No, there's no fresh news on the Columbine coverup story, since the grand jury's report a few weeks ago. But local coverage continues, and it's just nearly too sad to watch.
I'm watching an hour-long local PBS show about it tonight, featuring Westword's investigative reporter on the story; Brian Rohrbough, the victim's father who fought most of the court battles to get the evidence public; and Randy & Judy Brown, who warned the cops about Eric two years before the murders.
They seem to be the most tragic figures at the moment. Top of the Jeffco Sheriff's brass lied repeatedly about them, and really did a number on them, trying to discredit them. Often successfully.
It hit home a few days ago, when a prominent local talking head confessed on a related local PBS show that he had believed Sheriff Stone's disparagement of the Brown's after the murder--why wouldn't he trust the sheriff. He believed, essentially, that the Browns were kooks. So did a lot of people, and it turns out the Sheriff and a whole bunch of his people--and Dave Thomas, the DA now running for Congress--were just plain lying about them.
Breaks my heart to see them.
And to see this coverup unravel. It's hard to know what motivated them. Columbine did turn the world on its ear for awhile--were they just that terrified that they were going to be pilloried for failing to foil the plot that they got together and decided they had to hide the evidence they could? Did they really thing they would get away with it?
Or were they trying to get away with something bigger? I usually shy away from conspiracy theories, but I'm starting to wonder on this one.
If this whole coverup story is new to you, Westword just released a story tonight covering the basics:
Anatomy of a Cover-up
This one paragraph summaries some of the key lies--it might be difficult to follow out of context, so follow the link above. But here's the heart of it:
Fielding questions from reporters, Kiekbusch reiterated some of the same falsehoods. No, the investigator hadn't been able to find any pipe bombs in the county that matched Harris's description of the ones he was building. (Guerra had found one.) No, there was no record that the Browns had met with investigator John Hicks. (The affidavit noted the meeting.) No, the investigators hadn't been able to locate information about Harris on the Internet. (Guerra would later tell Salazar's people that a JCSO computer expert had been unable to access the website but did find Harris's AOL profile.) The man who by some accounts had pulled the plug on Guerra's investigation was now assuring everyone there was no investigation worth mentioning.
And the most heartbreaking quote of the story, which puts so much of it in perspective:
"It's amazing," says Brian Rohrbough, whose son, Dan, died on the steps of Columbine. "While we were planning a funeral, these guys were already planning a cover-up."
I really feel for that guy, too.
And I can't imagine how these people feel about Dave Thomas. For five years, he's been telling the families he's their advocate, and now they find out that from three days after the murders, he was cover the butts of the Jeffco cops to conceal info from them.
It's all just so sad.
But here's the worst of all. You would expect some of these people to be at least remorseful about what they had done. Everybody makes mistakes, sometimes big ones, and I would hope by this time they understand in their hearts at least that they did something really wrong. I would hope one or two of them lie awake wishing they could call the Browns--they misled the entire world, but they really damaged the Browns' reputations--if only their lawyers would let them.
I like to think the best of people, and like to imagine that most of them are secretly remorseful, at least on some level. Then I read the supplemental report (to the grand jury's report), issued by the Colorado Attorney General, Sept 16. It includes a summary of an interview with an investigator this February, former UnderSheriff John Dunaway--one of the top officials implicated in the coverup. Page 10 enumerates several points Dunaway made during the interview:
#8: "[Dunaway] was skeptical of any information that came from the Brown family as he was not convinced Brooks Brown was not involved in the shootings in some way.
Good God. This whole coverup began, five years ago, with information coming to light that the Browns had warned the sheriff's office about Eric Harris, and Sheriff John Stone responding with suggestions that Brooks was involved in the murders. He may have actually believed that, thought it was certainly convenient.
But it was a horrible thing to do--and grossly irresponsible to suggest at that point, regardless. It was proved completely unfounded five years ago. I have spent five years on this story, interviewed most of the top investigators, several extensively. To my knowledge, there was not a single investigator still harboring a scrap of doubt about Brooks innocence--at the lack of anyone else being aware of the true plot, for that matter.
And Dunaway's defense, when finally exposed for this horrible act against the public in general and the Browns specifically? To dredge up the same old rumor, commit the same heinous act he was guilty of in the first place. Shameless.
Dutton (Penguin) in early 2009. 
