Eric Harris: Difference between revisions
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The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. During this time, he attended Ken Caryl Middle School, and Harris met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased a house south of CHS. His older brother attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder. | The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. During this time, he attended Ken Caryl Middle School, and Harris met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased a house south of CHS. His older brother attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder. | ||
== Before The Shooting == | |||
Eric and Dylan were victims to many relentless attacks of violence that led to the attack and some accounts say that Dylan had a cup of fecal matter thrown at him. One time in the lunchroom Dylan and Eric were confronted by a group of youths at the school—all members of the football team—who had pelted them with ketchup and mustard-covered tampons while referring to the pair as "faggots" and "queers". Klebold, in personal writings found after the attack, expressed suicidal thoughts and was deeply saddened by his lack of a romantic relationship. | |||
There was also a lot of rage simmering under the surface as well, which appeared in the violent essays he wrote for English class and the stories and poems he wrote for his creative writing class -- all of which often featured blood, death and war. Another ominous sign of things to come, Klebold and Harris made a video of them acting as vigilantes shooting “jocks” in the school hallways for a school project. They believed that their actions would bring them fame as well as vengeance. In one of the videotapes made by the pair, Klebold said “I hope we kill 250 of you” and Harris compared the killings to one of their favorite video games, Doom, as reported in Time magazine. | |||
== The shooting == | == The shooting == | ||
On April 20, 1999 | On the morning of Tuesday, April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold placed a small fire bomb in a field about three miles south of Columbine High School, and two miles south of the fire station. Set to explode at 11:14 a.m., the bomb was intended as a diversion to draw firefighters and emergency personnel away from the school. (It partially detonated and caused a small fire, which was quickly extinguished by the fire department.) | ||
At 11:10 a.m. Harris and Klebold arrived in their vehicles separately at Columbine High School. Harris parked his vehicle (a Honda Prelude) in the Junior student parking lot, by the south entrance, and Klebold parked his vehicle (a BMW) in the adjoining Senior student parking lot, by the west entrance. The school cafeteria, their bomb target, with its long outside window-wall and ground-level doors, was between their parking spots. | |||
After parking their cars, the duo met near Harris's car and armed two 20 pound (9 kg) propane bombs before entering the cafeteria a few minutes prior to the beginning of the "A" lunch shift. The youths placed the duffel bags containing the bombs—set to explode at approximately 11:17 a.m.—inside the cafeteria before returning to their separate vehicles to await the explosion, and to shoot survivors fleeing the building. Had the bombs exploded with full power, they would have killed or severely wounded all 488 students in the cafeteria and possibly collapsed the ceiling, dropping part of the library into the cafeteria. | |||
It appears from Harris' writing that attacking Columbine High School was intended to be just the beginning of their rampage. Their ultimate hope had been to continue the massacre in neighboring homes, then to hijack a plane. The grand finale was to crash the plane into New York City (creating an unrelated connection to 9/11). Only a long trail of death and destruction would have satisfied Harris' and Klebold's need for revenge for the perceived wrongs done to them. | |||
A Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy, Neil Gardner, was assigned to the high school as a full-time uniformed and armed school resource officer. Gardner usually ate lunch with students in the cafeteria, but on April 20 he was eating lunch in his patrol car at the northwest corner of the campus, watching students in the Smokers' Pit in Clement Park. The security staff at Columbine did not observe the bombs being placed in the cafeteria, since a custodian was replacing the school security videotape as it happened (at 11:14 a.m.). The bags holding the bombs were first visible on the fresh security tape when it resumed recording at 11:22, but they were not identified as suspicious items. No witness recalled seeing the duffel bags being added to the 400 or so backpacks already in the cafeteria. | |||
As the two youths returned to their vehicles, Harris encountered Brooks Brown, a classmate with whom he had recently patched up a longstanding series of disagreements. Brown was surprised to see Harris; whom he had earlier noted had been absent from an important class test. Harris seemed unconcerned when reminded of this fact, commenting, "It doesn't matter anymore." Harris then elaborated: "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Brown, feeling uneasy, walked away. Several minutes later, students departing Columbine for their lunch break observed Brown heading down South Pierce Street away from the school. Meanwhile, Harris and Klebold armed themselves by their vehicles and waited for the bombs to explode. | |||
When the cafeteria bombs failed to explode, two minutes had passed and Harris and Klebold convened and walked toward the school. Both armed, they climbed to the top of the outdoor West Entrance steps, placing them on a level with the athletic fields west of the building and the library inside the West Entrance, directly above the cafeteria. From this vantage point, the cafeteria's west entrance was located at the bottom of the staircase, next to the Senior parking lot. | |||
At 11:19 a.m., a witness heard Eric Harris yell "Go! Go!" The two gunmen pulled their guns from beneath their trenchcoats and began shooting at two 17-year-old students who had been sitting in the grass next to the West Entrance of the school. Rachel Scott was hit four times by Harris and killed instantly. Richard Castaldo was shot eight times in the chest, arm, and abdomen and paralyzed below the chest. | |||
Many rumors afterward related to the cause of the attacks and possible targeting of Christians. One such rumor related to the murder of Rachel Scott claimed that the shooters had first asked Scott if she believed in God, and killed her after she said yes. The FBI later concluded that this interaction did not take place. | |||
After the first two shootings, Harris removed his trench coat and aimed his 9mm carbine down the West Staircase toward three youths: 15-year-olds Daniel Rohrbough and Sean Graves and 16-year-old Lance Kirklin. The three friends had been ascending the staircase directly below the shooters. Kirklin later reported seeing Klebold and Harris standing at the top of the staircase, before opening fire. At first, they thought they were carrying paintball guns. All three youths were shot and wounded. Harris and Klebold turned and began shooting west in the direction of five students sitting on the grassy hillside adjacent to the steps and opposite the West Entrance of the school. 15-year-old Michael Johnson was hit in the face, leg, and arm, but ran and escaped; 16-year-old Mark Taylor was shot in the chest, arms and leg and fell to the ground, where he feigned death. The other three escaped uninjured. | |||
Klebold walked down the steps toward the cafeteria. He shot Kirklin in the face, critically wounding him. Daniel Rohrbough and Sean Graves had descended the staircase when Klebold and Harris's attention was diverted by the students on the grass; Graves had crawled into the doorway of the cafeteria's west entrance and collapsed. Klebold shot Rohrbough through the upper left chest at close range, killing him and then stepped over the injured Sean Graves to enter the cafeteria. He had remained there the rest of the massacre feigning death and heard the gunshots and explosions that occurred later in the cafeteria. Officials speculated that Klebold went to the cafeteria to check on the propane bombs. Harris shot down the steps at several students sitting near the cafeteria's entrance, severely wounding and partially paralyzing 17-year-old Anne-Marie Hochhalter as she tried to flee. Klebold came out of the cafeteria and went back up the stairs to join Harris. | |||
They shot toward students standing close to a soccer field, but did not hit anyone. They walked toward the West Entrance, throwing pipe bombs, very few of which detonated. Patti Nielson, a teacher, had noticed the commotion and walked toward the West Entrance with a 16-year-old student, Brian Anderson. She had intended to walk outside to tell the two students to "Knock it off," thinking Klebold and Harris were either filming a video or pulling a student prank. Either way, she said later she didn't think it was okay to be carrying guns, real or not. As Anderson opened the first set of double doors, Harris and Klebold shot out the windows, injuring her with flying glass and hitting Nielson in the shoulder with shrapnel. Nielson stood and ran back down the hall into the library, alerting the students inside to the danger and telling them to get under desks and keep silent. She dialed 9-1-1 and hid under the library's administrative counter. Anderson remained behind, caught between the exterior and interior doors. | |||
At 11:22, the custodian called Deputy Neil Gardner on the school radio, requesting assistance in the Senior parking lot. The only paved route took him around the school to the east and south on Pierce Street, where, at 11:23 he heard on his police radio that a female was down, struck by a car, he assumed. He turned on his lights and siren. While exiting his patrol car in the Senior lot at 11:24, he heard another call on the school radio, "Neil, there's a shooter in the school". Harris, at the West Entrance, immediately fired his rifle at Gardner, who was sixty yards away. He was not harmed. Gardner returned fire with his service pistol. He was not wearing his prescription eyeglasses, and was unable to hit the shooters. | |||
Thus, five minutes after the shooting started, and two minutes after the first radio call, Gardner was engaged in a gunfight with the student shooters. There were already two dead and ten wounded. Harris fired ten shots and Gardner fired four, before Harris ducked back into the building after his weapon jammed. No one was hit. Gardner reported on his police radio, "Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me." | |||
The gunfight distracted Harris and Klebold from the injured Brian Anderson. Anderson escaped to the library (where Patti Nielson was) and hid inside an open staff break room. Back in the school, the duo moved along the main North Hallway, throwing pipe bombs and shooting at anyone they encountered. They shot Stephanie Munson in the ankle, although she was able to walk out of the school. The pair shot out the windows to the East Entrance of the school. After proceeding through the hall several times and shooting toward—and missing—any students they saw, Harris and Klebold went toward the West Entrance and turned into the Library Hallway. | |||
Deputy Paul Smoker, a motorcycle patrolman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, was writing a traffic ticket north of the school when the "female down" call came in at 11:23. Taking the shortest route, he drove his motorcycle over grass between the athletic fields and headed toward the West Entrance. When he saw Deputy Scott Taborsky following him in a patrol car, he abandoned his motorcycle for the safety of the car. The two deputies had begun to rescue two wounded students near the ball fields when another gunfight broke out at 11:26, between Harris, back at the West Entrance, and Gardner, still in the parking lot. Deputy Smoker returned fire from the hilltop, and Harris retreated. Again, no one was hit. | |||
Meanwhile, William David Sanders, a computer and business teacher and a varsity coach, had evacuated the cafeteria, taking students up a staircase leading to the second floor of the school. Much of the cafeteria had been evacuated thanks to him. Security footage captured the students running away and panicking in the cafeteria, including Sanders rushing up the stairs. The stairs were located around the corner from the Library Hallway in the main South Hallway. (It is believed, but not confirmed, that having evacuated the cafeteria, Sanders was rushing toward the library to evacuate students there when he encountered Harris and Klebold.) As Sanders and a student walked down the Library Hallway, they encountered Harris and Klebold, who were approaching from the corner of the North Hallway. Sanders and the student turned and ran in the opposite direction. Harris and Klebold shot at them both, Harris hitting Sanders twice in the chest but both gunmen missing the student. The latter ran into a science classroom and warned everyone to hide. Harris and Klebold returned up the North Hallway. | |||
Sanders struggled toward the science area, and a teacher took him into a classroom where 30 students were located. They placed a sign in the window: "1 bleeding to death," in order to alert police and medical personnel of Sanders' location. Two students administered first aid to him and tried to stem the blood loss using shirts from students in the room. Using a phone in the room, the teacher and several students kept in contact with the police outside the school. All the students in this room were evacuated safely, but Sanders died that afternoon at approximately 3:00 p.m. He was the only teacher killed in the school shooting. | |||
As the shooting unfolded, Patti Nielson talked on the phone with emergency services, telling her story and urging students to take cover beneath desks. According to transcripts, her call was received by a 9-1-1 operator at 11:25:05 a.m. The time between the call being answered and the shooters entering the library was four minutes and ten seconds. Before entering, the shooters threw two bombs into the cafeteria, both of which exploded (one of the explosions from the bombs can be seen on the surveillance tape, a staff member jumping away from the explosion). They then threw another bomb into the Library Hallway; it exploded and damaged several lockers. At 11:29 a.m., Harris and Klebold entered the library, where a total of 52 students, two teachers, and two librarians had concealed themselves. | |||
Harris yelled, "Get up!," in a tone so loud that he can be heard on Patti Nielson's 9-1-1 recording at 11:29:18. Klebold yelled, "Everybody get up!" Staff and students hiding in the library exterior rooms later said they also heard the gunmen say, "Everyone with white hats, stand up! This is for all the shit that you've given us for the past four years!" and: "All jocks stand up! We'll get the guys in white hats!". When no one stood up, Harris said, "Fine, I'll start shooting anyway!" He fired his shotgun twice at a desk, not knowing that a student named Evan Todd was hiding beneath it. Todd was hit by wood splinters but was not seriously injured. | |||
The shooters walked to the opposite side of the library, to two rows of computers. Todd hid behind the administrative counter. Kyle Velasquez, 16, was sitting at the north row of computers; police later said he had not hidden underneath the desk when Klebold and Harris had first entered the library but had curled up under the computer table. Klebold shot and killed Velasquez, hitting him in the head and back. Klebold and Harris put down their ammunition-filled duffel bags at the south or lower—row of computers and reloaded their weapons. They walked back toward the windows facing the outside staircase. Noticing police evacuating students outside the school, Harris said: "Let's go kill some cops." He and Klebold began to shoot out the windows in the direction of the police, who returned fire. | |||
After firing through the windows at evacuating students and the police, Klebold fired his shotgun at a nearby table, injuring three students named Patrick Ireland, Daniel Steepleton, and Makai Hall. Klebold removed his trench coat. As he fired at the three, Harris grabbed his shotgun and walked toward the lower row of computer desks, firing a single shot under the first desk without looking. He hit 14-year-old Steve Curnow with a mortal wound to the neck. Harris shot under the adjacent computer desk, injuring 17-year-old Kacey Ruegsegger in the hand, arm, and shoulder. When she started gasping in pain, Harris told her "quit your bitching". | |||
Harris walked over to the table across from the lower computer row, slapped the surface twice and knelt, saying "Peek-a-boo" to 17-year-old Cassie Bernall before shooting her once in the head, killing her instantly. Harris had been holding the shotgun with one hand at this point and the weapon hit his face in recoil, breaking his nose. Three students who witnessed Bernall's death, including one who had been hiding beneath the table with her, have testified that Bernall did not exchange words with Harris after his initial taunt. | |||
After fatally shooting Bernall, Harris turned toward the next table, where Bree Pasquale sat next to the table rather than under it. Harris asked Pasquale if she wanted to die, and she responded with a plea for her life. Witnesses later reported that Harris seemed disoriented — possibly from the heavily bleeding wound to his nose. As Harris taunted Pasquale, Klebold noted Ireland trying to provide aid to Hall, who had suffered a wound to his knee. As Ireland tried to help Hall, his head rose above the table; Klebold shot him a second time, hitting him twice in the head and once in the foot. Ireland was knocked unconscious, and lost some body movement, but survived. | |||
Klebold walked toward another set of tables, where he discovered 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels and 16-year-olds Matthew Kechter and Craig Scott (the younger brother of Rachel Scott), hiding under one table. All three were popular athletes. Klebold tried to pull Shoels out from under the table. He called Harris, shouting, "Reb! There's a n**ger over here". Though Shoels was not shot in the head, Klebold said: "I didn't know black brains could fly that far." Harris left Pasquale and joined him. Klebold and Harris taunted Shoels for a few seconds, making derogatory racial comments. Harris knelt down and shot Shoels once in the chest at close range, killing him instantly. Klebold also knelt down and opened fire, hitting and killing Kechter also in the chest. Scott was uninjured; he lay in the blood of his friends, feigning death. Harris turned and threw a CO2 bomb at the table where Hall, Steepleton, and Ireland were located. It landed on Steepleton's thigh, who was too nervous to touch it, and Hall quickly threw it away. | |||
Harris walked toward the bookcases between the west and center section of tables in the library. He jumped on one and shook it, then shot in an unknown direction within that general area. Klebold walked through the main area, past the first set of bookcases, the central desk area and a second set of bookcases into the east area. Harris walked from the bookcase he had shot from, past the central area to meet Klebold. The latter shot at a display case located next to the door then turned and shot toward the closest table, hitting and injuring 17-year-old Mark Kintgen in the head and shoulder. He turned toward the table to his left and fired, injuring 18-year-olds Lisa Kreutz and Valeen Schnurr with the same shotgun bullet. Klebold then moved toward the same table and fired with the TEC-9, killing 18-year-old Lauren Townsend. | |||
Harris approached another table where two girls had hidden. He bent down to look at them and dismissed them as "pathetic". The two shooters approached an empty table where they reloaded their weapons. Schnurr, who had been badly wounded by gunshot wounds and shrapnel, began to cry out, "Oh, God help me!" Klebold approached her and asked her if she believed in God. Schnurr first replied "no" and then "yes", in an attempt to appease Klebold. In response, Klebold asked her why; she said that it was what her family believed. He taunted her, reloaded his shotgun, then walked away. The slightly injured Todd also reported that at this point, Klebold had said, "God is gay." (The exchange between Schnurr and Klebold was subsequently, and incorrectly, attributed to the verbal exchange between Eric Harris and Cassie Bernall.) | |||
Harris then moved to another table where he fired twice, injuring 16-year-olds Nicole Nowlen and John Tomlin. When Tomlin attempted to move away from the table, Klebold kicked him. Harris then taunted Tomlin's attempt at escape before Klebold shot the youth repeatedly, killing him. Harris then walked back over to the other side of the table where Lauren Townsend lay dead. Behind the table, a 16-year-old girl named Kelly Fleming had, like Bree Pasquale, sat next to the table rather than beneath it due to a lack of space. Harris shot Fleming with his shotgun, hitting her in the back and killing her instantly. He shot at the table behind Fleming, hitting Townsend and Kreutz again, and wounding 18-year-old Jeanna Park. An autopsy later revealed that Townsend died from the earlier gunshots inflicted by Klebold. | |||
The shooters moved to the center of the library, where they continued to reload their weapons at a table there. Harris noticed a student hiding nearby and asked him to identify himself. It was John Savage, an acquaintance of Klebold's. Savage said his name and asked Klebold what they were doing, to which he answered, "Oh, just killing people." Savage asked if they were going to kill him. Possibly because of a fire alarm, Klebold said, "What?" Savage asked again whether they were going to kill him. Klebold hesitated, then told him to leave. Savage fled immediately and escaped through the library's main entrance. | |||
After Savage had left, Harris turned and fired his carbine at the table directly north of where they'd been, grazing the ear of 15-year-old Daniel Mauser. He fought back and shoved a chair towards Harris. Harris fired again and hit Mauser in the face at close range, killing him. Both shooters moved south and fired randomly under another table, critically injuring two 17-year-olds, Jennifer Doyle and Austin Eubanks, and fatally wounding 17-year-old Corey DePooter. DePooter, the last to die in the massacre, at 11:35, was later credited with having kept his friends calm during the ordeal. | |||
There were no further injuries after 11:35 a.m. They had killed 10 people in the library and wounded 12. Of the 56 library hostages, 34 remained unharmed. The shooters had enough ammunition to have killed them all. | |||
At this point, several witnesses later said they heard Harris and Klebold comment that they no longer found a thrill in shooting their victims. Klebold was quoted as saying, "Maybe we should start knifing people, that might be more fun." (Both youths were equipped with knives.) They moved away from the table and went toward the library's main counter. Harris threw a Molotov cocktail toward the southwestern end of the library but it failed to explode. Harris went around the east side of the counter and Klebold joined him from the west; they converged close to where Todd had moved after having been wounded. Harris and Klebold mocked Todd, who was wearing a white (jock) hat. When the shooters demanded to see his face, Todd partly lifted his hat so his face would remain obscured. When Klebold asked Todd to give him one reason why he should not kill him, Todd said: "I don't want trouble." Klebold said, "You [Todd] used to call me a fag. Who's a fag now?!" The shooters continued to taunt Todd and debated killing him, but they eventually walked away. | |||
Harris | Harris's nose was bleeding heavily, which may have caused him to decide to leave the library. Klebold turned and fired a single shot into an open library staff break room, hitting a small television. He slammed a chair down on top of the computer terminal on the library counter, directly above the bureau where Patti Nielson had hidden. | ||
The two walked out of the library at 11:36 a.m., ending the hostage situation there. Cautiously, fearing the shooters' return, 34 uninjured and 10 injured survivors began to evacuate the library through the north door, which led to the sidewalk adjacent to the West Entrance. Patrick Ireland, unconscious, and Lisa Kreutz, unable to move, remained in the building. Patti Nielson joined Brian Anderson and the three library staff in the exterior break room, into which Klebold had earlier fired shots. They locked themselves in and remained there until they were freed, at approximately 3:30 p.m. | |||
For the next 32 minutes, Harris and Klebold wandered the building, firing guns and setting off bombs, but causing no further injury. They committed suicide at 12:08, two minutes after the first SWAT team entered the building, but this fact was not discovered for more than three hours. | |||
After leaving the library, Harris, and Klebold entered the science area, where they threw a small fire bomb into an empty storage closet. It caused a fire that was put out by a teacher hidden in an adjacent room. The duo proceeded toward the south hallway, where they shot into an empty science room. At approximately 11:44 a.m., Harris and Klebold were captured on the school security cameras as they re-entered the cafeteria. The recording shows Harris kneeling on the landing and firing a single shot toward one of the propane bombs he and Klebold had earlier left in the cafeteria, in an unsuccessful attempt to detonate it. A few students were hiding in the cafeteria, avoiding detection. He took a sip from one of the drinks left behind as Klebold approached the propane bomb and examined it. Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it at the propane bomb. As the two left the cafeteria, the Molotov cocktail exploded, partially detonating one of the propane bombs at 11:46 a.m. Two minutes later, approximately one gallon of fuel ignited in the same vicinity, causing a fire that was extinguished by the fire sprinklers. The hiding students escaped via the side door after the explosion. | |||
Harris | After leaving the cafeteria, the duo returned to the main north and south hallways of the school, shooting aimlessly. Harris and Klebold walked through the south hallway into the main office before returning to the north hallway. On several occasions, the pair looked through the windows of classroom doors, making eye contact with students hidden inside, but neither Harris nor Klebold tried to enter any of the rooms. They even reloaded their firearms close by the room that Dave Sanders was in. After leaving the main office, Harris, and Klebold walked toward a bathroom, where they taunted students hidden inside, making such comments as: "We know you're in there" and "Let's kill anyone we find in here." Neither attempted to enter the bathroom. At 11:55 a.m., the two returned to the cafeteria, where they briefly entered the school kitchen. At 11:57 a.m., near the staircase, Harris observed the plan had failed and Klebold followed by. They returned up the staircase and into the south hallway at 12:00 p.m. | ||
Klebold | At 12:02 p.m., Harris and Klebold re-entered the library, which was empty of surviving students except for the unconscious Patrick Ireland and the injured Lisa Kreutz. Once inside, they shot at police through the west windows but did not hit anyone. Around 12:05 p.m., both Harris and Klebold began to admit defeat and they walked toward a row of bookcases near the table where Patrick Ireland, Daniel Steepleton, and Makai Hall hid. | ||
At 12:08 p.m., Harris and Klebold turn the guns on themselves. Harris sat down with his back to a bookshelf and fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth, killing him instantly. Just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Patrick Ireland was laying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Klebold then went down on his knees and shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9. | |||
== Psychological Analysis == | == Psychological Analysis == | ||