10 years later, the real story behind Columbine

[MA-Caver]

10 years later, the real story behind Columbine
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm?se=yahoorefer
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
They weren't goths or loners.
The two teenagers who killed 13 people and themselves at suburban Denver's Columbine High School 10 years ago next week weren't in the "Trenchcoat Mafia," disaffected videogamers who wore cowboy dusters. The killings ignited a national debate over bullying, but the record now shows Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold hadn't been bullied — in fact, they had bragged in diaries about picking on freshmen and "fags."
Their rampage put schools on alert for "enemies lists" made by troubled students, but the enemies on their list had graduated from Columbine a year earlier. Contrary to early reports, Harris and Klebold weren't on antidepressant medication and didn't target jocks, blacks or Christians, police now say, citing the killers' journals and witness accounts. That story about a student being shot in the head after she said she believed in God? Never happened, the FBI says now.
A decade after Harris and Klebold made Columbine a synonym for rage, new information — including several books that analyze the tragedy through diaries, e-mails, appointment books, videotape, police affidavits and interviews with witnesses, friends and survivors — indicate that much of what the public has been told about the shootings is wrong.

I think the real question should be asked is WHY were the stories of this horrific day distorted? Why are we being notified now of the "truth" if that is what it is? Makes it hard to believe if what they're saying now is the truth... of course why wouldn't they... well, okay... why DIDN'T they? I don't think it had to be to save the survivors any pain. That's pretty condescending and under-estimating a survivor of one who was killed in being able to handle the TRUTH of the matter.

Will we find out the truth of the Amish slayings? The Virginia Tech slayings? How about the truth of Charles Whitman... was the Grand Jury investigation of that horrific day distorted as well? It wouldn't surprise me one damned bit.

Other related articles
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/graphic-school-killings.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-lessons_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-effects-schools_N.htm

 

[Twin Fist]

they were wackjobs

 

[Andy Moynihan]

I think the real question should be asked is WHY were the stories of this horrific day distorted? Why are we being notified now of the "truth" if that is what it is? Makes it hard to believe if what they're saying now is the truth... of course why wouldn't they... well, okay... why DIDN'T they? I don't think it had to be to save the survivors any pain. That's pretty condescending and under-estimating a survivor of one who was killed in being able to handle the TRUTH of the matter.

Will we find out the truth of the Amish slayings? The Virginia Tech slayings? How about the truth of Charles Whitman... was the Grand Jury investigation of that horrific day distorted as well? It wouldn't surprise me one damned bit.

Other related articles
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/graphic-school-killings.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-lessons_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-effects-schools_N.htm

Oh, that? Why, it was distorted for the same reason ALL such stories get distorted. To capitalize on an agenda by dancing in the blood--this way you keep the populace in panic mode because you've discovered that they don't trust you when they're thinking clearly. In this case, the gun issue and to make a strawman argument for zero intell---Oops I mean zero tolerance policies for pretty much everything in schools, of course. What did you think?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I thought it was because they listened to heavy metal, played D&D and work black trench coats, like all the others. /sarcasm

 

[elder999]

I thought it was because they listened to heavy metal, played D&D and work black trench coats, like all the others. /sarcasm

Good God-sent the kids to visit their grandparents that summer, and it was utter hell for my son-came back with a hair cut, had lost the black trench coat due to a "laundry mishap" of his grandmother's, and had all new CD's as gifts.....yeah, it's funny, but I'm not kidding.

Had a nice long phone call about "all those guns," too.......:lfao:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

""These are not ordinary kids who played too many video games. These are not ordinary kids who just wanted to be famous. These are simply not ordinary kids. These are kids with serious psychological problems.""

I've been saying that since then. Nice to know that it only takes a decade to tell the truth.

 

[Big Don]

I always thought whacko was the proper answer for these two.

 

[Archangel M]

WHY?

-The confusion of such an event.
-Conflicting stories of witnesses who's perceptions were warped by stress
-Families wanting to believe the stories of their kids saying they believed in God while looking down a gun barrel.
-The fact that we can rarely figure out what was going through a killers mind (especially after they have blown them out).

Framing it as some sort of cover-up or conspiracy is BS in my opinion.

 

[Carol]

.....and publishers that understand they will likely turn a better profit on books about the incident if a healthy and respectful amount of time has passed between the murders and attempts to profit from the murders.

 

[thardey]

""These are not ordinary kids who played too many video games. These are not ordinary kids who just wanted to be famous. These are simply not ordinary kids. These are kids with serious psychological problems.""

I've been saying that since then. Nice to know that it only takes a decade to tell the truth.

"The Lie will circle the globe twice while the Truth is still putting on its shoes."

 

[punisher73]

It reminds me of a book I read called "Shotokan's Secret", the author talks about asian culture at the time in Okinawa and Japan and the concept of "honne" and "tatemae". There was, the accepted and repeated story that everyone told. Then there was the "truth" (honne) of what actually happend, which might not have been pretty or would cast a bad light on a person/situation. The facade (tatemae) was often used to keep order and "save face".

I think some of these stories provided outlets that allowed people to feel better about the situation and that many people weren't concerned with the truth and were happy about what they thought they knew.

On the other hand, I think the media and certain members of the leftwing like to victimize the criminal. Many people can't accept the fact, that there are predators out there that just want to hurt people because they enjoy it. It is much easier to say that there was a chain of events that caused it...these poor kids were loners and not accepted. They often got picked on by bullies....it's OUR fault that this happened, if we had only seen the signs.....

If you can create this mythical persona of behavior patterns and tell people the "signs", than we can all sleep better at night knowing that we can't help prevent things like this from happening again in the future. It's much better than saying, "Some people are evil and are going to do evil things, and there is nothing we can do about it, the best we can do is limit the damage".

 

[Grenadier]

If anyone deserves the finger of blame, it's the media and the people who used this hype to push their garbage agenda. Remember the Brady Bunch trying to push their gun ban through congress as a result?

I wonder, what really did more damage in the long run? Harris and Klebold, or the hype that was generated, that could have served as an inspiration for future murderers?

This is *not* to say that various murderers who use Harris and Klebold as inspiration (such as Cho Seung Hui) wouldn't have committed their deeds, but perhaps if the media stopped giving these guys so much coverage, maybe some folks wouldn't find their actions nearly as appealing.

Then again, maybe I have too many "maybe" or "perhaps" words in the above sentence...

 

[girlbug2]

Agreed Punisher.

There is a movie which I watched because it has one of my favorite actors in it (John Cusack) in which it supposedly recreated Adolph Hitler's years as a young man which led up to the Third Reich. The way it was portrayed, Hitler was a promising young artist who was discovered by a prominent art dealer, on whom he developed a crush. The series of events led up to the art dealer being secretly assassinated by the Socialist party so that Hitler would give up his future in art and dedicate himself to the party. I thought the underlying message of the film was that Hitler's repressed artistic expressions and his repressed homosexuality combined caused him to turn to the dark side, so to speak. It was an attempt to conveniently explain away how he became evil.

Gee, how easy it is to prevent another Hitler: just make sure nobody's sexuality is repressed!

Guess what, he would have been evil anyway.

 

[arnisador]

-Families wanting to believe the stories of their kids saying they believed in God while looking down a gun barrel.

That was quickly turned into a book, right? Something like "She Said Yes"?

 

[Carol]

If anyone deserves the finger of blame, it's the media and the people who used this hype to push their garbage agenda. Remember the Brady Bunch trying to push their gun ban through congress as a result?

I wonder, what really did more damage in the long run? Harris and Klebold, or the hype that was generated, that could have served as an inspiration for future murderers?

This is *not* to say that various murderers who use Harris and Klebold as inspiration (such as Cho Seung Hui) wouldn't have committed their deeds, but perhaps if the media stopped giving these guys so much coverage, maybe some folks wouldn't find their actions nearly as appealing.

Then again, maybe I have too many "maybe" or "perhaps" words in the above sentence...

And none of that relates to one of the core causes, which is mental health problems among teens. You never hear of a teenager (or an adult, for that matter) dying of a mental illness, however a top cause of death among young people is suicide. I'm not a doctor or a mental health professional but I'm going to speculate that whatever causes a person to take their one life is brought about or exacerbated by a mental health problem of some sort.

I don't know what the answer is, but banning guns and a pandemic demonization of everyday teen pastimes such as video games and obnoxious music doesn't seem like a direct path to me.

 

[jks9199]

WHY?

-The confusion of such an event.
-Conflicting stories of witnesses who's perceptions were warped by stress
-Families wanting to believe the stories of their kids saying they believed in God while looking down a gun barrel.
-The fact that we can rarely figure out what was going through a killers mind (especially after they have blown them out).

Framing it as some sort of cover-up or conspiracy is BS in my opinion.

I agree; I don't think there was much of a sinister agenda involved. Did various groups capitalize on it for their ends? Of course... Among them were the whole group of people teaching active shooter responses. And people selling various "thread assessment products."

A bunch of people succumbed to the temptation of becoming an "EXPERT" when a camera got plopped in front of them. Even if they didn't know diddly-squat. And corrections a week or more later weren't page one stories anymore.

And some material probably wasn't released as various court proceedings moved on...

 

[Flea]

If you can create this mythical persona of behavior patterns and tell people the "signs", than we can all sleep better at night knowing that we can't help prevent things like this from happening again in the future.

I suspect that if someone knew which signs to look for they would have found them (like reading their diaries ... duh.) The problem in this case seems to have been realizing that signs needed to be sought. If my kid were a straight-A student with a job I probably wouldn't think to look either.

That, and the sheeple are desperate for simple answers at a time like that. Real answers that are messy and complex simply won't do. Worse, they'll lose elections. Personally I think the ultimate illustration of that was on the evening of 9/11 when W asserted that it happened because "they hate our freedom." Sure enough, it virtually extinguished national soul-searching, making it all too easy to herd us off to war. Hm.

* edit *

I don't think the Columbine simplification is entirely bad. If it created a climate where Troubled Youth have better access to help, that's fantastic. If the research (however misguided) has produced a successful template for preventing further violence, all the better!

 

[celtic_crippler]

I think the real question should be asked is WHY were the stories of this horrific day distorted? Why are we being notified now of the "truth" if that is what it is? Makes it hard to believe if what they're saying now is the truth... of course why wouldn't they... well, okay... why DIDN'T they? I don't think it had to be to save the survivors any pain. That's pretty condescending and under-estimating a survivor of one who was killed in being able to handle the TRUTH of the matter.

Will we find out the truth of the Amish slayings? The Virginia Tech slayings? How about the truth of Charles Whitman... was the Grand Jury investigation of that horrific day distorted as well? It wouldn't surprise me one damned bit.

Other related articles
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/graphic-school-killings.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-lessons_N.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-04-13-columbine-effects-schools_N.htm

Simple....agenda. The story was dipicted as it was to suite an agenda.

Now ask what that agenda might have been and who would benefit from it....

 

[Gordon Nore]

I found the articles quite revealing, and I look forward to reading the books, Caver. Thanks for posting.

A couple of things occurred to me in reading about misinformation published in the aftermath of Columbine:

The bully vs the bullied. A lot of the early reporting on Columbine described the perpetrators as having been bullied. Even living this far away in Canada, I can report as a teacher that Columbine is often referred to as an example of the consequences of bullying. It is interesting because we have known for a very long time that chronic bullies are not typically people who feel low self-esteem; quite the reverse. And so with these boys, we see individuals with highly inflated egos and contempt for all around them.

It's really quite thought provoking. Did we become that concerned about bullying because of our desire to help victims. Or were we secretly afraid of them?

Media, videogames, etc. Again, Columbine became a call-to-arms over the preponderance of violent material that young people are exposed to. Personally, I've never been satisfied with arguments that violent television programming produces violent kids. I've always felt over-exposure to any television breeds passive and unmotivated minds and promotes physical lethargy and ill-health. Yet again, this is one of the legacies of convenience of that event.

The message that was presented certainly had an impact. Days after Columbine, a very troubled student who had been subject to bullying, entered a Taber, Alberta high school and fired on classmates with a sawed-off .22 rifle. The student was known to be preoccupied with the coverage of the Littleton, CO, shooting.

Smith walked into the school grounds just after lunch armed with a sawed off .22 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He fired at a group of three students, first hitting 17-year-old Jason Lang at point-blank range. He then shot at two other students, seriously wounding one, and missing the other.[3] Smith's family stated that he "snapped" after watching coverage of the Columbine massacre, which had occurred a week prior.[2] The Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had also been bullied and the shooter emulated them by wearing a blue trenchcoat.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._R._Myers_High_School_shooting

 

[jarrod]

you know, for most of my teen years, i wore a black trench coat, listened to heavy metal, & had long hair. in addition, my dad was pretty involved in gun trading. our house had a rotating stock of AKs, ar-15s, mini-14s, tactical shotguns, & a wide variety of pistols, & there was plenty of ammo for each of them. i don't think there were ever fewer than 20-30 firearms in the house. & even though i was bullied to an extent, it never once occurred to me to take guns to the school & shoot people. it was really weird for me when columbine happened. i could never figure out why i decided to lift weights & take martial arts while these kids decided to go on a killing spree.

jf