Dave Cullen: Columbine

'Puzzling' school shooters?

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 23:59:11 GMT

I just saw The CBS Evening News, which described the new string of school shootings, different than Columbine, because they are committed by outsiders--adults. The reporter referred to this as "puzzling." I don't think so.

I really need to go to the gym to work out some of this anger and frustration, but I'll come back this evening after I've collected my thoughts on why.

Why did the cops storm the classroom?

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 01:10:55 GMT

Three hours after the hostage standoff at Platte Canyon High School ended, that seems to be the vexing question: Why did the cops move in?

I'm listening to talk radio here in Denver, and there is a lot of speculation about what was going on in that classroom to cause the cops to charge in. Some high-profile hosts and some of there guests are suggesting that the SWAT maneuver was a risky move, meaning that there was probably more happening than we now know about. I'm not going to repeat the rumors being bandied about, but there are plenty.

Yow. Those are some terrible questions to contemplate, and they are definitely burning for me tonight: What was happening in that classroom, and what calculation was made? Of the two hostages at the time, we now know that one survived without injury, one died. That's a terrible price, but it might have been twice as bad.

At this point, we don't know, but we are wondering.

As for other risk factors . . . I wonder. If you've read much about hostage negotiation, you'll know that this gunman was exhibiting very high risk factors already. I've spent a lot of time researching these situations for my Columbine book. I've also spent a great deal of time with retired FBI Agent Dwayne Fuselier, who led the Columbine investigation for the bureau. He is also one of the country's leading experts on hostage negotiation.

Before he came to Colorado, he worked in the FBI's special hostage unit near Washington. His team studied a large number of critical incidents from around the country and drew several conclusions. His work is widely cited in scholarly work in the field, as well as the FBI's field manuals. You can see a really great document from the FBI here (Fuselier is cited, but not the author):

It's called "Negotiation Concepts for Commanders," and it was published in the "FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin," in January 1999 (three months before Columbine.) It's available to anyone online as a PDF. It runs just nine pages, and it's written in a style that's easy for a layman to understand.

The crucial first question a negotiator faces, it stresses, is answering a deceptively simple question: Is this a hostage situation or non-hostage situation? That may sound too obvious to even mention, but it's not always as obvious as it may sound, and the consequences are crucial. All the suggested actions branch off from the answer to that question.

Today's situation sounds like an obvious hostage situation, but it actually has some of the trademarks of non-hostage. Consider these passage from the piece, starting on p. 7 (the second page of the piece--it begins on p. 6 of the journal. Also note that I use ellipses in order to give you a quick taste. I'm not editing to suit a particular line of thinking, just for brevity. I urge you to follow the link yourself):

"During hostage situations, subjects hold another person or persons for the purpose of forcing the fulfillment of substantive demands upon a third party, usually law enforcement. . . . Hostage-takers demonstrate goal-oriented and purposeful behavior. . . . The primary goal is not to harm the hostages. In fact, hostage takers realize that only through keeping the hostages alive can they hope to achieve their goals.

In nonhostage incidents, individuals act in an emotional, senseless, and often-self-destructive way. . . They are motivated by anger, rage, frustration, hurt, confusion or depression. They have no clear goals and often exhibit purposeless, self-defeating behavior." They typically issue no demands, because "What they want is what they already have, the victim. . . . The potential for homicide followed by suicide in many of these cases if very high."

Still convinced we were dealing with a hostage situation? In reality, there were hostages. But from a negotiators' point of view, trying to comprehend and predict how his gunman is likely to react, he has to see past the obvious and I think he/she probably realized this afternoon that the gunman was exhibiting classic non-hostage-taker traits.

According to the Park County Sheriff's descriptions, the gunman was acting erratically and appeared to have no clear idea what he wanted to accomplish. He did not appear to seize the hostages with an agenda, but in some sort of desperation. Desperate people tend to do desperate things. Or as the FBI piece puts it, "The potential for homicide followed by suicide in many of these cases if very high."

The outcome bears that out: homicide followed by suicide is exactly what happened. Of course the SWAT team bursting into the room may have provoked that--or it might have just accelarated it. Not everyone responds to an attack by shooting the victim, much less killing himself. The fact that he did bolsters the probability that he had been erratic all along, and headed in that direction.

Consider also, how the negotiations were progressing. The same FBI piece cites eleven criteria for assessing progress. It states:

The following indicators signify progress and generally mean that current negotiation initiatives should continue. Specifically, since negotiations have begun:

no additional deaths or injuries have resulted,
the subject has reduced threats and is using less violent language,
the subject's emotions have lowered,
the subject has exhibited increased rationality in speech and action,
deadlines have passed [Note from Dave. This one can be confusing; I believe it means that deadlines imposed by the subject have passed, without incident]
the subject has become increasingly willing to bargain,
the subject has lowered demands,
the subject has released a hostage,
the negotiator has built a rapport with the subject,
the subject has made positive statements about the welfare of the hostage/victim and/or
the subject has asked about the consequences of surrendering.

We don't have all the information yet, but from the sheriff's press conference, it sounded like only two of those eleven criteria had been met--the most basic two: letting hostages go and refraining from murder. And he had stopped releasing hostages and was giving an ultimatum, so progress there seems to have ended, too. All the other warning signs look pretty bleak, in this case.

If you start with the awareness that a situation like this begins with a high risk of murder/suicide, and then the gunmen fails to exhibit almost any of the indicators that suggest a diffusion . . .

Well, I guess I'd challenge the notion that there would have to have been more risk factors for a prudent commander to order an attack. I'll defer an opinion until I know more, because there is a great deal we don't know.

What I really suggest is that once we do know more, there may be a whole lot of screaming and yelling about it. And the command team's decisions may look wise or they may look foolish. But let's look at them with educated eyes. Just a few pages of reading on hostage-negotiation situations could clarify a great deal. It's just nine pages. Consider reading it.

---

(Meanwhile, I feel like hell. This sure dredges up a lot of awful memories. I'm sure it's a hundred times worse for the people I've been working with the past seven years.)

School hostage situation near Denver

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:14:34 GMT

Ugh. Too many of these lately.

And two recent ones from adults. The Montreal shooter did several things to make his Columbine-like, in an apparent desperate and disgusting attempt to garner more press. I hope that's not the case here, and/or a new pattern. These are awful enough for kids to do. Adults . . .

This is apparently still going on. No injuries yet, and hopefully it will stay that way.

This from the Denver Post:

A gunman is holding two girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey.

Jefferson County spokesperson Jackie Kelley said the parents of the two students being held have not yet been notified.
She said there were no reported injuries, despite multiple shots fired. Originally, six students were taken hostage in a second-floor classroom, she said, but four had been released.
More than 20 jurisdictions have sent law enforcement support, and minor negotiations are underway with the gunman, but Kelley had no information about whether those negotiations had been successful.
Kelly said the gunman is an adult male, between 30 and 50 years old. He is armed, but the caliber of his weapon was unknown. Suspicious devices were found at the school, she said, prompting the bomb squad's response.
Park County authorities requested help from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad and SWAT team, said Jim Shires, Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

BAILEY — Two Platte Canyon High School students remain in a second floor classroom with an armed man who walked into the school at took six hostages at noon today, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of students.

Four hostages were released uninjured, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.

Kelley said the gunman is an adult and not a student.

The students taken hostage were in an English college prep class.

At least one suspicious device needs to be checked by a bomb squad, she said.

Authorities continue to negotiate with the man, Kelley said, but are "sporadic."

There were no immediate reports of injuries at the schools in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 35 miles southwest of Denver. The two schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.

The Rocky also provided this link to google maps, with a satellite view.

You can zoom out to see the location better. The hybrid or map views-options (top, right of the screen) will help you see its location in relation to roads and towns. I made a view that puts it in better relation to Denver.

---

UPDATE:

Rocky Mountain News update (same link; they're pasting over previous versions, apparently, which makes sense):

BAILEY — Two Platte Canyon High School students remain in a second floor classroom with an armed man who walked into the school, fired one shot and then at took six female students hostage at noon today, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of students and the closure of Highway 285.

Four hostages were released uninjured, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.

Authorities believe the man, who is carrying a handgun, is a parent, said Lance Clem of state Department of Public Safety.

Eric Harris' Journal Finally Released

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:25:19 GMT

The day finally arrive. The Jeffco sheriff finally released Eric's journal, and close to 1,000 other pages from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and Eric's father, Wayne Harris.

There is an AP story here, which oddly focuses on some passages that were already public. (I guess they had not kept up to date):

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/06/columbine.records.ap/index.html

The Rocky Mountain News has a story here:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4825673,00.html

You can read the full 1,000 pages here, in a pdf (it's 32 MB):

http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/pdf/900columbinedocs.pdf

I have been reading through it and there's a lot of interesting stuff in there--much of it I had seen, but some I had not. It pretty much follows along the lines I had been led to believe.

I don't want to say too much here, because I'm developing all these thoughts for my book, but it's fascinating to see how Eric can take nearly any assignment--or any little inspirational phrase in his day-timer--and make it about death and murder.

Eric's journal--which he referred to as The Book of God in the Basement Tapes, is on 84-99, with more diagrams and budgets immediately after.

His budgeting for his bomb-making is one of the things that really startled me the first time I saw it. I was just in disbelief that he was so cold and calculating about it. (Not that inventorying the # of targets in the commons each minute is not more horrifying. I guess that came out early and I was used to the idea. When I first saw the budget, I was just flipping through it and spotted that and realized what it was and just gaped.)

---

Unfortunately, it looks like The Basement Tapes may never be public--though the contents have been widely reported. The sheriff refused to release them, and the attorney for the Denver Post--which brought the lawsuit--said yesterday that they would not appeal. What a shame. Perhaps some future sheriff will release it.

---

FYI, the Rocky's archive of recent Columbine stories is here:

http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/archives/sections/news/columbine/

CO Supreme Court rules on Columbine

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 06:41:14 GMT

Hey. Just wrapping up writing for the night, and making a blog-free-weekdays exception to pass along this quick but important Columbine news flash my assistant sent me tonight:

From Wednesday morning's Denver Post:

The Colorado Supreme Court today agreed with The Denver Post that items seized from the homes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are criminal justice records, which clears the way for their release if Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink determines the release would benefit the public.
The Denver Post is seeking notes written by Wayne Harris about his son Eric and Dylan Klebold; medical records of the teenagers; the audio and videotapes they made; and their writings, including school papers, notations in the Columbine yearbook and the diaries.
Release of the items was strongly opposed by the Harris and Klebold families and by Mink, who must now decide whether to release the records.
If Mink refuses to release some or all the items requested, The Post can seek a judicial review of that refusal, said Steve Zansberg, The Post's lawyer.

Nice! I had faith the court would do the right thing. And unanimously.

I do not have faith that the sheriff will release the material -- at least The Basement Tapes -- but I still believe the lower courts will.

(And in a weird twist, the attorney, Steve Zansberg represented me last winter when the Air Force subpoenaed me and a bunch of other reporters for our notes in a rape court martial. Great guy. And I watched his performance in front of the court on this case. Very impressive.)

Salon included me in their classics

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 04:38:35 GMT

This is kind of cool. Salon is celebrating its tenth and anniversary and every day the past week they have been highlighting their top stories from a single year.

I did most of my work for them in 1999 and 2000, and two of my stories made the list each year. The lists for 1999 & 2000.

From 1999, they picked two of my Columbine stories:

”I smell like the presence of Satan”
Is Littleton's evangelical subculture a solution to the youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine killings, or a reflection of it?
By Dave Cullen

Inside the Columbine High investigation
Everything you know about the Littleton killings is wrong. But the truth may be scarier than the myths.
By Dave Cullen

And in 2000 they featured, this two-part series on one of the last bastions of blatant discrimination toward gays in America. (I hate to call it a "gays in the military" story, even though it technically is, because that has phrase has like the mind-numbingly tired politico piece I specifically wanted to avoid):

Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t fall in love, Part I of II
A rare peek inside the lives of gay military officers, a world filled with staggering sacrifice, loneliness and glass ceilings.
By Dave Cullen

A heartbreaking decision, Part II
Gay officers must choose between personal happiness and the careers they've spent years building.
By Dave Cullen

The upside of covering Columbine

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 06:16:06 GMT

I was just directed to this interesting site called The Trenchcoat Chronicles (tag line, "Poking society in the eye with a sharp pointy stick") and oddly enough, the latest post was about Columbine.

One of those whacked out readers writing to him praising the killers. Ugh.

I just had a brief email exchange with the author of the site, and he lamented that "unfortunately guys like that are an everyday occurence at my site." Double ugh.

Luckily they're not around here, for whatever reason. I've had a few, but rarely.

What I do get--as I pointed out to him, and realized I was way overdue in mentioning here--is a whole lot of high school and college kids emailing me asking for help with their reports. Usually about one a week. From the weirdest places in the world.

It's a minor hassle responding to them all, but there's also nothing in this world that makes me quite as happy. (And luckily, I got tired enough of repeating myself a few years back that I created The Columbine Almanac, which I can usually direct them to, and which I use all the time myself, to find the evidence I need as I write.

One girl actually entered a school contest and advanced up to the state level (in Oregon, if I remember), and her family flew her out here to interview me and Frank DeAngelis, though I was unfortunately out of town that week and had to do mine by phone. She asked great questions, though. (Much better than most journos I know. Seriously. Sadly.)

I wince sometimes when I get these requests, but always makes me smile, too.

Everyone should have one

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 03:16:41 GMT

Ahhhhhhhh.

Research assistant.

How did I get along this long without one?

I hired two a few weeks back, but one got very sick and has been out for weeks, the local one had some previous committments. Well, the local guy was back today, and we've been working nearly the entire day and we knocked out a heck of a lot of stuff. Most of the way organized now, and he's checking into all sorts of research for me.

What was I thinking in not doing this sooner?

Just about saved my life. Can't wait to have them both cracking.

New Comments thread for The Columbine Almanac

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:07:08 GMT

In October 2003, I created a comments thread for The Columbine Almanac.

After 20 screens of comments, it filled up awhile back, and I forgot to create a new thread. Sorry. Here's one now, via this post. I will link to both threads in the almanac.

And if you're interested in Columbine and haven't checked it out lately, you might want to take a peak. I have added a whole lot of new stuff over the past several months, as I have waded deeper through the evidence, particularly to Section 4: Key Sites--Specific Data.

NOTICE: See you on the weekends

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:17:40 GMT

Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.

Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)

OK, better try that bigger:

LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!

Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)

But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.

See you Saturday.

A Columbine no-brainer?

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:46:36 GMT

I always wanted to attend a supreme court hearing.

Fascinating. Not the U.S. court I slipped into, but the Colorado court. Presumably less distinguished jurors, but the same process.

And a very important issue--for a couple reasons, it turns out--at least two of them very dear to my heart. A third one two, as it turned out, being argued from the other side. (But not so well, I think.)

The issue was the Columbine killers' writings and recordings, particularly the two most crucial chunks of evidence in the case, which are still being withheld more than six years later: Eric Harris' journal, and The Basement Tapes.

So much to say, and I will, hopefully later today. Got to run to get a CT scan, though. Finally getting my old injury checked out, and they need to do an extra series.

More soon.

AP story here. (And advance story on it from yesterday here.)

I feel dirty

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:51:47 GMT

I just finished True Story: Murder, Memoir and Mea Culpa.

It gives me the shivers.

And I just realized something as I typed in the title. Maybe I don't hate it anymore. Because the first two words are aggressively ironic, though I'm not sure they were intended that way. (The author opens by imploring us of the opposite.)

So much of it was maddeningly boring, but I have to admit it had a powerful payoff. The climax was unexpected (I won't spoil with any specifics), and more revolting than I could have imagined.

Throughout, though, I had a lot of intense distrust of and occasionally disgust for the author--interspersed with intense empathy. But the empathy only made me quiver, because this is the story of a master liar and manipulator, told by an admitted liar and manipulator, and the juxtaposition just made me horribly wary of people like him. What on earth was he thinking?

Maybe I'll feel better about him some day. He's probably a really nice guy, and I really want to believe him and like him--and totally expected to--but after watching how effortlessly and adroitly this murderer could fool everyone around him . . . I'm just not ready to.

Most of all, I just feel sickened by the lying. When you can't believe a person, can't trust them, what do you have? Everything that matters between two people--or between individuals and large groups or institutions like our schools or churches or governments--is based on what we know and believe to be true about them. On truth we take for granted. It's hard enough to know who to get close to, who to spend our time with and develop our feelings for when the truth is laid bare in front of us. When it's not, when a person is full of lies and deceit and deception, when that person shatters our trust in other people . . . That's just the most heinous crime I think they can commit to us. Ugh. Nothing ever ever ever makes me more unsettled than people who shake my ability to trust.

Zero Hour

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:37:31 GMT

The History Channel is running something called Zero Hour this Saturday, a one-hour documentary about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold amassing an arsenel to kill schoolmates and teachers at Columbine.

I haven't seen it yet, so no telling on quality. (And won't see it for a week. It's going to hit the tivo just as I leave for Chicago for a week.)

Runs in Denver at 6 p.m. Check local listings. (God, I hate that phrase, never thought I'd hear it out of my own fingertips. But what else to say?)

Finding all that Columbine info on the web

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 21:57:32 GMT

Well, it's that dreaded anniversary, six years ago today since Columbine. It's fittingly and uncharacteristically bleak and overcast in Denver today. I know that's how a lot of people I've gotten to know feel today. I can only hope it passes for you quickly this year.

Meanwhile, and coincidentially, I happened to get around to organizing some information this weekend, and decided to make it available to you all:

In the fall of 2000, the cops released 11,000 pages of police files on Columbine. It's all online here, and provides a wealth of information, but you could spend weeks wading through it and still not find anything in particular you're looking for.

So this weekend, I posted two indexes. One is general and comprehensive--I found online long ago, but it long-since disappeared. The other I compiled myself. It is much more specific, and will guide you directly to topics frequently of interest, like Dylan Klebold's bloody creative writing story that foreshadowed the attack, the contents of Eric Harris's website, and interviews with the Marine recruiter which debunk the myth that Eric was infuriated at being rejected by the Marines shortly before the attack. (He never even received the news.)

I posted it all here. It's buried inside my Columbine Almanac, so most of you would never come across it, but if any of that interests you, there you go.

---

Well, as I dug around on the web, today, I came across one of the best Columbine resource sites I've ever found out there.

The Columbine Research Site is just a dream come true for anyone researching Columbine.

It is mainly restricted to official government releases, but those are a key part of the record, and it has nearly all of them.

It includes the obvious sites like the various government reports, diagrams, some of the audiotapes and the first 11,000 pages of police files. But you will also find many more obscure items, like the search warrants (where I found a surprisingly useful trove of info, and had formerly only found in paper, bound in the Columbine Library in Littleton), the second 10,000 pages of police reports (not even available at the Columbine Library), and much, much more.

And it's got a much better compilation of the 11,000 pages of police files than the link above, with its own detailed index built right in.

If you want to dig down into the nitty gritty of Columbine, this is your new home.

---

On a very different note, one of the silver linings of Columbine for me was all the great people I met. Often in the most unlikely circumstances. One of the most unlikely was Rev. Bill Oudemolen, who provided the title for my Salon story on Columbine Evangelicals, I Smell the Presence of Satan.

He wasn't thrilled with parts of the piece at first, and he emailed to tell me so, so I revised it for a reprint in The Denver Post, and oddly enough, the more we talked, the more we liked each other. (Not in a homosexual way, of course.) My first Evangelical friend. And I believe I was his first homo friend. He's a really nice guy. Not all all the close-minded ninny I was assuming.

Same on both counts for his wife Jan. She's cute, and blond and adorable, and of course my first thought was trophy wife! Not a bad trophy, but she's got a great heart, too, and a great mind. Haven't seen them in awhile. Really miss them. Can't wait to catch up on The Amazing Race--though I'm afraid Bill has missed his chance to compete on the show with me.

(Eventually, my second and even more unlikely Evangelical friend, Wendy Zoba, interviewed Bill and me for a Christianity Today piece called Building A Bridge--between gays and Evangelicals.)

Bill started a blog of his own this week, Mile High Rev, and posted early this morning about his own memories of the tragedy six years ago.

A little unfinished business on Bowling and Columbine

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 03:52:38 GMT

So I've been getting a lot of emails since Red Lake happened. About Columbine, naturally. Lots and lots of people out there still hungry for information, so it seems like a good moment to finally put one to rest:

Bowling for Columbine. Never happened.

The whole disarming image of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold blissfully bowling away five hours before the massacre as if nothing was about to happen? Fascinating piece of fiction. Yet another in an endless stream of Columbine myths.

Let me begin by confessing. I did my share in helping create that myth, publishing this story on Salon the night after the massacre.

Sorry.

You can't imagine how sorry.

It's not like I made it up, of course. That's what the kids in Clement Park told us that morning. One of so very many mistaken ideas they unintentionally fed to us. I had not yet learned how bad eyewitness testimony is in general, or how much worse it gets under duress. I had no idea Columbine witnesses would still be swearing six years later that they saw a third shooter, just to name one preposterous example, despite the surveillance videos, 911 audiotapes, the killers' journals and videos and the hundreds of other witnesses and overwhelming evidence of every imaginable stripe.

Probably only took one faulty memory in one kid--or even a rumor of a bowling mate's memory--to spread the bowling story up and down the park. It was a great story. The perfect little telling detail that captured the obscene coldness of the killers. The odd incongruity that led Moore to employ it as his title was not lost on the kids in the park that first morning after. I had no idea how fast the witnesses had been tainted in this tragedy.

It was one of many early mistakes I made, though I'm far less queasy about that imaginary factoid than the title of the piece that contained it: "Outsiders, even among the outsiders." The whole outcast thing, God, how I wish we could take that one back.

But the bowling. Much simpler. And just as enduring. With all those sites out there slamming Michael Moore for all the alleged inaccuracies on that movie, you'd think they would start with the howler than he got the title wrong. Conveniently emblematic for his critics, don't you think?

Various Columbine detectives had told me various times that they knew the bowling was another minor mistake, but years after the fact when the movie came out, they could never recall exactly where to find the evidence. But as I've poured through police records in the library the last several months working on my book, I happened to stumble across it.

And you can call it up on your PC right now to see with your own eyes.

Click here, for the Boulder Daily Camera's scans of the entire 11,000 pages of evidence released in one big dump several years back. Scroll down to page 20 of that pdf (page 10120 of the entire release) for the beginning of the "bowling" section. It runs to page 34.

Investigator Glenn Moore (yes, same last name, oddly, though I'm sure no relation) of the Golden Police Department, issued a report on his interviews with Kristine Macauley, the teacher of the bowling class in question. At first she was unsure about seeing the two boys, and could not get to her records, which were still locked in the school/crime-scene. Eventually, the actual paper score sheets were faxed over by the bowling alley, and confirmed what nearly all the witnesses had told police: Dylan and Eric were not there that day.

When a kid was missing from the class, average scores were entered for them and circled, which is how the teacher kept attendance. Zip down to page 31 of that pdf to see the circles with your own eyes (top left corner of the page). We're just going to have to take the cops' word for it that Eric averaged only 108 and Dylan 115.

Glenn Moore summarizes his final conclusion on page 33: "The score sheet, as well as the teacher, indicated HARRIS, KLEBOLD AND MORRIS were absent on April 20, 1999."

And just for good measure, we've got Dylan's own hand-written schedule for the morning of the attack. You can see a clean scan of his daytimer scrawl here (scroll down about 3/4 of the way), but the Jeffco cops were nice enough to transcribe it for us:

5:00 Get-up

6:00 meet at KS

7:00 go to Reb’s house

7:15 he leaves to fill propane

I leave to fill gas

8:30 Meet back at his house

9:00 made d. bag set up car

9:30 practice gearups

Chill

10:30 set up 4 things

11: go to school

11:10 set up duffel bags

11:12 wait near cars, gear up

11:16 HAHAHA

Note the lack of bowling in that schedule.

(FYI: KS is King Soopers, one of the big supermarket chains in the region. Reb is Eric. The duffel bags held the two big propane bombs that were intended as the heart of the attack, and would have killed over 600 people instantly if the killers had figured out how to wire them properly.)

Of course they might have deviated from the schedule, but they had the final details worked out pretty cold, much of it down to the minute in another schedule. (Until it all went wrong when the bombs failed--the goofballs apparently had no Plan B. Thank God.)

A bowling deviation would have blown a huge hole in that schedule. The class ran from 6-7:15, and Bellevue Lanes is probably a good half hour drive from Dylan's house. That's more than two hours, total. Doubtful.

Put that together with the teacher's testimony once she had her attendance records, the testimony of nearly all the other witnesses, and the physical evidence documenting their absence . . . Just how much evidence does Michael Moore--or anyone else--require?

---

After setting all that down, I was a little curious as to how he defended the title. I had read his responses a few times--most notably in an ugly exchange with Roger Ebert--but wanted to freshen my memory.

From his website:

Finally, I've even been asked about whether the two killers were at bowling class on the morning of the shootings. Well, that's what their teacher told the investigators, and that's what was corroborated by several eyewitness reports of students to the police, the FBI, and the District Attorney's office. I'll tell you who wasn't there -- me! That's why in the film I pose it as a question:

"So did Dylan and Eric show up that morning and bowl two games before moving on to shoot up the school? And did they just chuck the balls down the lane? Did this mean something?"

Wow. He really can stand there with a straight face--presumably--and argue that he can go to the extreme length of actually using the supposed incident in the title of his film, and not leave the public with the distinct impression that it actually happened. No, he's just raising it as a question.

Huh. I don't recall the question mark in the title of the film.

But it gets really revolting from there. He actually cites the same police report I do on his website. Just selectively. He scanned in just the first page, where the teacher is not sure, and wants to check her records, and draws in a big arrow to the place where she says she thought she recalled seeing them the killers in the parking lot. Of course he omits the part a few pages later where it's finally settled.

Wow. That's just kind of despicable. If he got to the police report that clears the whole thing up, he obviously knows he got it wrong. It happens. Admit it. But to pull one or two lines out of context and try to scam the public into thinking that's the full story? Shameless.

And his bit about the DA's office? I have no idea where he got that one. The DA wasn't handling the investigation, mind you, and I've talk to most of the top people at the investigative agencies that were, and every one of them told me the story was ridiculous. Hard to believe he doesn't know that as well.

---

{Note to readers perplexed by how I can be so freaking obsessive about a subject six years old: First off, if I'm so obsessive, what are you still reading it for? Second, I'm writing a book on it. I need to get obsessive. And I have a lot of readers who are, too. We come here to obsess about it together. Feel free to skip past it and read more about Survivor.}

Did the press learn from Columbine?

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:17:41 GMT

Warning: minor horn-tooting ahead.

I got the coolest email a couple days ago. (Sorry for the delay. Had my hands full.)

The Columbia Journalism Review's online site published a really great piece about how the press has generally done a great job on the Red Lake school shooting, in contrast to our grossly embarassing performance on Columbine.

It's packed with insight, so I'd like to think I'd recommend without the plug. But I'm really glad it has one. heeheehee.

It sites my Slate piece prominently, as the definitive story about Columbine.

So I couldn't resist sharing it.

It's right on the money start to finish, but the one conclusion that really bothered me was this: The press has really learned something since Columbine, but if the spotlight had been brighter on Red Lake, the press would have screwed this one up a lot worse than they did.

That analysis bothers me because it's so undeniably true. I spent a lot of time reviewing how the Columbine myths were spawned (among other things, I read every story for the first two weeks in seven or eight key papers, mapped out every citation of each of about 15 myths in a massive spreadsheet, and diagramed how each one sprouted and solidified). The pressure to find an answer--above all, to explain why--was the key driver. It drove us to take little scraps of evidence, spin them instantaneously into hypotheses, and over night bounce them round the echo chamber until we had all accepted them as fact.

The upshot of this, and the most sobering conclusion of Brian's CJR piece, is that our media performance as a whole, is inversely proportional to the importance of the event to the public at the time.

That's a sobering that.

How on earth do we change it?

---

Thanks to Jeralyn at 5280 and Jesse at the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma for writing up the piece. (And me.) Both postings weave in a couple other great stories and ideas. Both are definitely worth checking out if you have any interest in this topic.

Incidentially, 5280, Denver's city magazine, and one of the first publications I worked for, recently received two National Magazine Award nominations. Major milestone. Good luck to you guys, and to Max Potter, who wrote both stories. (If you're wondering about the title, 5280 is the supposed elevation here--exactly one mile.)

Leakage, copycatting and the return of the Columbine myths

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 03:34:41 GMT

Ugh.

Another school shooting.

Had nothing to add but my own sadness the past 24 hours, but a couple things struck me reading the latest AP story on the supposed 'Angel of Death' in Minnesota.

First: ". . . fellow students at Red Lake High said they saw what looked, in retrospect, like warning signs." Not much laid out in the story, but I'll lay money that far bigger signs will turn up eventually.

The FBI calls it leakage. Kids give away their secrets. The school shooters nearly always give themselves away. Not just hints, explicitly. The Columbine killers seem to be an exception: lots and lots of clues, but never coming right out giving it away.

We might not learn about it tomorrow, but odds are heavy that right now some really scared person in Minnesota is holding onto the information that the killer warned him. He or she probably didn't take him seriously at the time, and now they feel an unfathomable mixture of guilt, dread and fear.

After Columbine, the FBI did an exhaustive and excellent report on identifying school shooters before they kill, called "The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective."

Download it right now. It's a PDF file and a really interesting read. Amazing how little the media has bothered to publicize it.

I'm also struck by all the similarities to Columbine, both real and imagined. By that I mean that the kid sure seemed to be trying to copy Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, right down to the myths. He consumed the same media as the rest of us, so he copycatted the stuff that never happened as well as what did.

So sad. Of all the awful ways to scream out for attention. Kind of boggles the mind. At least mine.

And on a professional note, it made my heart sink to see the AP still perpetuating some of the biggest Columbine myths in today's dispatch. They're still calling the Columbine killers Goths, and making them members of the Trench Coat Mafia. Good lord. When is our industry going to figure out how to clean up our mistakes and quit repeating them?

If you're unfamiliar with the Columbine myths, I've set up a site to guide you through them. But make it easy on yourself and start at this subsite.

Meanwhile, I wish I had some wisdom to offer those poor folks in Minn right now. Sadness and empathy, that's all I've got today.

Update:

I'm queasy about linking to my own story at a time like this, but I checked the referrer logs and there's clearly a lot of interest in it, so here's the info:

Last year I published a story on Slate, where the lead FBI agent and other shrinks they brought in from the early days finally went public with their information and laid out what Columbine was really about.

I'm fleshing it out much more in a book for Dutton, but that won't be out for a few years. If you want to be notified when it comes out, send me an email (or comment).

Columbine coverup--sad, sad, sad

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 07:05:32 GMT

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.

More sad Columbine revelations

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 20:02:26 GMT

I'm a bit late in getting this info up--busy weekend researching. But the grand jury issued its report on the coverup by Jeffco officials concerning advance knowledge of Columbine. No indictments, but some ugly activity. The Rocky Mountain News lead, published Friday:

A draft search warrant for the home of Columbine killer Eric Harris was kept under wraps after top Jefferson County officials called a "private" meeting a few days after the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history to consider their options in dealing with the potentially damaging paperwork, a state grand jury has concluded.
Among those at the meeting, held in a conference room in the offices of the Jefferson County Open Space Department, were District Attorney Dave Thomas, then-County Attorney Frank Hutfless and then-sheriff's Lt. John Kiekbusch, according to a damning grand jury report unsealed by a judge Thursday morning.

That, and a similarly critical report issued simultaneously by state Attorney General Ken Salazar, also revealed allegations that Kiekbusch ordered the destruction of a "pile" of Columbine records and uncovered evidence that key documents were apparently purged from the computer system at the sheriff's office in the summer of 1999.
Although the grand jury issued no indictments, it expressed "concern" about Kiekbusch's actions and "suspicions" that documents that would have been damaging to the sheriff's office were deliberately destroyed.
The stunning revelations renewed the debate about whether the April 20, 1999, attack on Columbine could have been prevented if sheriff's officials had done more to investigate Harris and fellow killer Dylan Klebold in 1997 and 1998, when the duo was first brought to the attention of authorities.
And they raised new questions about the conduct of Jefferson County officials following the Columbine tragedy.
"People died because of this," said a shaken Randy Brown after emerging from a meeting where he and others were briefed on the findings of the two investigations.

And the opening of the Denver Post story, also Friday:

Jefferson County officials decided in a "private meeting" days after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School not to disclose the existence of a 1998 draft affidavit to search the home of future gunman Eric Harris, according to a grand jury report released Thursday.
In the months after the meeting, a file and notes related to that draft from Investigator Mike Guerra disappeared from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

A year and a half later, a senior officer told his assistant to shred "a large pile of copies of Columbine related reports," according to the grand jury. Its report said the meeting and the shredding "raise suspicions ... about the potential that the files were deliberately destroyed."

You can read the full grand jury report here, and a separate report from the CO attorney general here. (Both are PDFs.)

The Columbine killers' journals and videos may become public -- Maybe

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 00:05:06 GMT

After five long years, release of the most crucial Columbine evidence--the killers' videos and journals where they explain their actions, albeit through a mass of contradictions--took a huge leap forward today.

Not quite the leap the AP headline and lead suggest, though:

Court Opens Columbine Killers' Diaries

DENVER Aug. 12, 2004 — Tapes and diaries made by the two teens who killed 13 people at Columbine High School are public records and can be released, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

But the next paragraph puts a big damper on the announcement:

The court, however, left open the possibility the records could remain secret because state law allows authorities to withhold documents if the release would be "contrary to the public interest."

So the matter returns to a district judge, who apparently will make the determination. We got to this point because of a lawsuit filed by the Denver Post in 2002--bless them for that. Here's their attorney's take on the judge's guidelines:

The district judge could withhold the materials only if disclosure would cause harm that could not have been foreseen by the Legislature when it passed laws governing such documents, said Chris Beall, an attorney for the newspaper.

That sounds promising, though remember it's from the attorney fighting for release. And I'm sure someone will make a case for the release harming the public. In fact, it's hard to deny that it will cause some harm to the public, though I believe it will vastly be outweighed by the public good of learning more about what drove the killers. But then I'm kind of biased, too.

(By the way, I had no idea this had happened when I posted my earlier message about my book deal. I just found out a few minutes ago, when I got my daily GoogleNews email on Columbine stories. Wasn't expecting one like that.)

The key details on my Columbine book deal

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:41:20 GMT

The announcements of my book were released in the trade mags this week, so I can share the key details here. (I'll link to Pub Weekly, but you need a subscription to see it):

Publisher's Weekly:
What is claimed as the first definitive account of the high school killings at Columbine was bought for Dutton by Mitch Hoffman. It's called A Lasting Impression on the World, and author Dave Cullen of Salon.com has spent five years of research on it, including a first use of recently released FBI reports profiling the young killers. Hoffman won the book at an auction run by Betsy Lerner of The Gernert Company.

Publisher's Lunch:

Salon reporter Dave Cullen's A LASTING IMPRESSION ON THE WORLD, a thorough account of the Columbine Tragedy, based on five years of research and reporting, promising to debunk many of the Columbine "myths" and offering a compelling psychological profile of the killers, Mitch Hoffman at Dutton, at auction, by Betsy Lerner at The Gernert Company.

I feel a little awkward thanking people already, on a project I'm just beginning in one way, but getting the 100-page proposal together took months of hard work, and thank God for the advice and support from my agent Betsy. She's a treasure. And of course I would be completely helpless actually selling it. She did a great job, and hooked me up with a great editor. I had a long talk with Mitch last week, and really excited to be working with him.

I think I need to keep my mouth shut for once on the actual writing process--God knows what trouble I'll cause myself if I wonder aloud publicly about every fear and obstacle I face. But I'll be around on other subjects, and I'll keep you posted on a publication date. That's a long way off, though.

Dutton bought my Columbine book

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 18:00:09 GMT

My life's dream was finally realized this week. It's still hard to believe, but I sold a book to a big NY publisher.

And it's the right time, I think -- a great project, and I feel ready to write it.

The book went to Dutton, an imprint of Viking/Penguin. My agent wants me to wait until she gets the announcment into Publisher's Weekly or Publisher's Lunch before I say more.

But I'm still celebrating. And plunging in to writing it. It will be a few years before it arrives on bookshelves.

It's about Columbine, and the working title is "A Lasting Impression on the World," from a passage in Eric Harris's journal.

I was in Chicago for the auction, so I went out with a group of friends there, had a really nice time. A great friend there organized it, got the champagne, took me to dinner. Really touching. I was so happy. Still levitating.

Two ways to handle the Klebold story

Sun, 16 May 2004 19:13:51 GMT

The day after David Brooks published the first interview with Dylan Klebold's parents in the New York Times, other media are jumping in with their accounts.

The Klebolds are not talking to anyone else directly--and say they're not about to--so mostly the other media are left to rehash the Brooks piece, with an additional bit of new info from the attorney, and other material already available.

The AP piece--post on CNN, MSNBC, and elsewhere--leads like this:

Columbine killer's parents: Don't need forgiveness

NEW YORK (AP) -- In their first interview since the Columbine High School massacre, the parents of one of the killers said they feel no need be forgiven and didn't realize their son was beyond hope until after he was dead.

Good lord. Of course the victims' families are outraged. AP takes Brooks' thoughtful approach to a really delicate and complex subject, and headlines the one comment most likely to outrage people, slaps it up there out of context. Sleazebags.

Their whole approach is not about understanding, but grabbing attention. No wonder everyone hates the media.

And you can argue that that is news--of a sort--but it could still be broadcast without packaging in such an inflamatory way. Look at the Denver Post headline and lead:

Klebolds regret missed flags

The parents of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold say they will never forgive themselves for the warning signs they missed about their son's mental state but that they didn't do anything as parents that they need to apologize for.

The Post still gets in the part about not needing to apologize, but within some context. It's a far Much more accurate characterization of what the Klebolds actually had to say.

Sleaziness is not required.

---

By the way, there is an ongoing comments thread about Columbine, linked from my Columbine Almanac.

The Klebolds speak!

Sat, 15 May 2004 07:16:13 GMT

A few weeks ago, David Brooks devoted his New York Times op-ed column to my recent findings about Columbine, and ramifications they held for the war on terrorism. I was obviously pleased, as it brought the work I had done to a much wider audience.

One of his readers turned out to be Tom Klebold. Dylan's father. You just never know who is going to be listening.

Tom and his wife Susan were not actually pleased by David's take on the tragedy, or mine, but he emailed David to say so, and after several online exchanges, they spoke at length on the phone.

It was their first on-the-record interview with the media ever. David was a good person to trust. He wrote a really nice account of what the hell they have gone through the past five years, and how they have dealt with it. A glimpse:

The Klebolds describe the day of the shootings as a natural disaster, as a "hurricane" or a "rain of fire." They say they had no intimations of Dylan's mental state. Tom, who works from home and saw his son every day, had spent part of the previous week with Dylan scoping out dorm rooms for college the next year.

You can read the whole thing here--all NYT stories are free for the next seven days, after that the link will still work, but you'll have to pay a few bucks.

It's definitely worth the read. Here was the most intriguing part to me:

When they talk about the event, they discuss it as a suicide. They acknowledge but do not emphasize the murders their son committed. They also think about the signs they missed. "He was hopeless. We didn't realize it until after the end," Tom said. Susan added: "I think he suffered horribly before he died. For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself."

Man. My heart just goes out to those people.

And here's why they were unhappy with my account:

They believe that what they call the "toxic culture" of the school — the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying — is the primary force that set Dylan off. But they confess that in the main, they have no explanation.

"I'm a quantitative person," said Tom, a former geophysicist. "We're not qualified to sort this out." They long for some authoritative study that will provide an answer. "People need to understand," Tom said, "this could have happened to them."

I would really like to talk to them about it. And to see that authoritative study myself. After five long years on Columbine, we're all itching for answers.

Write-up in the Times

Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:49:45 GMT

David Brooks devoted his NYT op-ed column to my Columbine story today. Woo hoo!

I got word it might happen, but I thought it might be just a brief mention, or maybe he wouldn't attribute me, or what if he hated it. He called it superb. Shew!

And I really like his work. He's one of a short list of conservative pundits I really respect. Actually, there's only a handful of pundits I respect period, with the conservative list all the shorter. I've always felt Brooks believes what he says, and won't BS you when his side does something stupid. He tells it like it is, regardless. Like David Gergen. And he's bright, too--even when I don't agree with him, I still find myself impressed by his logic.

I am really having a good week. Nice to be happy again. About my work, I mean. My agent is excited about the book proposal, and she's incredibly sharp and does not BS. This will help. Someday this writing thing may actually pan out.

(I have also added the promised links to Dr. Robert Hare's work in this earlier entry.)