Rereading the 11k

So, I've recently undertaken the monumental task of reading the 11k all over again. Why? You tell me and we'll both know Anyway, in reading the whole thing all over again I’ve noticed a number of things. None of them groundbreaking in any way, but I thought I’d share them here.

The number one thing I’ve noticed this time around – which I for some reason completely missed the other times I’ve read the report – is Detective Russell Boatright. I hope for the sake of the people he interviewed that his interviewing style isn’t as mindnumbingly tedious as his writing style because I think he just might drive you nuts if he tries to ask you a question. This man clarifies and verifies EVERYTHING until you can’t take it anymore. I realize that investigating a major crime is all about the details but why is he the only one out of all the investigators and detectives and officers to do this? I swear, he literally writes down ‘(name) stated that she sat down at table (#) after entering the library. IO verified with (name) that after she entered the library, she sat down at table (#)’. Am I splitting hairs here? Am I overthinking this? Should I go to bed and try again tomorrow?

Then there’s the name of Gianna Park. That’s right I wrote Gianna, not Jeanna. Anywhere you look you’ll notice that her first name is written down as Jeanna. In fact if you look for her name on Google – yeah, I did that – they’ll correct you if you type Gianna. And yet Lisa Kreutz and Valeen Schnurr wrote down her initials as GP, not JP. And Jessica Holliday wrote her name down as ‘Gina’, again ‘G’ not ‘J’. These were her friends – or at the very least people who knew her – surely they got it right. Significant? No, but I thought it was worth mentioning since EVERY source get’s it wrong. Interestingly, Diwata Perez does write down her initials as JP, does that mean she didn’t know Park that well? Or is she the only person to get it right? Great, now I’m questioning myself again.

Also, the spelling errors even at this early stage in the report are abominable, even to me, and English isn’t even my first language.

Now, these are just the first two things I’ve noticed in the report. I’ve only just started rereading the whole thing and I’m sure I’ll notice many more things to bother you guys with. Which I will of course do.

It's ridiculous, although I am grateful to have access to the 11k, there's not only many spelling mistakes as you mention, but the thing that bothers me is that at times they have not redacted names of students who were identified as shooters, and this happens several times.
There's also a huge amount of information that seems very important that is never followed up as well as seemingly important witnesses who law enforcement attempts to contact several times then just gives up when they can't reach them by phone for example.

queenfarooq wrote:

It's ridiculous, although I am grateful to have access to the 11k, there's not only many spelling mistakes as you mention, but the thing that bothers me is that at times they have not redacted names of students who were identified as shooters, and this happens several times.
There's also a huge amount of information that seems very important that is never followed up as well as seemingly important witnesses who law enforcement attempts to contact several times then just gives up when they can't reach them by phone for example.

So true! It's a murder investigation, a mass murder investigation no less. You'd think they'd follow up on every little detail but they failed to do so many many times! No wonder people - the victim's families especially - were so mad at law enforcement for putting out such a half-assed report!

I think there's a huge amount of very useful information in the 11k and I do understand the time constraints on publishing a document could have been pretty tight. One thing I really wish they would have done is organize Eric and Dylan's documents a little better. Obviously we can distinguish between both boys school planners and journals but there's many bit's and pieces of information that we don't know who they belong to for definite without guessing. It may seem small and I mentioned this in another thread but I'd really like to know who the propane receipt from Conoco belonged to. I'd be interested to know if Eric bought both propane tanks or Dylan bought one also.
It seems receipts were photocopied all to one page.

I thought the account on pg (5014) by Jason Kirk identifying someone “who he thought, was Harris” allegedly waving a shotgun at him in July 1998 outside a 7/11 is interesting. Kirk mentions this was reported to the police but I can’t see any further information about this? My instinct tells me it was very likely a false ID, however I found this interesting.

I have a list somewhere on my computer titled "11k WTF" lol, i'll find it and add it to this thread.

I also have an "11K wtf" list that I'll have to put on here. I can look at it and realize the most of it is completely irrelevant, but there are definitely details that should have been followed up on.

This is an excellent topic.

I haven't read that thing in full in years. I was skimming it a few months back; focusing on specific sections trying to find something, but I haven't read the whole thing in a very long time.

The errors are astonishing. As it has been pointed out above, I know this was a lot of information to compile and deal with, but there's still no excuse for a lot of the misspellings and overall typos and so on.

That reminds me: in the thread where Dylan and Eric's last manager from Black Jack (Jason Secor) was posting, someone helped him find his section in the 11k, and after looking at it, he posted that the morons had spelled his name wrong, too. He said it sounds and seems like a minor, insignificant detail...but, look at how many times they made the same "minor, insignificant" mistake with so many other witnesses! What does that tell you? What else do they deem "minor and insignificant", and what else is entirely incorrect due to whatever reason?

One of my many gripes when it comes to any of the documents released about the shooting, is that they endlessly obsess over little things that nobody cares about and then just pass over things that could be very important. Like was mentioned before in this topic, they seem to ignore so much information that could have been vital.

The people in the library had to tell the investigators everything about their day, down to the very last details, and the people who weren't necessarily present for the shooting but could very well know a lot, were interviewed briefly.

And like queenfarooq mentioned, what about the people they couldn't reach? What information might they have had? We'll never know now.

I'm reading Tips A - L and M - Z. I noticed a lot of section where the name of the person is written on the side of the document but their actual account is not there at all when you scroll down a page, it just goes on to the next person's name. Also, I found interesting: a name listed on the side of the page that is completely blacked out and the redacted's account on the next page contains redacted info all over the paragraphs. What is the point of supplying that at all? And of course, there's the big blunder of the redacted names in one paragraph but the redacted names are then revealed in the following paragraph. Intentional? Eh, seems more like overlooked major errors. Incredible..

Oh, also, what about the Dana Plato testimony. That is one of the strangest things I've seen in the 11K. Don't quite follow the testimony either. Can anyone clarify?

I just read that little tidbit about Dana Plato again and I can't make sense of it at all. Seems like so much gibberish to me!

Another observation you guys may have noticed is when law enforcement simply give up on trying to contact who you would think would be valuable witnesses like those who were in the school at the time of the shooting or suspects girlfriends etc. But then for some reason they contact those who seem like peripheral witnesses many many times.
I hope this isn't too similar but I started another topic thread specifically missing information as I feel in line with this topic it could be useful to consider.

Finally had a chance to look at my WTF list, so here are a few things that bothered me, statements that I felt should have been followed up on more or that struck me as really strange.

- (Carole Weld, 596) States that she was in a therapy group at a church with several students and that several of them talked about how they tried to get Kyle Velasquez to leave the library with them after E/D left, which leaves the impression that Kyle was alive at this time and in no way fits the official timeline. However, the IO contacted the therapist for the group and he did not corroborate the story. So what was she talking about?

- (Will Beck, 687) Beck tells IO that on 4/15/99, a freshman approached him and said REDACTED (I believe it was a single sentence, followed by a full paragraph that was redacted.) Who was the kid that approached him and what in the world did he say that had to be redacted?

- (Jason Brehm, 718) Brehm describes a shooter that was "very round-faced". Is shown a photo line-up and doesn't identify E/D as shooters. Says he saw this person outside shooting. There's no follow up.

One more for the night...

- (Chris Clark, 741) Chris Clark is the guy on the roof, and his whole story in general doesn't sit right with me. HVAC guy from what we know. Originally stated that he was able to access the roof when he realized that someone was shooting up the school, later said that he was already ON the roof when it started. Specifically said that he didn't see anyone on the roof, but that it was all different elevations and someone could have been up there and he might not have known it. In the list of items he told police he had up there with him, he mentions a 30-gallon propane tank. My brother does HVAC so I asked him about this. He told me that they use something that might look like a propane tank if you didn't know any better, but he couldn't think of any reason that Clark would actually need propane.

(On a personal note: I have the best family/friends ever. I told my brother why I was asking and he called me twisted and answered the question. Same thing when I asked a friend a question about something related to Columbine.)

Reading the entire 11K is a monumental task

Did you ever finish reading the whole thing ?

sororityalpha wrote:

Reading the entire 11K is a monumental task

Did you ever finish reading the whole thing ?

Believe it or not, I have actually read the whole thing. I know I can't be the only one to have done that but I suppose it shows a level of obsession that isn't quite healthy. Over the last two years my interest in Columbine has waned somewhat, but I still find it far more fascinating than I should.

I should probably apply myself to finding some more stuff in there to bitch about. I'll see what I can find.