One of their bombs was almost a killer

I'm reading Tim Krabbé's book. He writes that Dan Steepleton was shot because he was wearing a white hat:

Quote :

Onder een tafeltje achterin aan de westkant dacht Dan Steepleton door die kreten over witte petten dat ze hem gezien hadden; hij had zo’n pet op. Hij wilde daarom opstaan – een jongen naast hem, Makai Hall, hield hem tegen. Maar Dylan had Dan gezien; hij grijnsde, riep: ‘Yahoo!’, en schoot op het tafeltje. Dan, Makai, en Pat Ireland die daar ook zat werden geraakt; een meisje bleef ongedeerd.

In English (by Google):

Quote :

Under a table in the back on the west side Dan Steepleton thought by those cries over white hats that she had seen him; He had such a cap. He therefore wanted to get up - a boy next to him, Makai Hall, stopped him. But then Dylan had seen; He grinned, shouted, "Yahoo!", and shot the table. Then, Makai, and Pat Ireland who were hit there was also; A girl was unharmed.

I was surprised to read that - surprised that I hadn't read that particular tidbit before. So I went back to the 11k to read the Steepleton interview.

Well, it turns out that Krabbé is correct: Dan Steepleton was wearing a white hat, and he was shot:

Quote :

He stated Klebold looked directly at him and smiled. Klebold then lifted up the sawed off shotgun he had in his hand and shot directly at Steepleton's table. Steepleton could not remember if the shotgun had one or two barrels.

After the shotgun was fired, Steepleton stated he noticed his left knee was warm. He realized then that he had been shot.

One of Eric and Dylan's bombs landed on Dan Steepleton's thigh:
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Makai Hall grabbed the bomb and threw it toward the south wall. It exploded while flying through the air. According to this article, the bomb stung Hall and Steepleton with shrapnel wounds. The force of the explosion shook the floor:
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What if Hall hadn't thrown the bomb? What if it had gone off while atop Steepleton's body?

It might have killed Steepleton, and Hall, and even Patrick Ireland, who was under the same table.

How might Eric and Dylan have reacted to seeing one of their bombs turn deadly? Might it not have given them encouragement?

If they were smart, they would have thrown the bomb straight at the 2 idiot shooters. Imagine if it would have exploded and killed one of them? What would the other one do? I can understand why he threw it in the opposite direction of the shooters though. If it would have killed or seriously injured one of the shooters, the other may have retaliated and killed all 3 of them. I guess the choice he did make was the right one in the grand scheme of things?

There was probably no thought process... Just straight instinct... Saw it..grabbed it... threw it... They didn't care where as long as it was away from them.

They only threw 1 small 2-3" CO2 cartridge/canister "bomb" during the time of their attack in the library. Afterwards, many CO2 cartridges were found but they were unexploded. There was the broken glass incendiary found but that was setup by Eric/Dylan before the suicides.  

I have always thought it a little bit of an exaggeration that these small 2-3" CO2 canisters filled with gunpowder were called "bombs" - they were more like mini-grenades or "crickets" as Eric called them.

I have only seen the CO2 cartridges in a picture from the Evidence Exhibit 2004.



People in the library were lucky that Eric & Dylan did not throw any pipe bombs while inside the library. That would have been far more damaging.

Sorry for digging this out of the archives.

I actually made one of these Co2 bombs with a friend of mine back in high school. Our plan came from the "Jolly Roger's" Cook book. It was similar to the Anarchist Cook book that E/D used, only it was accessible before the Internet went main stream. We filled a used cartridge with black powder (used for muzzle loading guns) and stuck in a fuse from a firecracker.

I don't know if fireworks powder burns differently than black powder, but I can tell you that the Co2 bomb had a scary amount of power.

We took our little bomb out to a field in the country where there was an abandoned station wagon. We lit the fuse, placed it in the front passenger wheel well, and ran about 50 yards back and to the rear of the car. We watched it completely destroy the tire, launch out a fireball the size of a cannon blast, and lift the front of the car up about one foot (about .3 meters for the rest of the world). IDK if the black powder had more explosive force than the fireworks stuff that Eric used though.

So, I can see these thing doing at least some injury at close range.

deathmedic wrote:

There was probably no thought process... Just straight instinct... Saw it..grabbed it... threw it... They didn't care where as long as it was away from them.

Thing happened pretty fast, I remember most victim accoutns said they only seen the legs of the shooters (such as Joe's Stair sister). I assume they had just a few split seconds - I mena Hall threw the bomb and it exploded in mid air, with some shrapnell still hitting Hall. That to me is evidence they had very little time to get rid of the bomb and tbh managed to do it in the last possible time.

My point is: if they tried taking more time to locate the shooters, aim and throw the bomb at them, the bomb would likley had gone off in their hands before they did so.