Accurate Basement Tape transcripts?

As you probably all know, the official basement tape transcripts (as seen on acolumbinesite) are not the most accurate. They explain most of the tapes, however there is apparently alot more i didn't know before. Some examples being a soda being spilled in one of the tapes and Eric getting mad about it, and Dylan attempting to close the shotgun slide--with the gun pointed directly at Eric. Does anyone happen to have a more accurate transcript, or know where i can read one?

I'd like to find these, only a portion is in those transcripts, the part of Eric asking Dylan if he's Jewish also isn't there..

Reporters from the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, among others, were both allowed to see the tapes.

(Dave Cullen was not allowed to see them. The Jeffco Sheriff's Office was mad at him for leaking information about the case - or so he says. I wonder how his book would have turned out if he had seen them.)

...

Rocky Mountain News

They are all awkward adolescence, with too-big feet and the chortling satisfaction boys find in cracking their knuckles.

They sit side by side in basement recliners, late into the night, munching Slim Jims and candy and occasionally swigging from a big bottle of Jack Daniel's.

They have put a video camera on a tripod to record this farewell to the world, one of several taped messages they will leave, starting weeks before their killing spree at Columbine High School.

They make their young mouths tough with dirty words. They smile over shared schoolboy memories, curse humankind, speak fondly of their parents and joke about the fun they might have as ghosts, making scary noises.

And they explain over and over why they want to kill as many people as they can.

It's exactly what the whole world already has heard.

Kids taunted them in day care, in elementary school, in middle school, in high school. Adults wouldn't let them strike back, to fight their tormenters, the way such disputes once were settled in schoolyards. So they gritted their teeth. And their rage grew.

``It's humanity,'' Dylan Klebold says, flipping an obscene gesture toward the camera. ``Look at what you made,'' he tells the world.

``You're f------ s---, you humans, and you need to die,'' he says.

``Even us,'' Eric Harris adds. We need to die too. Of course, we'll f------ die killing you f------ s--------.''

They lean back in their recliners, Harris cradling a shotgun and Klebold playing with a toothpick. When they knock over a pop can they worry, good children, that they have made a mess.

Later they model the black suits they will wear on ``Judgment Day.'' They talk about books they've liked and describe how they will kill classmates who have annoyed them most.

``When you find a body of one,'' Klebold says, looking straight into the camera, ``he's a sophomore . . . Look for his jaw. It won't be on his body.''

Harris plans to scalp another boy.

They say they hope the afterlife - if there is one - is like spending eternity in Doom, the video game they love most. Harris says it would be neat if the afterlife included getting to look at the world's mysteries. Like the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.

They sneer at life in the suburbs, rant obscenely at blacks and feminists and born-again Christians and jocks and people who wear Tommy Hilfiger clothes. They mimic people they think are stupid, using squeaky, funny voices and funny faces.

``I just know I want to kill the f----- who f----- with me,'' Klebold says.

They talk about the bombs they will plant at their school.

``Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,'' Harris says.

They laugh.

They expect to be famous, to have a cult of followers after they die. They have advice for whoever those kids might be.

``If you're going to go f------ psycho and kill a bunch of people like us . . . do it right,'' Klebold says.

They expect tougher gun laws to be discussed because of them. Don't do it, they say; it will only create a black market in guns. ``Putting more laws on won't change that,'' Klebold says.

Then Harris says, ``Let's talk about our parents for a minute.''

Klebold begins coldly. ``It's my life,'' he says. ``They gave it to me, I can do with it what I want. . . . If they don't like it, I'm sorry, but that's too bad.''

Harris is gentler. ``They might have made some mistakes that they weren't really aware of in their life with me, but they couldn't have helped it.''

Both boys say again and again that their parents are great.

The Klebolds saw this tape last fall. They cried. The Harris parents know the tape exists but haven't seen it.

``It s--- to do this to them,'' Harris says. ``They're going to go through hell once we're finished. They're never going to see the end of it.''

Klebold promises his parents there was nothing they could have done to stop what will happen.

``You can't understand what we feel; you can't understand no matter how much you think you can,'' he says.

Harris plays with a pair of scissors, rapidly snapping the blades together and apart, together and apart. They laugh at the noise.

He explains why he didn't spend more time with his family.

``I didn't want to do any more bonding with them. It will be a lot easier on them if I haven't been around as much.''

Klebold addresses all his relatives. ``I'm sorry I have so much rage,'' he says.

He samples a mouthful of candy with a mouthful of whiskey.

Harris speaks lovingly of his mother then adds, ``I really am sorry about all of this.

``But war's war.''

Klebold is playing with the candy pieces. He holds up one shape.

``Hey, guys,'' he says, ``it's a house.''

...

Denver Post

They were teenage Hitlers, spewing their own profane and violent theories on evolution and revolution from their suburban bunkers.

Lying back in plush-velvet pastel recliners, candy and Jack Daniel's nearby, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold videotaped a suicidal manifesto in their final days before the April 20 attack on their own high school.

They wanted to "kick-start the revolution," they said, leaving behind all the intimate details on "our little judgment day" in "this little film festival."

"To all the f---heads out there: get busy. The apocalypse is coming and it's starting in eight days," Harris says during a close-up. "Oh yeah," Harris says, licking his lips, "It's comin', all right."

The two Columbine High seniors who orchestrated the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history come off as smug, cocky kids armed to the teeth in the videotapes released Monday by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The tapes were found in the Harris home.

The hours of tape, shot in March and April, are filled with racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets. The two teens appear to hate everyone but themselves, hoping to kill 250 people, "the most deaths in U.S. history," Klebold said.

"We're hoping. We're hoping," Harris responds to his buddy.

Quoting sources as diverse as Shakespeare and the popular '80s teen movie "The Breakfast Club," the boys punctuate every almost phrase with profanity. Sitting in the Harris family's basement, a coffee table between them and a handmade blue afghan visible in the corner, the two reveal their virulent hatred of other students, races and women - leaving themselves as the superior dictators of who should live or die.

"It's humans that I hate," Klebold says.

"It's f---ing plain and simple," Harris affirms.

"Whatever happened to natural selection?" Klebold says, already using the term that would be found on the white T-shirt Harris wore during the rampage.

Contrary to popular opinion in the Columbine community, Harris comes off in the videos as the more sympathetic character of the two. Portrayed in the days after the attack as angry and weird, he is apologetic and somewhat remorseful in the tapes. He's careful to absolve his parents of any blame and shows sympathy to his mother, Kathy, for what he is about to do, trying not to "bond" with her because he will soon die.

"It's not their fault. They had no f---ing clue," Harris says. "It would not solve anything to arrest them."

But Harris shows some anger toward his father, Wayne, a military man who moved his family across the country several times. Harris talks of always being the new, "white, scrawny" kid.

"I had to go through all that s--- so many times," Harris says.

Klebold is monstrous on the videotapes, openly raging about his lifelong hidden anger and all the slights he suffered at the hands of students, teachers and his family. He smiles ghoulishly into the camera, lovingly handles weapons and constantly combs his fingers through his shoulder-length red hair. He shows no contrition, only deadly aggression.

"This goes to all my family: I'm sorry I have so much rage," Klebold says. "You made me what I am. Actually, you just added to what I am."

While bragging and proudly displaying their amassed arsenal, hidden in Harris' bedroom, the two are typical teenagers, burping into the camera at one point, washing down Sweet-Tart-like candies with whiskey at another interval. Virtually bleeding testosterone, they both do a long dress rehearsal in their respective bedrooms, preening before the camera in their combat clothes like skinny Rambos.

During a tour of Harris' bedroom, where outside they have buried some of their ammunition in what they call "the whiskey bunker," the two point out semi-automatic weapons and Harris' beloved G.I. Joe action figures.

"I've always loved them," Harris says, with Klebold complaining that the manufacturer should make "at least one moveable part" in G.I. Joes.

Along with ammunition clips, a coffee can full of gunpowder, hand grenades and duct tape-covered pipe bombs, Harris shows the closet corner where he stashed "Arlene," his gun named after a favorite character in the "Doom" series of books. The gun sits next to a foot-long knife with a swastika carved into its black leather handle, which Klebold said cost just "one easy payment of $15."

"That'll take out whoever can f---ing get close to it," Klebold says as he shows off a stash of three pipe bombs.

"Thank God my parents don't search my room," Harris responds with a laugh.

In another tape, shot just prior to the April 3 weekend, the two have laid out their arsenal, including their guns and "Arlene," whose name is scratched into one of the guns.

"Gosh, she's f---ing beautiful," Harris says of his gun with a girl's name. "This is what you f---ers are up against."

During Klebold's dress rehearsal on April 17, in the only piece of the tapes made at the Klebold residence, he worries that his gun is making his black trench coat bulky. As he looks for the backpack he will use during the rampage, Klebold goes to his closet where he finds his prom tuxedo hanging.

"Robyn," Klebold says, addressing his prom date and gun buyer Robyn Anderson, "I didn't really want to go to prom. But since I'm going to be dying, I thought I might do something cool."

In the last of their video farewells, the two appear anxious, telling their future audience that it's about a half-hour before "our little judgment day." They will everything in their bedrooms to their friends Chris Morris and Nate Dykeman and quickly say goodbye as they strap on their weapons.

"Just know I'm going to a better place," Klebold says. "I didn't like life too much."

"That's it. Sorry. Goodbye," Harris says.

"Goodbye," Klebold says up close, and the tape ends.

EXCERPTS

Here are excerpts from the videotapes made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, made available to the media and victims' families by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Monday:

"There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent this, and no one is to blame but me and voDKa. No one else." - From Harris during a rambling suicidal monologue made eight days before the massacre.

"It's kinda hard on me, these last few days. This is my last week on Earth and they don't know." - From Harris, same monologue, referring to his rejection by the Marines and struggles with his parents.

"I declared war on the human race and war is what it is." - Harris.

"If you get p-----, well, go kill some people. Take out some aggression." - Harris to anyone angry about the Columbine attack.

"You know who you are. Thanks. You made me feel good. Think about that for a while, f---ing bitches." - Harris, after listing five girls "who never even called me back."

"This came up so quick. It's pretty weird knowing you're going to die." - Harris.

"This is just a two-man war against everything else." - Harris about the stress from last-minute preparations.

"This is the book of God" - Harris, upon opening a journal outlining the Columbine attack.

"Somehow, I'll publish these. This is the thought process, the evolution I've gone through for the past year." - Harris on his journal.

"This is the suicide plan." - Harris, explaining a hand-drawn armed warrior drawn in his journal.

"Have. Need." Two headings above a list of items Harris and Klebold would need for the attack, from Harris' journal.

"Should have died first." - From Harris' journal, under a hit list of a dozen students' names.

"We're going to die doing it, you f---ing s----" - Klebold, after saying he wanted to kill 250 people.

"It's long. It keeps the elements off." - Klebold on the black trench coats he and Harris planned to wear during their attack.

"We didn't f---ing plan it, that's why." - Klebold, on why he and Harris got caught breaking into a van in Jefferson County in 1998.

"He doesn't deserve the jaw evolution gave him." - Klebold, on wanting to kill a sophomore boy, after telling investigators to "look for his jaw. It won't be on his body."

"Whatever happened to natural selection?" - Klebold, ranting that he hates humans.

"Yes, moms stay home. That's what women are supposed to f---ing do." - Harris, on the role of women.

"F---ing make me dinner, bitch." - Harris, on what he would say to a woman.

"They're not f---ing as smart as white people. They're all spear-chuckers while we're shooting guns." - Klebold, on blacks.

"I just know I want to kill the little f---ers who f---ed with me. It's going to be like Doom, man." - Klebold, referring to his favorite video game.

"I wish I was a f---ing psychopath so I wouldn't have any remorse for this." - Harris

"You can't understand what we feel, no matter how much you think you can." - Klebold, to his parents.

"I've always loved you guys for that." - Klebold, saying his parents gave him "self-awareness, self-reliance."

"Hopefully, death is like being in a dream state." - Harris.

"What would Jesus do? What would I do? Ka-pow!" - Klebold, mocking the WWJD bracelets Christians wear, then aiming his finger gun-like at the camera.

"I really am sorry about this, but war's war." - Harris to this mother.

"Gotta love the Nazis." "Nazis are so efficient." - Harris, then Klebold, during a video tour of Harris' bedroom to see the ammunition. "Holy s---, that's scary." - Harris, as Klebold points a gun at the camera and smiles.

"That is cool, dude. Every faggot's last sight." - Klebold, as Harris sights a gun's laser light on him.

"This is for Robyn: You are very f---ing cool. Thank you very much." - Klebold, to Robyn Anderson, the Columbine senior who bought three of the guns used in the attack.

"That's it. Sorry. Goodbye." "Goodbye." Harris, then Klebold on the final tape.

...

New York Times

GOLDEN, Colo., Dec. 13— Videotapes made by two teenage gunmen as they planned a massacre and their own suicide at Columbine High School show them filled with rage and hopeful of killing 250 people, yet sympathetic to their parents for what they would soon endure.

''They're going to be put through hell once we do this,'' one of the killers, Eric Harris, said of his parents in the last of the tapes he made with the other, Dylan Klebold.

And, as if to lift from their parents any sense of guilt, remorse or responsibility, Mr. Harris quietly quotes Shakespeare: ''Good wombs have borne bad sons.''

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office showed the tapes to reporters in this Denver suburb today after Time magazine reported on them in this week's issue, which was made available to the news media on Sunday. The Denver Rocky Mountain News reported on the tapes today.

Some families of the victims were angered at the authorities for releasing the tapes, along with surveillance videos from the Columbine cafeteria, where no one was shot but where the killers are seen walking among students cowering behind overturned desks and chairs.

Mr. Harris and Mr. Klebold, Columbine seniors, made three tapes in the weeks leading to their assault, on April 20, when they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded two dozen others before turning their guns on themselves.

The tapes are a macabre documentary of the meticulous planning for the attack, which the two youths called retaliation for years of taunting that they said friends and relatives had inflicted on them because of an unwillingness to dress and act as others wanted.

The tapes were left by the killers at the Harris home, to be recovered by the authorities after the assault. Taken together, they show two boys who have concluded that they can no longer cope with everyday life.

''If you could see all the anger I've stored over the past four years,'' Mr. Klebold says, looking into the camera.

''More rage, more rage,'' Mr. Harris says. ''I'm building it up.''

The rage erupted at their school, in the nearby town of Littleton, where they detonated bombs and marched through the library, taking victim after victim before turning their guns on themselves.

Wayne Halverson, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said the tapes were shown to reporters today because Time had violated its agreement with investigators by using direct quotations from them. The authorities, he said, feared that with only one media outlet, there was ''potential for sensationalism and the resulting anguish to the victims' families.''

Mr. Halverson said investigators had agreed to show the tapes to Time ''for background purposes only,'' to provide information about the killers' motives.

But Diana Pearson, a spokeswoman for Time, said that the magazine had made no such agreement and that the authorities had not insisted on any restrictions.

By the time the tapes were shown today, neither the families of the victims nor those of the gunmen had seen the tapes, Mr. Halverson said, adding that arrangements were being made for them to view them.

Krista R. Flannigan, a victim services consultant who has worked with many relatives of the Columbine victims, said she talked to some of the families today. A number were upset that the tapes had been shown before they could see them, Ms. Flannigan said, but others were glad that through news accounts, the public had had a chance to see the gunmen for what they were.

The tapes, most of them shot in the Harris home, are more than two hours long in all. The first footage was taken on March 15, the last just before the shooting. On the last part, the boys spend little more than a minute saying goodbye.

''I just wanted to apologize to you guys,'' Mr. Harris says. ''To everyone I love, I'm really sorry about all this.''

And Mr. Klebold adds, ''Just know we're going to a better place.''

Through much of the tapes, the boys talk about the frustrations of their lives and their plans for April 20, all against a backdrop of clear self-loathing and hatred for all mankind, especially minority groups. They repeatedly refer to blacks, Jews and other minorities with racial epithets. And they express hate as well for young athletes and other Columbine students more popular than they.

Sitting on easy chairs in the Harris home, the two youths take turns talking into the camera, recalling all the people who they feel mistreated them. The list includes elementary-school classmates and relatives in addition to students at Columbine.

They acknowledge a pent-up desire to ''get paybacks'' against their enemies, and say they expect their crime to ''kick-start a revolution.''

''Isn't it fun to get the respect that we're going to deserve?'' says Mr. Harris, holding the sawed-off shotgun he would use at Columbine.

Particularly harrowing for the viewer is a 17-minute visit to Mr. Harris's cluttered bedroom, where he plays tour guide for Mr. Klebold, who is acting as cinematographer and interviewer. With exquisite precision and detail, Mr. Harris holds before the camera an arsenal of guns, bombs and ammunition that he has concealed on shelves, in boxes and behind knickknacks. At one point, he gestures to a ''bunker'' outside his window where he claims to be storing mortar rounds, pipe bombs and other explosives.

''Thank God my parents never searched my room,'' he tells Mr. Klebold. As they are leaving his room, he pretends his mother has just walked in. ''Looks good, son,'' he says, as if mocking her.

The tapes also show crucial differences between the two teenagers. While they do not make clear that Mr. Harris was the schemer and Mr. Klebold merely a follower, as reports soon after the assault surmised, it does appear that Mr. Harris is the more dominant of the two. During much of their give-and-take, Mr. Harris introduces most new thoughts, and Mr. Klebold builds on them.

It is also during those moments that Mr. Harris, far more than Mr. Klebold, expresses regret -- hauntingly, at times -- for what they feel they must do and how he thinks it will affect his family.

''My dad's great,'' Mr. Harris says, ''and my mother, she's so thoughtful. She helps out in so many ways. I wish I was a sociopath, so I didn't have any remorse for this. But I do. They are going to go through hell for this. This is going to tear them apart.''

...

Los Angeles Times

GOLDEN, Colo. — In chilling home movies in which they acted out their attack, laughing at and mocking those they planned to kill, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left behind a stark videotaped document that spelled out for authorities their motivation and the methods the teenagers used in their rampage at Columbine High School.

In the videotapes shown to reporters here Monday, Harris and Klebold say they hope to carry out the biggest mass murder in U.S. history. At times speaking directly to law enforcement officials, the young men meticulously recount how they obtained the four guns and built the bombs they used to kill 12 classmates, a teacher and, finally take their own lives. The hours of tape are filled with profanity and tirades against gays, African Americans, women and Jews.

In one session taped March 15, viewers are given a disturbing look into the minds of the teenage killers. Lounging on reclining chairs in the basement of the Harris home, the shooters speak of their rage, fueled by what they say were years of taunting from athletes, rich kids and peers interested only in conformity. Their hate-filled conversation includes a discussion about how they planned to blow off one classmate's jaw and to scalp another.

"I hope we kill all 250 of you," says Klebold. "If you could see the rage I've built up over the years. . . ."

Harris, swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels and lovingly handling a sawed-off shotgun he named Arlene, shrugs, "I'm really sorry about all of this, but war's war."

Three videotapes prepared by Harris and Klebold in the months before the April 20 attack were found at Harris' home soon after the carnage. They are startling in their matter-of-fact recitation by the gunmen of what they intended to do to those they believed had wronged them.

At one point, Harris begins to list every girl who declined to go out with him. He muses about dying and becoming a ghost, and the two guffaw about haunting the survivors of their shooting spree, making noises that will trigger flashbacks and "drive them insane."

Also shown Monday was a black and white surveillance tape from the Columbine cafeteria, where pipe bombs were detonated and fires broke out at the start of the rampage. The silent tape depicts the busy lunch hour cafeteria where the gunmen had placed the largest bombs. With a time display showing 11:25, flashes are shown and students dive under tables. Smoke billows and obscures the camera, blurring the bright strobes of fire alarms.

After a fire breaks out, most of the students race out of the lunchroom and up a flight of stairs. At one point a man walks through the frame; an explosion blows him off his feet.

Harris and Klebold enter the cafeteria twice. Brandishing their guns, they thread their way around overturned chairs, and Harris stops to drink from an abandoned soda cup. Unnoticed by the gunmen are six students huddled under a table.

The existence of the videotapes was not publicly known until last month. Excerpts were read at the sentencing of the man who sold the pair the TEC-DC9 assault pistol that Klebold used during the attack. At the time, authorities said they didn't want to release the tapes because they might bring the gunmen the notoriety they sought.

Jefferson County officials made an abrupt turnaround Monday when Time magazine published a detailed account of the massacre based on the home movies provided by the sheriff's office. A sheriff's spokesman said the department felt obligated to share the tapes with the media and the families of the slain, although no video or audio recording of the tapes was allowed.

Families of the victims had been asking authorities for months to view the tapes but had been rebuffed. Sheriff's officials on Monday apologized to the families for the timing of the release, amid the holiday season. Authorities said they hope to complete an official report on their investigation next month.

The graphic tapes upset at least one Columbine family. The parents of Brooks Brown, a onetime friend to Klebold, attended the video viewing. At one point, an emotional Randy Brown asked reporters, "Why don't you do us a favor and wait until after Christmas to show this? What does it prove?"

Later, Judy Brown said she wanted to see the tapes, "to help us through this. I loved Dylan."

The tapes reveal the teenagers' fascination and detailed knowledge of the armaments they had amassed. In one segment, they lay out all the pipe bombs, homemade grenades, ammunition, knives and guns on the floor, fanning them out in a fancy display. On a video tour of Harris' room with lighthearted narration from both young men, desk drawers are filled with bomb-making material, a closet holds combat knives and guns and gunpowder are stored in a coffee can.

Harris waves his journal and suggests to law enforcement officials that if they want to know what led him to plan a bloody rampage, they should simply "Read this."

The pair dismiss what they anticipate will be comparisons to other school shootings, mocking with backwoods accents the camouflage-wearing boys who shot classmates in Kentucky. "Do not think we're trying to copy anyone," Harris says. "We thought of this before the first one ever happened."

Harris and Klebold discuss the cults that might follow their example and seem gleeful about their impending fame. They debate whether Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino will immortalize them on screen. "Directors will be fighting over this story," Klebold remarks.

A few weeks before the attack, the two perform an elaborate fashion show, modeling appropriate clothes and donning bandoliers holding spare ammunition, bombs, knives and guns. Both posture for the camera, mock-shooting their guns at the lens and then whooping after the "kill."

In the last snippet of tape, a one-minute segment shot on the morning of their rampage, Harris and Klebold are dressed and ready for "our little Judgment Day."

Both teenagers are tense, and Klebold is seen pacing. He looks into the camera and bids his parents farewell saying, "I didn't like life too much. Just know I am going to a better place than here."

Harris says tersely, "That's it. Gotta go. Goodbye."

Rocky Mountain News

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris didn't really understand the concept of death, a psychologist said Monday.

In the tapes Klebold and Harris made before they died, Klebold says to his parents, ``Just know I'm going to a better place. I didn't like life too much, and I know I'll be happy wherever the f--- I go.''

The teens also speak of hoping the afterlife will be a dreamlike state.

``Hopefully,'' Harris says at one point, ``death is like you're in a dream state for all of eternity.''

They both also imagine it might be like a level of Doom - the violent video game the youths played for hours.

``Klebold is clear about going to another place,'' said John Dicke, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a lawyer. ``There's a magical quality. It's not a hell. They'll walk through a door and come out on the other side.''

Dicke said such views are ``typical in children and adolescents. It's what you'd expect from a developmentally arrested kid.''

Although Harris' parents were married in a Christian church, he shows no fear of an eternity in hell. Klebold's mother's family was Jewish, a religion that emphasizes good works while someone is alive.

But Klebold insists there is no God.

Dicke also noted the teens ``seem to be so aware of what their parents are going to think and how they are going to hurt them,'' but they go ahead with their mass killing anyway.

``Either they have no conscience, or they are deliberately destroying their parents' lives,'' he said. ``At some level, they know and they don't care.''

Psychologist Carolee Nimmer of Kaiser-Permanente warned that the videotapes could re-trigger the trauma for survivors.

Even people who felt they were getting better eight months after the tragedy could suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress again, Nimmer said.

She was particularly disturbed by Harris' taunt that the killers would come back and haunt the survivors as ghosts, causing flashbacks and driving them insane.

``Those are essentially post-traumatic stress symptoms - flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, feeling like you're going crazy,'' Nimmer said. ``Suggesting that Eric is somehow causing that could be really distressing.''

But as difficult as it might be to read about or view the videotapes, Dicke believes that ``victims need to know this stuff - the senselessness, the randomness. It fills in more pieces of the puzzle, and that's what people who have been traumatized need to deal with it effectively.''

Finally, Nimmer has a suggestion for parents who read about the videotapes and worry for their own children.

``What they should do is talk to their kids . . . and ask if they are upset,'' Nimmer said.

Parents who read that the killers' bombs and guns were in their rooms debated Monday whether they should search their own children's rooms.

``If a parent feels the need to look in a child's room, they need to talk to the child about it first,'' Nimmer advised. ``Say that, `I'm concerned about what you're doing . . . and I'm going to go look in your room now.' ''

Children might still be angry, but at least they will understand, Nimmer said.

Parents should apologize for the violation of privacy but move immediately to a discussion of the issue that led to the search, she advised.

Parents also tend to tell their kids what they think, instead of asking the child what he or she would do in a particular situation, Nimmer said.

``Sometimes, kids will open up more than parents realize, if they are offered the opportunity.''

...

Rocky Mountain News

am, like so many people, sick of this story. I hate the death, the pain and sorrow that has devastated so many lives. I want all reminders of it to vanish, for all of us to heal.

Still, I am glad I saw the videos. I think you should, too. They should gift wrap them, stick them in with the diapers and the formula whenever a parent goes home with a new child.

Those two boys could have - yes, they could have - been yours. Or mine. The mere thought makes me tremble.

They sit for hours, Wayne's World-style, in overstuffed chairs, telling of how they hate everyone. Everyone. Eric Harris does so while cradling - no, caressing - the shotgun he will use to kill some of those 13 people.

It is the most remarkable three hours of video I think I have ever seen. And, please, someone tell me how those two 17-year-old boys got that way.

And they are babies. Little punk kids. It's what I kept thinking as I watched. Near the end, as they do their dress rehearsal - struggling to don the weapons, knives, pipe bombs and ammunition they would carry into the school, I laughed. Goofy little boys playing soldier. But then, I remembered how it all ended.

They are so calm about it all. It's just matter-of-fact: ``You guys all will die, and it will be soon,'' Eric Harris says, no emotion in his voice. Yet their pain drips from them.

They recall how it's always been: the geeks who always got picked on. You name the grade. How girls would never call them back. Even as a senior, a punk freshman ``ripped,'' or picked on him, Dylan Klebold recalled. The freshman didn't get in trouble; he did. It would never stop. Unless he made it stop.

``Only four or five people here didn't rip on me - four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!'' Eric Harris moaned to his pal. If he were just able to get in small fistfights, like he used to, Harris says. Now, he'd get suspended, his parents sued. Now, he says, pointing his shotgun ``Arlene'' at the screen, he has no choice.

He appears much more introspective, Harris does, and clearly the smarter of the two. He quotes Socrates, explains the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean to Klebold as they discuss the afterlife.

``I hope it's not boring,'' they say. They are at once cool and excited when talking of killing and dying. It reminded me of the way we'd talk as kids about baseball and becoming, maybe, a Yankee.

You see by watching how these two got together. They found each other to share their pain, to lash back at the rejection. Only when they speak of their mothers do they grow somber. They twiddle their fingers in front of their faces. They do not once look at the camera.

Their talk moves easily from GI Joes (Harris: ``I wish I had more so I could play with them'') to pipe bombs and TEC-9s. (Klebold: ``A tray of bullets. How cute!'')

It is odd how you hope, sitting there watching these boys boast about and display the arsenal they have collected, they were only kidding around. But then, there is the last tape, made the morning of April 20. It is short, emotionless.

``Sorry, goodbye,'' the both say.

You remember the dozens of bullets and boxes of shotgun shells you've seen repeatedly over the past three hours. Which one of those killed whom?

I am going to tell my son I love him every chance I get. I'm going to hug him whenever he is around, and ask him constantly about his life. I pretty much do that now, but . . .

I'm sorry. But when I walked out of that room and into the sunshine, it was a vow I made. To love my son better and harder. I see those boys' faces and can think of nothing else right now.

*link no longer available

thank you very much. i just only read the stuff from time.

as much as people call them irrational and crazy, after reading this you can see that Eric and Dylan knew exactly what was happening, they predicted exactly how the aftermath would turn out on future laws, their parents and the media.. They just knew beforehand how it would all pan out.

CharlesWhitman wrote:

as much as people call them irrational and crazy, after reading this you can see that Eric and Dylan knew exactly what was happening, they predicted exactly how the aftermath would turn out on future laws, their parents and the media.. They just knew beforehand how it would all pan out.

They actually did predict quite a bit of what would happen, I entirely agree. Eric in his journals goes on how people would prolly blame his parents or friends or the music he listens to etc. Its eerie how all of this did in fact come about.

E&D often wrote or said stupid immature stuff, but their asessment of what will happen after NBK is actually some of their most mature and accurate statements.

Great posts Lporter! I never read some of these.

Sabratha wrote:

CharlesWhitman wrote:

as much as people call them irrational and crazy, after reading this you can see that Eric and Dylan knew exactly what was happening, they predicted exactly how the aftermath would turn out on future laws, their parents and the media.. They just knew beforehand how it would all pan out.

They actually did predict quite a bit of what would happen, I entirely agree. Eric in his journals goes on how people would prolly blame his parents or friends or the music he listens to etc.  Its eerie how all of this did in fact come about.

E&D often wrote or said stupid immature stuff, but their asessment of what will happen after NBK is actually some of their most mature and accurate statements.

Well, not entirely accurate, since Eric was hoping for a mass scale revolution, which obviously didn't happen. They did certainly get followers, but they seemed to overestimate their influence. Of course, this is probably because the attack itself was supposed to be much grander and deadly in scale.
As for the tape transcripts, it wouldn't surprise me if the media fabricated certain elements of them.

LPorter101 wrote:

(Dave Cullen was not allowed to see them. The Jeffco Sheriff's Office was mad at him for leaking information about the case - or so he says. I wonder how his book would have turned out if he had seen them.)

Probably better, because he would have more direct info from E&D. Not much better though, I'm sure he would find ample material to misinterpret.

...

He is referring to Grade 10 student Brandon E Larson.

I bump, therefore I am.

The best way to get an accurate transcript of the Basement Tapes is to collect the sources from the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, TIME, and the 11K that describe them.

If the basement tapes are "destroyed" I wonder if full word for word transcripts of them exist... I mean I'd totally settle for them over nothing...

Thanks for posting all this, greatly appreciate it.

deleted

Someone earlier mentioned about a website called "The columbine archive," which was deleted. What was the url to the site?

wawbeast44 wrote:

Someone earlier mentioned about a website called "The columbine archive," which was deleted. What was the url to the site?

It was a section on this site. It had a bunch of articles posted on it. I think for right now it is just on private so only the mods can see it. But Lporter has all the articles so you may want to message him if you are interested in anything. He is a wealth of knowledge

Thanks for all that. Appreciate it.

deleted

wawbeast44 wrote:

I've cleaned EVERYTHING up, but there are some more stuff that needs to be added. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks man!

Dave cullen said he had a Basement tapes spreadsheet, someone should email him about that.

wawbeast44 wrote:

Dave cullen said he had a Basement tapes spreadsheet, someone should email him about that.

No one should ask for anything from him. I am sure he has tainted it with his version already

Hey guys! I messaged lporter and was wondering if you guys have the links for the rocky mountain news articles on the basement tapes posted above. Or dates even. They are so good and I need to use them but want accurate sources.

Okeh, here are the references:

"They are all awkward adolescence..."

'I really am sorry ... but war's war'
Columbine killers' videotapes record raging anger amid remorse for parents

The Rocky Mountain News - December 13, 1999

By Karen Abbott and Dan Luzadder
News Staff Writers

...

"They were teenage Hitlers..."

Killers' hatred shows in vitriolic "film festival'

The Denver Post - December 14, 1999

By Peggy Lowe

...

"Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris didn't really understand..."

Killers had unrealistic view of death

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Ann Imse
News Staff Writer

...

"I am, like so many people, sick..."

Killers' tapes horrific, yet heartbreaking to watch

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Bill Johnson

I bump, therefore I am.

Thanks.

Thank you for bumping this!!! It shows so many things that aren’t in the “transcripts”. I had no clue how many different sources reported different parts of the BT.

Thanks for the bump!

manicdepressiondreams wrote:

Thanks for the bump!

You’re welcome. There are lots of goodies hiding in the archives of this site.

Even acolubinesite doesn't have a lot of these things on the Basement Tapes. Like there was at one point Dylan was playing with his shot gun and accidentally pointed at Eric, and he was pissed. This wasn't talked about in a lot of the transcripts we received. So many things, yet so many things left unsaid.

LPorter101 wrote:

Okeh, here are the references:

"They are all awkward adolescence..."

'I really am sorry ... but war's war'
Columbine killers' videotapes record raging anger amid remorse for parents

The Rocky Mountain News - December 13, 1999

By Karen Abbott and Dan Luzadder
News Staff Writers

...

"They were teenage Hitlers..."

Killers' hatred shows in vitriolic "film festival'

The Denver Post - December 14, 1999

By Peggy Lowe

...

"Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris didn't really understand..."

Killers had unrealistic view of death

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Ann Imse
News Staff Writer

...

"I am, like so many people, sick..."

Killers' tapes horrific, yet heartbreaking to watch

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Bill Johnson

What happened with all those links?

patogen wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

Okeh, here are the references:

"They are all awkward adolescence..."

'I really am sorry ... but war's war'
Columbine killers' videotapes record raging anger amid remorse for parents

The Rocky Mountain News - December 13, 1999

By Karen Abbott and Dan Luzadder
News Staff Writers

...

"They were teenage Hitlers..."

Killers' hatred shows in vitriolic "film festival'

The Denver Post - December 14, 1999

By Peggy Lowe

...

"Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris didn't really understand..."

Killers had unrealistic view of death

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Ann Imse
News Staff Writer

...

"I am, like so many people, sick..."

Killers' tapes horrific, yet heartbreaking to watch

The Rocky Mountain News - December 14, 1999

By Bill Johnson

What happened with all those links?

I posted the full articles earlier in the thread. Someone asked me for the articles' titles and the authors' names.

Oh, cool.