotionally effected. The Columbine Shooting on April 20, 1999, brought forth many issues that needed to be handled; school safety and anti-bullying were the first things brought forth by the police. According to the New York Times, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planned this attack a year in advance. The two watched over the cafeteria crowds to determine the best time for their attack. “The bottom line of this thing is they wanted to do as much damage as they could possibly do, and destroy the school and destroy as many children as they could, and go out in flames,” Sheriff Stone said. On April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the two students made history for the deadliest school shooting ever recorded. In total, there were 15 deaths including Harris and Klebold, with an additional 21 injured. They had an assortment of guns and bombs, which included a propane tank bomb, which made investigators believe they had help. Even though there were no additional suspects, detectives...

Words: 866 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Columbine Article

... April 20, 1999, the small town Columbine witnessed a terrible incident where two boys committed a massacre on their school. Columbine High School. The two boys, Dylan Klebold,17, and Eric Harris, 18, single handedly murdered 12 people and injured another 21. The number of casualties could easily have exceeded, considering that their plan didn't worked out exactly as they had planned, even though it was very thought through. Their original plan was that the bombs they had planted in the school cafeteria was to explode, and the survives would exit the school through the two main doors, of which Dylan and Eric covered one each. Luckily the bombs didn't go off. Which saved many lives, since it was to go off at the time where there would be the highest number of people at the location. The shooting began at 11:19 a.m. at the west entrance of the school. Their first victim was Rachel Scott who died of shots to the head and torso. Before entering the school and continuing the shooting, they managed to shoot 9 people. The whole incident lasted 43 minutes, where they had managed to kill 12 people and injure 21. A witness who had locked herself inside a room overhead Eric and Dylan count to 3 in unison, which was followed by two gunshots. They committed suicide. On April 20, 1999, the small town Columbine witnessed a terrible incident where two boys committed a massacre on their school. Columbine High School. The two boys, Dylan Klebold,17, and Eric Harris, 18, single...

Words: 1165 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Columbine Shooting Research Paper

...Could Columbine Have Been Prevented? In Littleton Colorado, April 20, 1999 it was a sunny, cool, normal day. The students of the local high school were going along with their days, when suddenly, according to Cnn. com, at 11:19 a.m., the peacefulness ended with shots being fired throughout the school. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both students of Columbine, were bullied and excluded by their classmates because they were awkward. The boys decided to try to become famous by getting revenge. The bullying that Klebold and Harris endured while students at Columbine drove them to kill members of their school community. The Columbine shooting was a well planned and well carried out event that required many things to fall into place. As previously...

Words: 1079 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Columbine High School Shooting Research Paper

...How would you feel if someone you love so dearly went to school one day, a place you thought was safe, and never came back? Well, this happened to many. One day the parents of children sent their children to school and never got to say, “goodbye” or “I love you”. Most likely regretting everything they had done or said to their loved one the day before, or what they did not tell them. Although the Columbine High School Shooting was a tragic event in history, society has benefitted by bringing about school security, practicing evacuation procedures during school, and brought awareness to the issue of gun control. The Columbine High School Shooting was a tragic event within United States history that occurred on April 20, 1999. The traumatizing...

Words: 1307 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Columbine High School Research Paper

...On April 20, 1999, two high school seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, put the fear of God into Columbine High School and Jefferson County, Colorado. Eric and Dylan were two high school senior who were trying to fit into the cool crowd and be poplar in school. Regretfully, like many teenagers now days, they were picked on and bullied by their classmates. Most students who were picked on and bullied would eventually overcome this obstacle but Eric and Dylan were unable to. Ultimately, they took their revenge out on all those at Columbine High School. One will never be able to understand why such tragedy occurred. People have looked at Eric’s and Dylan’s make up and how they connected to get a glimpse into how such a tragedy could take...

Words: 737 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Columbine

...The Columbine High School massacre or simply Columbine was a school shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine,[2][3] an unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the state of Colorado. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and bombs rigged in cars. The perpetrators, two senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, with three others being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide.[4][5] Although their motives remain unclear, the personal journals of the perpetrators document that they wished their actions to rival the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as other deadly incidents that occurred in the United States in the 1990s. The attack has been referred to by USA Today as a "suicidal attack [that was] planned as a grand—if badly implemented—terrorist bombing."[6] The massacre is reported as being "the deadliest high school shooting in US history."[7] The massacre sparked debate over gun control laws, the availability of firearms within the United States and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion also centered on the nature of high school cliques, subcultures and bullying, in addition to the influence of violent movies and video games in American society. The...

Words: 289 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Rampage: The Social Roots Of School Shootings

...The early morning of April 20, 1999 was filled with the wonderful smell of breakfast in the air, the everyday sound of school buses driving on their way to pick up children, and the sound of teenagers laughing together on their way to school. It was a normal, promising day in the small town of Littleton, Colorado. But in a few hours, that beautiful day suddenly became a horrible nightmare the world would not soon forget. At approximately 11:10 am, two teenage students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, arrived at the front doorsteps of Columbine High School. About two minutes later, Eric and Dylan walked into their school cafeteria where they had placed two duffle bags filled entirely with twenty pound bombs, simply waiting for the bombs to explode inside of their vehicles. Shortly after, Eric and Dylan began a horrific shooting spree in both the cafeteria and the library. By 11:35 am they managed to kill twelve students, an instructor, and wounded at least twenty other students. Shortly after...

Words: 1268 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Violent Video Games

...have been cases of school shootings. In particular the Columbine High School Shooting and Virginia Tech Massacre were both influenced by violent video games. In the Columbine High School shooting, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed thirteen people and then killed themselves. At Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed thirty-three people, including himself, and injured twenty-three others (School 1). Violent video games played a major role in these school shootings because the games were tools used to practice there plan and give them the ideas for the weapons they would use and how they would use them. Harris and Klebold attended Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. When the two teens had planned the attack it was intended for propane tanks to detonate that they left in the cafeteria in duffle bags. “According to the report released by the Jefferson County Sheriffs Office, the tanks contained sufficient explosives power to ‘kill the majority of students’ who would be in the cafeteria for lunch” (Columbine 1). The tanks did not discharge as the boys anticipated. When they came back to the school they soon realized things were not going the way Miller 2 they wanted so they pulled out there guns. The two boys went on a rampage, taunting students and killing without any hesitation. Similar to the Columbine Shooting, Cho...

Words: 1739 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Columbine Shooting Research Paper

...Madison Brown Forty-nine minutes. That is all it took for students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, to forever change the lives of the people of Columbine High School. By using bombs, guns and other dangerous weapons, these two boys were able to kill and severely injure a total of thirty-three members of the school. It all started on the morning of April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebold planted bombs near the nearest fire station, that were set to go off at a certain time, hoping they would distract firefighters and other emergency personal. Then the two drove to park in the junior and senior parking lots, planting bombs in their cars. Right before the school’s first lunch began; Harris and Klebold hid bombs in two separate duffel bags, and placed them in the cafeteria, alongside many other bags assembled there. As the first lunch bell rang, the two walked out to their cars, awaiting the explosions of the bombs. While the boys awaited the explosions, they gathered their guns together, ready to shoot any people fleeing the school. When it became apparent to the shooters that the bomb was not going to explode, they armed...

Words: 962 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Student

...their place in history. The following is an expert from Harris’s Journal, mastermind behind the Columbine Shooting: “Sometime in April next year, me and “V” will get revenge, kick natural selection up a few notches. If we’ve learned anything about the art of making pipe bombs, we’ll set hundreds of them around roads, bridges, buildings, and gas stations; anything that will cause damage and chaos. It will be like the L.A. riots, Oklahoma City bombings, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.” One year later on April the 20th 1999, Eric Harris and another Columbine student, Dylan Klebold, committed the worst High School massacre in American history. They killed twelve students and one teacher; injured twenty three others and then turned the guns on themselves (Avila, 2000). Immediately following the mass shootings, media, sociologists and criminologists set about the difficult task of discovering the motives of the killers and answering the question of whether or not problems within society allowed this to happen. As early as the day after the shootings, blame had been pointed at gun availability (Etheridge 1999). The subject remains controversial today. FBI psychologists concluded in 1999 that the shooters were respectively “the depressive and the psychopath” (Cullen 2004). There is consensus that Harris and Klebold were deeply disturbed, but few can agree as to who is to blame and what could be done...

Words: 1999 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Campus Violence

...head: CAMPUS VIOLENCE 1 Campus Violence has escalated since the Massacre at UT Berketa L. Livingston Liberty University Online ENGL-104 April 3, 2013 CAMPUS VIOLENCE 2 Abstract America’s first encounter with campus violence was in 1966, which occurred at the University of Texas. The U.S. had not seen the last of campus violence, because the next outbreak was in 1999, 33 years later when the Columbine massacre occurred. This tragedy was an eye opener for America, to rethink the safety of its schools and campuses. As tragic as these events were and devastating to the American people, safety of its schools and campuses had not happened. In addition to these two tragic events, another deadly massacre happened on America’s campuses. The massacre of Virginia Tech, this tragic event was one of the U.S. most deadly campus violence that had occurred in America’s history of campus violence. If these tragic events did not really make...

Words: 1785 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

The Effects Of The Columbine High School Massacre

...If you have attended or have been into more than one New York City public school within the last couple of years, you have probably noticed that they each have something in common. No, it is not the students, or the teachers, or the lunch that everyone claims tastes like prison food. One thing that most New York City and other public schools within America have in common is the fact that they have law enforcement officers present within them. The Columbine High School massacre was an extremely tragic shooting that took place at the Columbine High School in Colorado on April 20, 1999. Two white male students, whose names were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, wore dark clothing that prevented others from identifying them, and they entered into...

Words: 462 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

The Significance of the Columbine High School Events

...April Hope The Significance of the Columbine High School Events CRJU 2110 Assignment #2 Introduction: The Columbine High School Shooting Event occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. At the time of the shooting, I was in the seventh grade of junior high school. I can remember thinking for months after this that it could occur anywhere and I was afraid to go to school. This shooting was the most significant shooting in a school in the history of the United States of America. During this incident, two high school seniors planned and carried out a massacre. These two students were Eric Harris (eighteen years old) and Dylan Klebold (seventeen years old). After all was said and done, thirteen people plus Harris and Klebold were dead and twenty-three people were injured. These events showed this nation that schools are no longer safe and that incidents that occur in schools should be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Schools now focus on security, bullying, and response to these type incidents. Topic I – Security A. Zero Tolerance in Schools B. Preventive Measures Topic II- Bullying A. Profiling B. Communication C. Anti-Bullying Laws Topic III- Incident Response A. School System Response B. Emergency Responder Response C. Post Response I. Security A. Zero Tolerance in Schools Schools in this country have adopted a zero tolerance policy. This means that the school deals with any infraction basically the...

Words: 1036 - Pages: 5