How the Browns got to see the basement tapes

When Jeffco screened the tapes for reporters on Monday, December 13, 1999, they showed up to the screening and invited themselves in.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

As the press showing was getting under way, Columbine parents Randy and Judy Brown showed up and demanded to be admitted.

A sheriff's official tried to keep them out.

``Are you going to arrest me if I go in that room?'' Randy Brown angrily asked before storming into the showing.

Officers didn't stop him.

``Rather than have a knockdown drag out with them, we allowed them in,'' said Holverson.

``They wanted to watch the tapes, and we figured this was as good a time as any.''

What the Browns saw on the tapes turned their stomachs.

``It's the end of innocence, isn't it?'' Randy Brown said.

They had long held out hope that Klebold, the boy they had known since second grade, was somehow dragged into the shooting plot by Harris.

A year before the shootings, the Browns had warned the sheriff that Harris was extremely violent, but detectives did not follow up.

Judy Brown sat on the floor, watching the hateful, expletive-laced ramblings. At times, she covered her mouth in horror, especially when Klebold criticized his family.

Errrr I wanna see these freaking tapes man. I'm so sick of hearing about them knowing I'll never see them. I'd be happy with just a full transcript but noooooo ohhhh fucking noooo 

I don't blame the Browns, their child was threatened by someone who went on to become a mass murderer, I would have demanded to see the tapes too.

Why can't we see the cut versions tho? I might actually cry if I dont get to see them like now.

has anyone collected transcripts etc and at least document what has been shared from the BT?

Between the journalists & families a fair summary w/ some interesting detail must be out there.

Fatheroftwo wrote:

has anyone collected transcripts etc and at least document what has been shared from the BT?

Between the journalists & families a fair summary w/ some interesting detail must be out there.

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.

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.''

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.''

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."

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.

I can't believe none of the press at least bootlegged the audio. Knowing how many people would want to see and hear these tapes. Damn I'd be happy just to hear the full audio at least. I still don't get how the FULL Patty Neilson library call isn't released. I thought 911 calls are public knowledge. I mean anytime a famous person dies, TMZ has the most gut wrenching 911 calls in full a few hours after it happens.

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.

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.

[...]

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!'')

LPorter101 wrote:

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.

Hi LPorter, where did you get these transcripts? I don't ever recall reading about the Shakespeare and Breakfast Club quotes before, I would have thought I would have remembered had that had I read it previously....

ThoughtBox wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

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.

Hi LPorter, where did you get these transcripts? I don't ever recall reading about the Shakespeare and Breakfast Club quotes before, I would have thought I would have remembered had that had I read it previously....

The Denver Post - December 14, 1999

Killers' hatred shows in vitriolic "film festival'

By Peggy Lowe
Denver Post Staff Writer

The Breakfast Club? really? Sorry but that made me giggle a little bit.

``Only four or five people here didn't rip on me - four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!''

I find that incredibly hard to believe that it came from EH. I highly doubt he said that honestly.

Magnaphoria wrote:

``Only four or five people here didn't rip on me - four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!''

I find that incredibly hard to believe that it came from EH. I highly doubt he said that honestly.

Why? He used the word "rip" a lot in his journal.

Quote :

And I am one racist mother fucker too, fuck the niggers and spics and chinks, unless they are cool, but sometimes they are so fucking retarded they deserve to be ripped on. some people go through life begging to be shot. and white fucks are just the same.

Quote :

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.

Quote :

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!

Quote :

thanks KMFDM... I ripped the hell outa the system

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


Nice work

I read a transcript a while back (source forgotten) that describes Harris finding out Klebold was half Jewish.  

That's a moment on video I'd loved to have seen.  The look on EH's face..  the pause as he semi consciously considers offing DK on the spot.

and, from the BT:

Dylan 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.

Judy: …that hit me in the Basement Tapes, was the fact that, um, Eric is running his gun, called Arlene, over a pile of pipe bombs, back and forth, and he’s talking casually, and Dylan said, I believe he said, “My uncle is gonna be really upset,” and he’s talking about a Jewish holiday. And Eric says to him, “You’re Jewish?” And Dylan says, “Yeah,” and he starts saying, I think he starts saying “half” or “fourth,” and he starts, you know, like, and then I think for a second there he thinks, “Eric’s gonna turn on me.” You can just, it’s just a very strange thing, and then, I don’t know, Eric says something like, “Wow, that’s too bad.”


The only part in the BT's where Dylan mentions a Jewish holiday is here:

He [Dylan] also says “My parents are going to fucking Passover” [Passover began on March 31, 1999]. With Klebold still using the camera, the teens move from the lower level family room of the Harris residence to Eric’s bedroom. Dylan aims the camera toward the west window and calls it a “bunker.”


If this is the part Judy is referring to how could she know what Dylan was thinking as he was holding the camera filming Eric at this time.

Maybe it was another part in the tapes where the camera was showing both of them.


**From the tapes' information that we have nowhere in the tapes does it mention "upset" or "uncle"

LPorter101 wrote:

ThoughtBox wrote:

LPorter101 wrote:

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.

Hi LPorter, where did you get these transcripts? I don't ever recall reading about the Shakespeare and Breakfast Club quotes before, I would have thought I would have remembered had that had I read it previously....

The Denver Post - December 14, 1999

Killers' hatred shows in vitriolic "film festival'

By Peggy Lowe
Denver Post Staff Writer

Thank you, friend!

And two more:


Harris referred to notebook as 'Book of God'

By Kevin Vaughan
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
December 14, 1999

Eric Harris called the blue spiral notebook the "Book of God."

On its pages are his thoughts about life and an inventory of the tools of death he and Dylan Klebold were amassing to rain murder on Columbine High School.

On April 12, eight days before the two carried out the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, Harris turned on his video camera as he lay in bed at home and talked about his life and impending death.

He flipped, page by page, through the spiral notebook, a journal confiscated by investigators in the hours after the April 20 assault on Columbine.

"The apocalypse is coming, and it's starting in eight days," Harris says on the April 12 tape, one of three played for reporters Monday by Jefferson County sheriff's officials.

Time magazine and the Denver Rocky Mountain News released portions of the Harris-Klebold tapes Sunday and Monday. Later Monday, authorities played the tapes as well as film from a surveillance camera in the school cafeteria for other reporters.

The soundless black-and-white surveillance tape shows students cowering under tables after they were warned to take cover by Dave Sanders, the teacher who later died. Later images show kids fleeing and the arrival -- on two occasions -- of Harris and Klebold.

The tapes show the gunmen firing at the two large propane-tank bombs they had lugged into the room, trying to detonate them. They toss a pipe bomb at the tanks, sparking a large fireball.

Nobody was wounded or killed in the school cafeteria.

The hate- and expletive-filled tapes shown Monday include frequent references to the two nicknames used by the killers -- Harris was "Reb," Klebold "VoDKa."

The three videotapes were made in nine sessions in the five weeks preceding April 20. They contain three hours, one minute and 55 seconds of footage.

The 17-minute section in which Harris talks about his diary is the only portion of tape on which Klebold does not appear.

The section begins with a distorted camera view of Harris as he reclines against the headboard of his bed. He is holding the camera, zoomed in tight on his face, which is cut off below his upper lip.

"This is for Mom and Dad and for the cops or the people who somehow want to have them pay for what I did," he says, unblinking, in a monotone.

His parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, were the best, he says.

"There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent this," Harris says. "And there is no one to blame except me and VoDKa."

At times, he grows reflective.

"This is my last week here on Earth," he says.

In recent weeks, he says, his parents have hounded him about things he has neglected -- his application to the U.S. Marines, his car insurance, his checking account.

But they don't know that none of that matters to him, he says.

"War is war and this is war," Harris says. "I've declared war on the human race."

At one point, Harris notes, he has only "seven and one-third" days left until "it's over."

He takes time to scold a half-dozen girls who apparently wouldn't date him. He then seems to grow contemplative.

"Oh, God," he says, "this came up so quickly. It's pretty weird knowing that you're going to die."

He talks about the work he still has to do in his and Klebold's "two-man war against everyone else."

Then he turns his attention to his journal.

One of the first pages lists perhaps a dozen Columbine students from the class of 1998 that Harris says he would have liked to kill.

On another page, Harris lists some kids who apparently were intended victims -- "Scoop," "Pretty Boy," and "The Man in the Yellow Hat."

"You're lucky you got out when you did," he says.

He describes the single-spaced, handwritten pages as "the thought process, the evolution I've gone through for the past year."

On the bottom of one page, Harris draws a swastika and a "SS," a possible reference to Hitler's secret police.

The last entry was made on April 3.

Then the journal tediously lists details about the weapons and bombs amassed by Harris and Klebold -- the number of bullets, the weight of explosives. One section describes six batches of pipe bombs that Harris calls by the military nicknames "Alpha," "Beta," "Charlie," "Delta," "Echo" and "Foxtrot."

He details their tests on home-made napalm, a jellied form of gasoline, and plans for rocket launchers.

Harris includes several drawings from Doom, his favorite video game, and diagrams for the way he and Klebold planned to carry their gear.

______________________________________

Family of girl Harris named lives in fear of tapes' release

By Peggy Lowe
Denver Post Staff Writer
Dec. 21, 1999

Meeting the guy at the soccer tournament seemed innocent enough.

And how often does a mother get to meet a boy who will ask her daughter for a date?

"He was a nice kid. We talked to him and his parents at the tournament that weekend,'' the mother said. "He was the kid next door.''

They didn't know it that day in May 1998, but the kid next door turned out to be Eric Harris. They certainly didn't know he would turn their family's life upside down for months. Or that then, he would haunt them from the grave via videotape.

Harris mentions the girl by first and last name on the videotapes he and Dylan Klebold made in the days before their rampage on Columbine High on April 20. The mother spoke to The Denver Post on the condition that neither she nor her daughter be identified.

In a suicidal monologue shot on April 12, Harris rails against the "b------ who never called me back.'' He lists five girls, staring unblinking at the camera, but gives the full name of just one. That one name is the girl he met at the soccer tournament.

"You know who you are. Thanks, you made me feel good,'' he says sarcastically. "Think about that for a while, f------ b------." She didn't like Harris

Harris didn't always feel that way. After he met the girl, a senior at a metro-area high school, Harris started calling and the two set up a time to meet at Elitch Gardens, each bringing friends. But the girl didn't like Harris, so she quit returning his calls.

"She didn't have a bad time with him, she just knew that he wasn't somebody she wanted to be with,'' her mother said.

That didn't stop Harris, who began calling three to six times a day, paging the girl constantly, her mother said. Finally, after weeks of constant calling and no response, he gave up.

The mother and daughter forgot about Harris - until April 20. As students ran out of Columbine and a suspect was named, they saw Harris' photo on news reports.

"A year later she sees his picture and says, "Mom, that's the kid I went to Elitch's with,'- '' her mother recalled. "She just fell apart.'' The FBI had questions

The family started to feel worse when the FBI called, wanting to know why the girl's name was found in Harris' bedroom. They cooperated with law enforcement, and the girl's high school beefed up security to protect her.

"At that time all we wanted to do was to keep quiet. Nobody knew except for our immediate family,'' the mother said. "We kept very quiet. We kept very quiet until last week.''

Last week, the videotapes were played for the media and the mother saw the quotes about the girls in The Post. "That's when I fell apart,'' she said. "My life changed that minute.''

Since then, the mother has talked to many people - from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, to the district attorney, to the media, even Gov. Bill Owens' office. She wants desperately to protect her daughter from any would-be Eric Harris who might want to "finish the job'' he started.

The girl's mom and dad also were shattered Monday when the sheriff's office allowed them to see the tape, hearing Harris name their daughter so prominently.

"It was just a frightful experience as far as his eyes, his demeanor. It was very scary,'' she said. "No feeling, no remorse, no caring in the world for what was going on. And to know he harbored this hatred for a year on somebody he didn't even know!''

Now, the family is hoping that others who want to block release of the tapes will be successful. So far, just the Klebold family has filed a motion seeking to place the tapes within a judge's discretion. But some of the victims' families and the Jefferson County School Dis trict also are exploring legal options to stop release of the tapes.

So far, the family rests easier every night they know those tapes aren't on television, on the Internet or anywhere else.

"Whether that's going to be true tomorrow, I don't know,'' the mother said. "At least I'm going down with a big fight.''

Have any of the various brigade of reporters who were lucky enough to view the basement tapes in their entirety ever written extensively of their viewing, or their impressions of it, other than just the news reports they filed? Just curious to know...