The (Inevitable) Cullen Debate

First post, and it is a long one. And I'm sure a post very similar to this has been put on the site before, but this is something I just need to get off my chest. This is about Dave Cullen's Columbine and some of the claims he makes that other people who research Columbine can't stand (I included). What bothers me is that Cullen's Columbine is IMMENSELY popular with the public, and if he got these things wrong, then in my eyes it is unfair that the public is consuming these lies. But I want to be fair. I also want to have a conversation with fellow researchers that is more than just "Dave Cullen is stupid/a liar/doesn't know anything". See, I don't think Cullen is TRYING to lie about this; I feel like he believes these statements. So I expect there to be at least SOME grain of truth to them, even if that means it only makes sense if you don't do a lot of research. So feel free to post either pro or anti Cullen comments.

So I'm going to post the four claims Cullen makes that people seem to REALLY hate, and then provide evidence against each one. Then hopefully you guys discuss it.

1. Bullying had nothing to do with the massacre.

This is probably the most infamous one. First of all, many Columbine students such as Brooks Brown, Chad Laughlin, Chris Morris, and Kristi Epling talked about how bullying WAS an issue at Columbine and how it DID influence Eric and Dylan (I would talk about No Easy Answers but I have not read it yet). But hey, why bother with them when we can take the killers' word for it?

From Eric's Journal:
"Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit, well I will get you all back: ultimate fucking revenge here. you people could have shown more respect, treated me better, asked for my knowledge or guidence more, treated me more like senior, and maybe I wouldn't have been as ready to tear your fucking heads off. then again, I have always hated how I looked, I make fun of people who look like me, sometimes without even thinking sometimes just because I want to rip on myself. Thats where a lot of my hate grows from, the fact that I have practically no selfesteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such. therefore people make fun of me... constantly... therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED."
"If people would give me more compliments all of this might still be avoidable... but probably not. Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face. I'll get revenge soon enough. fuckers shouldn't have ripped on me so much huh! HA! then again its human nature to do what you did... so I guess I am also attacking the human race. I cant take it, Its not right... true... correct... perfect. I fucking hate the human equation."
"I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say, "well thats your fault" because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo. " (A bit of a stretch, but it does show social isolation at least)
"sometime in april me and V will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches" (No DIRECT reference to bullying, but he does call the attack a revenge)
From Dylan's Writing:
(In Eric's Yearbook) "My wrath for January's incident will be godlike, not to mention our revenge in the commons" (Another reference to revenge)
(In Eric's Yearbook) "NBK will be the ultimate revenge to our shitlists, he pigs, everyone!" (revenge, and to "our shitlists")
(there are many references to hating jocks and "the assholes that prevail" in Klebold's writing, but its not worth digging up. Dont worry, more on Dylan soon)
From the basement tape transcripts:
ERIC HARRIS: I'm sorry I have so much rage, but you put it on me.
Eric then complains about his father and how his family had to move five times. He says he always had to be the new kid in school, and was always at the bottom of the "food chain", and had no chance to earn any respect from his peers as he always had to "start out at the bottom of the ladder". He hated the way people made fun of him: "my face, my hair, my shirts." He's wearing a t-shirt that has the words "Wilder Wein" printed on it -- he references the shirt several times during the video but never explains what it means. [Wilder Wein is a song written by Rammstein.]
HARRIS: More rage. More rage. [motions with his hands for emphasis] Keep building it on.
KLEBOLD: If you could see all the anger I've stored over the past four fucking years...
Dylan then recalls how popular and athletic his older brother Byron was and how he constantly "ripped" on him, as did his brother's friends. According to Dylan, with the exception of his parents, his extended family treated him like the runt of the litter.
KLEBOLD: You made me what I am. You added to the rage.
Dylan says that as far back as the Foothills Day Care center he hated the "stuck-up" kids who he felt hated him.
KLEBOLD: Being shy didn't help. I'm going to kill you all. You've been giving us shit for years.

"They also mention enemies that abused them and friends who didn't do enough to defend them."

Not to mention, Dylan did yell for all jocks/people wearing white hats to stand up (go to acolumbinesite and look at the homepage to see leaked audio of the full library 9/11 call that confirms this). Also, many people heard one of them reference that "this is for all the shit you've given us for the past four years".

2. Eric Harris was a ladies man

This claim Chad Laughlin finds extremely offensive (go to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to read Chad Laughlin talk about this notion and when he saw Klebold being bullied viciously). Keep in mind, Laughlin knew Eric personally. But once again, let's take it straight from the journals of the perpertrator. Now, Dave makes his "ladies man" claim right before mentioning that Eric scored with a 23 year old. This is referring to the Brenda Parker incident, which the FBI included never happened and was a lie made up by Parker. And this was IN the 11K! Come on Cullen.

You Decide: Does this sound like the words of a so called "ladies man"?
"why the fuck cant I get any? I mean, I'm nice and considerate and all that shit, but nooooo. I think I try to hard. but I kinda need to considering NBK is closing in"
"you know what maybe I just need to get laid. maybe that'll just change some shit around. thats another thing, I am a fucking dog. I have fantasies of just taking someone and fucking them hard and strong. someone like [censored] were I just pick her up, take her to my room, tear off her shirt and pants and just eat her out and fuck her hard. "
"Thats where a lot of my hate grows from, the fact that I have practically no selfesteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such."

If you are interested, google search Peter Langman's compilation of witnesses who knew Eric and Dylan. Under the section concerning girls, read the section on Eric. I promise you, what you read will NOT represent Eric as a hardcore ladies man. And this is not opinion: this is coming straight from the source!

I honestly doubt he was a ladies man who, as Cullen put it, outscored even the athletes at the school! Eric also doubted that, as did the people who knew him.

3. Eric Harris was a Psycopath

I don't know enough about Psychopathy to say whether this is true or not. I will say, however, that Cullen says this because Eric did not feel empathy towards others.
From the basement tapes:
"HARRIS: My parents are the best fucking parents I have ever known. My dad is great. I wish I was a fucking sociopath so I didn't have any remorse, but I do. This is going to tear them apart. They will never forget it. [He then addresses his parents directly, if briefly] There is nothing you guys could have done to prevent any of this. There is nothing that anyone could have done to prevent this. No one is to blame except me and Vodka [Klebold nickname]. Our actions are a two man war against everyone else."

If he could not feel empathy like a psychopath, then why did he CLEARLY show empathy there? He understood how his parents would feel after the attack. He showed empathy. Oh well.

4. Dylan Klebold was just a depressive follower of Eric/Was not nearly as invested in the massacre/Eric was the mastermind.

THIS one. The one that painted Dylan as the depressed follower who was just Eric's puppet.
What's odd is that Cullen seems to think that Dylan's journal is full of him tearing his own self apart: self loathing. While his journal IS full of depressed and suicidal tendencies, he CLEARLY thinks highly of himself! He CONSTANTLY refers to himself as a god and that other people's existences are shallow compared to his. That seems to be what helped fuel his rage, as he said in Eric's yearbook, "they will see what happens when gods get pissed". He saw himself as a GOD, even if he was a god of sadness. To quote him:
"his is prob. my last
entry. [line points to "I will never stop learning."] i love my
self, close second to
[edited], my everlasting
love. Goodbye"

But wait. Dylan was writing about homicidal tendencies BEFORE Eric and him started planning NBK. Here's the proof:
"The zombies & their society band together & try to destroy what is superior & what they don't understand & are afraid of. Soon... either ill commit suicide, or I'll get w. [edited] & it will be NBK for us. My hapiness. her hapiness. NOTHING else matters."

Here, Dylan talks about going NBK with the girl he has a crush on. That's something he WANTS to do. But since the partner is not Eric, it means he had the idea of a team mass rampage BEFORE planning with Eric. Cullen wants to tell you that he was just a follower, but he even was using the term "NBK" before Eric and him started planning! And even BEFORE this entry, in '97, he is even more explicit:
"Nobody will help me... only exist w. me if it suits them. i helped, why cant they? [edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want."
Here it is, Dylan CLEARLY expressing the want of going on a rampage before NBK was a plan both he and Eric had. He says HIS killing spree. Dylan had homicidal tendencies apart from Eric!
Here is another entry from his journal, one of the last ones:
" “ One day. one is the beginning? the end. hahaha. reversed, yet true. About 26.5 hours from now the judgement will begin. Difficult, but not impossible, necessary, nervewracking & fun.
What fun is life without
a little death?
Its interesting, when im in my human form, knowing im going to die. Everything has a touch of triviality to it. like how none of this calculus shit matters. the way it shuldn't. the truth. In 26.4 hours ill be dead, & in happiness. The little zombie human fags will know their errors, & be forever suffering & mournful, HAHAHA, of course i will miss things. not really.”
Dylan also wrote a short story discussing brutally murdering college preps.
Basement tapes:
"“KLEBOLD: We're hoping. We're hoping. I hope we kill 250 of you. It will be the most nerve-racking 15 minutes of my life, after the bombs are set and we're waiting to charge through the school. Seconds will be like hours. I can't wait. I'll be shaking like a leaf.”
In Eric's Yearbook:
"“We, the gods, will have SO much fun with NBK!! Killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops!! My wrath for January’s incident will be godlike. Not to mention our revenge in the commons. GAWWD. Soo many people need to die ... You know what I hate?? PEOPLE!! YEAA!”
Read the transcripts of the basement tapes and Dylan's writing in eric's yearbook to see him EXCITED for NBK. He WANTS to kill. He is no follower. Once again, Chad Laughlin agrees (see above for link to article where he discusses this). Of course Cullen will tell you that since Dylan was with Eric in the tapes and writing in Eric's yearbook, those aren't Dylan's true thoughts/intentions. Well, you can't prove OR disprove that, but you can prove that Dylan expressed homicidal wants without Eric supposedly controlling him. Which I did.

Last but not least, here is a quote from Brooks Brown about Eric and Dylan's behavior in the library (he heard the 9/11 call):

"“Eric is much more stoic. He does laugh about a few things, but Dylan is having the time of his LIFE. Like it’s a party. And he’s killing people like it’s a party. I mean, it’s unbelievable how happy he is, he’s giddy about doing it.”
And hey, this can be verified if you listen to leaked extended 9/11 call audio (found on Youtube) and the transcripts found on acolumbinesite's home page that I mentioned earlier.

Well, that's all of my evidence against Cullen. I'd be happy if you guys read this and had a discussion on it, but it was WAAAAY too long so I doubt any of you will. Still, I'd like to know other people's opinions. That's all for now.

It's been mentioned on this board before that Cullen picked up Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while researching Columbine. Cullen wrote a book that was therapeutic to him because facing the truth would have been too traumatic for him. The general public accept what Cullen says because it's also therapeutic to them. People believe what feels good to them, and because it feels good them, they believe it's the truth.

You wrote a very intelligent, cohesive post. Welcome to the board.

If you check out the reviews on amazon you would think it's a great book. The reviews posted in the last months only contains two 1 star ratings (most likely these posters can be found here on the forum). It's really disturbing how many people use the word truth in their review, if you simply spend the same amount of time that it took to read this book on actual research, you wouldn't dare to use the word truth in relation to this book. You pointed out the most obvious misconceptions by Cullen, what disturbed me the most was the portraying of Columbine as a happy cheerfull community led by loving and caring mister D. , and of course the thoughts of E/D during the massacre put down as a fact. Poster StinkyOldGrapes posted a topic Cullenbine in fanfiction, it almost depict the stupidity of Cullen's book (almost, because you can't defeat the master of stupidity).

I haven't read the book in its entirety yet, but I don't even like the way he structured the book to switch between E/D and the victims/survivors. I would've preferred for him to have divided it up into pre-420, 420 and post-420. Every time I think I'm getting into the swing of a chapter, the chapter ends and I'm thrown back into a different narrative about different people. It's mildly confusing. What I do like is that it's not just focused on E/D all the time and that Cullen also took time out to describe the community, the school and the stories of people directly affected by 420. (Do we know how much of the information in these sections is correct? They read more truthful to me than the other parts do.)

I have an even bigger problem with the fact that Cullen is not alone in his misinterpretations and wrong conclusions. How on earth did that FBI-summit with those renowned mental health experts turn into a circus of lies? How is it even possible that both Fuselier and Ochberg interpreted the entirety of the relationship between the two boys within the psychopath-depressant lines and the leader-follower lines? Cullen bases almost all of his conclusions from those parts of his book on their interpretations. (Fuselier, in particular, is frequently mentioned.) These are the people who worked the case on an official basis! How on earth are they able to turn a blind eye to Dylan's contribution, to Eric's showmanship, to Dylan's first mention of NBK, to Eric's hurt and loneliness, to both boys feeding off each other like crazy, to either of them needing the other to make this happen, to Dylan having the time of his life on 4/20, to Eric turning on himself in suicide, to Dylan being unapologetic in his goodbyes, to Eric making his dog Sparky the centre of his universe at times, to virtually everything that doesn't fit the theories they came up with? That's the part that really makes me want to scream: the fact that their conclusion is seen as gospel while clearly there is enough evidence to suggest the contrary.

Columbine is a lot more complicated than they make it seem. It is easy to claim 'oh, Harris was a psychopath' when Eric's no longer around to confirm that theory. He may have fit the bill in some ways, certainly, but how many other people his age would also fit that description? Many teenagers can be deceitful, manipulative, raging against the world, etc.. None of them are labelled as psychopaths, so why be so convinced that Eric was? (Oh, and ladies man? Cullen may have successfully made me cry with laughter at the sentence "and he got chicks", but that doesn't change the fact that Eric was horribly awkward around/with girls. Eric himself disproves that part of Cullen's narrative quite nicely.) It's also easy to claim 'oh, Klebold was the big fluffy sheep who got lured into a trap' when Dylan's no longer around to prove them wrong. Sure, Dylan was more shy and introverted than Eric was. Dylan internalised almost everything and didn't let any of it out unless he was in a safe environment or unless his anger got the better of him. But Dylan wasn't terrified of Eric. Dylan wasn't constantly pushing himself to get Eric's approval. Every single bit of evidence we have, up to and including the part where he cracks up at Eric's feeble attempts to light a cigarette, suggests that the two were simply thick as thieves and that their relationship was very much an equal one. Unless there is a mountain of evidence stashed away somewhere that proves me wrong, I'm going to assume that the theories posed by both FBI and Cullen are incorrect.

This is from Wikipedia:

Dave Cullen's book "Columbine won a bevy of awards and honors, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Barnes & Noble's Discover Award, and the Goodreads Choice Award. It was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Audie Award, and the MPIBA Regional Book Award."

"Columbine was named to two dozen Best of 2009 lists, including the New York Times, LA Times, Publishers Weekly, iTunes and the American Library Association. It was declared Top Education Book of 2009 and one of the best of the decade by the American School Board Journal."

"Columbine has been widely adopted as a text in high school English and Social Studies classes, as well as college journalism classes. The author created a free Columbine Teacher's Guide."

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

This is from Wikipedia:

Dave Cullen's book "Columbine won a bevy of awards and honors, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Barnes & Noble's Discover Award, and the Goodreads Choice Award. It was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Audie Award, and the MPIBA Regional Book Award."

"Columbine was named to two dozen Best of 2009 lists, including the New York Times, LA Times, Publishers Weekly, iTunes and the American Library Association. It was declared Top Education Book of 2009 and one of the best of the decade by the American School Board Journal."

"Columbine has been widely adopted as a text in high school English and Social Studies classes, as well as college journalism classes. The author created a free Columbine Teacher's Guide."

This is just scary  

That makes me want to cry. And scream. And plot murder. They're using this tripe in schools?  

I think that the success for the book is based on the fact that people need an explaining for the shooting. Cullen gave an explaining. It doesn't matter if it's the right one, maybe this is how humans can live with those massacres and go on with their lives. One psychopath meets a depressed boy, end of discussion. AnEasyAnswer  

Grandma wrote:

I think that the success for the book is based on the fact that people need an explaining for the shooting. Cullen gave an explaining. It doesn't matter if it's the right one, maybe this is how humans can live with those massacres and go on with their lives. One psychopath meets a depressed boy, end of discussion. AnEasyAnswer  

Yes, the majority need a conclusion that is simple and tidy...one that does not make them take a look at themselves or even have to think with any complexity. He told them what they want to hear. For a long time I believed that it is also the story he wanted to hear himself, but lately I've been wondering if he was pressured into telling a tale heavily influenced by the "elite" in JeffCo and Colorado as a whole.

To those who don't like the psychopath label, how about this instead.... completely fu***** insane!!11!!!! How's that for a description? That's what I'm starting to believe anyways. I don't know why it took me this long to realize it. Everyone keeps trying in someway to make sense of what happened, but it never makes any sense. And I think we do it because we don't want to accept the fact that there was no one real reason this happened or no reason at all really. If there was no stopping this then why try so hard to find the reason it happened? Simply so we can find some security in some false belief that we can stop this? There was no tumor in this case, so maybe it was just pure evil that did this. Evil sounds like a much better description of events. No Easy Answer's At All.

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

It's been mentioned on this board before that Cullen picked up Secondary Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder while researching Columbine. Cullen wrote a book that was therapeutic to him because facing the truth would have been too traumatic for him. The general public accept what Cullen says because it's also therapeutic to them. People believe what feels good to them, and because it feels good them, they believe it's the truth.

You wrote a very intelligent, cohesive post. Welcome to the board.

What you said is very true. And thank you! Glad to see I'm welcomed, and I'm happy to be here.

Jaan wrote:

If you check out the reviews on amazon you would think it's a great book. The reviews posted in the last months only contains two 1 star ratings (most likely these posters can be found here on the forum). It's really disturbing how many people use the word truth in their review, if you simply spend the same amount of time that it took to read this book on actual research, you wouldn't dare to use the word truth in relation to this book. You pointed out the most obvious misconceptions by Cullen, what disturbed me the most was the portraying of Columbine as a happy cheerfull community led by loving and caring mister D. , and of course the thoughts of E/D during the massacre put down as a fact. Poster StinkyOldGrapes posted a topic Cullenbine in fanfiction, it almost depict the stupidity of Cullen's book (almost, because you can't defeat the master of stupidity).

I wanted to mention the whole "Mr. Deangils is an angel" claim because I heard people saying that was not true, but I do not know of any hard evidence I could have grabbed to put it in the post.

thedragonrampant wrote:

I haven't read the book in its entirety yet, but I don't even like the way he structured the book to switch between E/D and the victims/survivors. I would've preferred for him to have divided it up into pre-420, 420 and post-420. Every time I think I'm getting into the swing of a chapter, the chapter ends and I'm thrown back into a different narrative about different people. It's mildly confusing. What I do like is that it's not just focused on E/D all the time and that Cullen also took time out to describe the community, the school and the stories of people directly affected by 420. (Do we know how much of the information in these sections is correct? They read more truthful to me than the other parts do.)

I have an even bigger problem with the fact that Cullen is not alone in his misinterpretations and wrong conclusions. How on earth did that FBI-summit with those renowned mental health experts turn into a circus of lies? How is it even possible that both Fuselier and Ochberg interpreted the entirety of the relationship between the two boys within the psychopath-depressant lines and the leader-follower lines? Cullen bases almost all of his conclusions from those parts of his book on their interpretations. (Fuselier, in particular, is frequently mentioned.) These are the people who worked the case on an official basis! How on earth are they able to turn a blind eye to Dylan's contribution, to Eric's showmanship, to Dylan's first mention of NBK, to Eric's hurt and loneliness, to both boys feeding off each other like crazy, to either of them needing the other to make this happen, to Dylan having the time of his life on 4/20, to Eric turning on himself in suicide, to Dylan being unapologetic in his goodbyes, to Eric making his dog Sparky the centre of his universe at times, to virtually everything that doesn't fit the theories they came up with? That's the part that really makes me want to scream: the fact that their conclusion is seen as gospel while clearly there is enough evidence to suggest the contrary.

Columbine is a lot more complicated than they make it seem. It is easy to claim 'oh, Harris was a psychopath' when Eric's no longer around to confirm that theory. He may have fit the bill in some ways, certainly, but how many other people his age would also fit that description? Many teenagers can be deceitful, manipulative, raging against the world, etc.. None of them are labelled as psychopaths, so why be so convinced that Eric was? (Oh, and ladies man? Cullen may have successfully made me cry with laughter at the sentence "and he got chicks", but that doesn't change the fact that Eric was horribly awkward around/with girls. Eric himself disproves that part of Cullen's narrative quite nicely.) It's also easy to claim 'oh, Klebold was the big fluffy sheep who got lured into a trap' when Dylan's no longer around to prove them wrong. Sure, Dylan was more shy and introverted than Eric was. Dylan internalised almost everything and didn't let any of it out unless he was in a safe environment or unless his anger got the better of him. But Dylan wasn't terrified of Eric. Dylan wasn't constantly pushing himself to get Eric's approval. Every single bit of evidence we have, up to and including the part where he cracks up at Eric's feeble attempts to light a cigarette, suggests that the two were simply thick as thieves and that their relationship was very much an equal one. Unless there is a mountain of evidence stashed away somewhere that proves me wrong, I'm going to assume that the theories posed by both FBI and Cullen are incorrect.

This right here. This is a great way to explain the lies in Cullen's Columbine.

Cullen (and many others) are probably giving a lot of people the information they want - they want to be able to know that Eric was a psycho an that it was all in his head, they wan to feel like it couldn't have been any body else's fault.

This isn't just about the general public believing Cullen's comforting lies. This book is used in journalism classes.

Here is an article on Cullen's book:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The interviewer asks Cullen "Did Harris ever have a single girlfriend?" Cullen replies, "I don't think so."

WTF?

I consider myself a fairly mentally unstable individual, but Dave Cullen is a cuckoo clock.

Oh, I give up.

Where's a global pandemic when you need it?

StinkyOldGrapes wrote:

This isn't just about the general public believing Cullen's comforting lies. This book is used in journalism classes.

Here is an article on Cullen's book:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The interviewer asks Cullen "Did Harris ever have a single girlfriend?" Cullen replies, "I don't think so."

WTF?

I consider myself a fairly mentally unstable individual, but Dave Cullen is a cuckoo clock.

Oh, I give up.

Where's a global pandemic when you need it?

THIS is why I am so mad. This book is being accepted in classes and being taught, when it is clearly so wrong. And there you go, Dave Cullen even is contradicting his "Harris ladies man" belief! Something must be done to publicly discredit this book, if you ask me. Seriously, the truth is important.

highwayhypnosis wrote:

Something must be done to publicly discredit this book, if you ask me. Seriously, the truth is important.

I have started a series of posts elsewhere detailing my thoughts as I read the book for the first time. It may not be as public as it should be in order to discredit Dave's work, but it's keeping folks entertained and it does provide a nice commentary to fall back on whenever someone asks me what I think about the book. I'd be willing to post my chapter-by-chapter commentary here if anyone's interested.  

thedragonrampant wrote:

highwayhypnosis wrote:

Something must be done to publicly discredit this book, if you ask me. Seriously, the truth is important.

I have started a series of posts elsewhere detailing my thoughts as I read the book for the first time. It may not be as public as it should be in order to discredit Dave's work, but it's keeping folks entertained and it does provide a nice commentary to fall back on whenever someone asks me what I think about the book. I'd be willing to post my chapter-by-chapter commentary here if anyone's interested.  

Please do post it here! I'd be happy to read it. But I believe something should be done so that the entire public will know that it's an untruthful book, but I don't know we here at this forum could make something that could get such attention :/