Columbine 10 years later

[JamesSavik]

We're hearing all sorts of sob stories about the survivors of Columbine.

What I want to know is what sort of torment did it take to drive two kids into a suicide shooting spree?

We're supposed to be repulsed and not ask that question. We're supposed to look at the damage done and be horrified.

We're different. Many of us have been there. Many of us have been on the wrong end of the school harrassment. We've faced the violence that the school administrators ignorred. We've had the taunts, threats, head games, pratical jokes and downright cruelty. We've seen the priviliged few get away with murder with a nudge and a wink from the scool administrators and teachers.

So before we cry for Columbine on this 10th anniversary I'm going to do something obnoxious. I'm going to ask why. I ask who tormented these boys into a murderous rampage? Did some people get exactly what they deserved?

Have schools around the country learned anything? Some have adopted token anti-bullying policies but do they apply to everybody? Are the inmates running the asylum?

I live close to Pearl, Mississippi. I never knew Luke Woodham, the first high profile school shooter. However I did know many of his friends. They were nerds, geeks, D&D players and the jocks and preps at that high school systematically tormented those kids. The kids of the mayor, cheif of police and the school jocks could do anything they wanted and suffer no consequences for it. I'm only surprised that since those shootings, there haven't been more because nothings changed. No one has learned any lessons from what happened and the same viscious circle is forming.

Do I think that school shootings are a good thing? Hell no. The shootings are inevitable- you can only push people so far before they snap. Vulnerable, damaged kids like Luke Woodham, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold you push at your own risk.

While other people mourn the "victims", consider the shooters. Consider the hall they went through that pushed them over the edge. That could have been me and it almost was. I looked down the scope of a .308 rifile at the source of my pain. I didn't pull the trigger because I thought it through.

[sat8997]

The Depressive and the Psychopath

He (Harris) is disgusted with the morons around him. These are not the rantings of an angry young man, picked on by jocks until he's not going to take it anymore. These are the rantings of someone with a messianic-grade superiority complex, out to punish the entire human race for its appalling inferiority. It may look like hate, but "It's more about demeaning other people," says Hare.

Surviving Columbine: What We Got Wrong

Eric Harris was a psychopath -- controlling, manipulative and sadistic; Dylan Klebold was a lonely depressive, full of suppressed emotional rage.

The pair planned the attack as a terrorist bombing, hoping to kill at least 500. They were not "goths" or members of the "Trench Coat Mafia," as was widely reported. They wore duster jackets to hide their weapons.

When their bomb timers failed to go off, they randomly fired at students for little more than 17 minutes. The shooters got bored, wandered the high school, then killed themselves 45 minutes later.

Debunking the myths of Columbine, 10 years later

Cullen concluded that the killers weren't part of the Trench Coat Mafia, that they weren't bullied by other students and that they didn't target popular jocks, African-Americans or any other group. A school shooting wasn't their initial intent, he said. They wanted to bomb their school in an attack they hoped would make them more infamous than Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Victims my ass.

[JamesSavik]

I'm not from Columbine so I don't have any special insights into that incident other than what I suspect. I am from very close to Pearl, Mississiippi.

What I see at Pearl were a priviliged few tormenting people that were different: the fat, the small, the non-athletes and god forbid, the gays.

That's what I grew up in and from what I've seen it hasn't changed.

After the Pearl shootings there were a lot of people covering their ass with wild stories about cults and suicide pacts and a lot of stuff that turned out to be bullshit. I wonder how much of that went on at Columbine.

[Cole Parker]

As the anniversary neared, there were several articles written on Columbine. It seems there has been a change of thinking. When the event first occurred, there was a lot of writing about bullying, about kids being pushed over the edge, about kids becoming loners and outcasts and in some cases, wanting revenge on the society that had minimalized them.

But recently, with time on their side and no need to rush to judgment, spurred by the approaching anniversary, some investigative reporters have done a more in-depth analysis of what occurred there, and due to that, a change in attitude towards what happened there has taken place. Sharon has pointed to the type of article that is now being written. It is being strongly suggested, after looking much more thoroughly into the backgrounds of both boys, after interviewing teachers, students and administrators, that neither boy was harassed. Neither boy was bullied. If they were outsiders, they were so of their own choosing. If they wanted to kill other kids and teachers, it was more because of individual psychosis than as an after-effect of any treatment they'd received from kids at school.

Because of Columbine, and other places, however, there have been changes in many school districts to prohibit bullying and harassment, and these changes have been part of the current trend towards students being much more accepting of each other, and especially minorities and kids who aren't in the mainstream of American culture. If anything good came from Columbine, perhaps it's that.

C

[JamesSavik]

It is being strongly suggested, after looking much more thoroughly into the backgrounds of both boys, after interviewing teachers, students and administrators, that neither boy was harassed. Neither boy was bullied.

Just the people that need to cover their ass. I'm not buying it. Kids don't snap like this unless there's a damned good reason. Considering all the litigation surrounding the events at Columbine, the ass covering and revisionist history is to be expected.

The same "information control" and revisionist history happened at Pearl. There were wild stories about a murder cult and kids in a murder/suicide pact.

The police jailed witout charge seven of Luke Woodam's "friends", some of which hadn't seen him for over a year, and produced documents from D&D games as plans for future murders. All in all it was a ridiculous witchhunt by the very parents of the kids that had tormented Woodham.

The Woodham 7 were released and issued a gag order and none would talk about what had happened until years later and even then not in public. Luke Woodam himself took a plea deal and was wisked off to prison with alot of question left unanswered- at least in public.

[Trab]

Having worked in government service, and also having fought the government with my union brothers and sisters, I can assure you that they are expert at covering their asses. The slanting of language, even without outright lies being taken into account, is enough to sway most people to believing them. I don't know much of anything about these violent incidents, but I share James' feelings that there is much more being hidden, and much more blame that will never be assumed by those who should.