Sue Klebold

I just watched Sue Klebold's TedMed talk and it's obvious she's still incredibly affected by the massacre - I have such sympathy for her. However, in A Mother's Reckoning she seemed very quick to blame Eric (thus absolving Dylan from some responsibility). Do you think she genuinely believes that? Or is it just comforting for her to think that way?

Nb - I think it's wonderful that she has spent the years since 1999 advocating for suicide awareness.

Interesting question Bethy. I am going to refresh my memory of Sue's book and I will post an update after that.

In the meantime, if anyone wishes, here is a link to the TED Sue Klebold Presentation:

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and/or the transcript:



0:12
The last time I heard my son's voice was when he walked out the front door on his way to school. He called out one word in the darkness: "Bye."

0:24
It was April 20, 1999. Later that morning, at Columbine High School, my son Dylan and his friend Eric killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 others before taking their own lives. Thirteen innocent people were killed, leaving their loved ones in a state of grief and trauma. Others sustained injuries, some resulting in disfigurement and permanent disability. But the enormity of the tragedy can't be measured only by the number of deaths and injuries that took place. There's no way to quantify the psychological damage of those who were in the school, or who took part in rescue or cleanup efforts. There's no way to assess the magnitude of a tragedy like Columbine, especially when it can be a blueprint for other shooters who go on to commit atrocities of their own. Columbine was a tidal wave, and when the crash ended, it would take years for the community and for society to comprehend its impact.

1:35
It has taken me years to try to accept my son's legacy. The cruel behavior that defined the end of his life showed me that he was a completely different person from the one I knew. Afterwards people asked, "How could you not know? What kind of a mother were you?" I still ask myself those same questions.

2:00
Before the shootings, I thought of myself as a good mom. Helping my children become caring, healthy, responsible adults was the most important role of my life. But the tragedy convinced me that I failed as a parent, and it's partially this sense of failure that brings me here today. Aside from his father, I was the one person who knew and loved Dylan the most. If anyone could have known what was happening, it should have been me, right? But I didn't know.

2:36
Today, I'm here to share the experience of what it's like to be the mother of someone who kills and hurts. For years after the tragedy, I combed through memories, trying to figure out exactly where I failed as a parent. But there are no simple answers. I can't give you any solutions. All I can do is share what I have learned.

3:02
When I talk to people who didn't know me before the shootings, I have three challenges to meet. First, when I walk into a room like this, I never know if someone there has experienced loss because of what my son did. I feel a need to acknowledge the suffering caused by a member of my family who isn't here to do it for himself. So first, with all of my heart, I'm sorry if my son has caused you pain.

3:34
The second challenge I have is that I must ask for understanding and even compassion when I talk about my son's death as a suicide. Two years before he died, he wrote on a piece of paper in a notebook that he was cutting himself. He said that he was in agony and wanted to get a gun so he could end his life. I didn't know about any of this until months after his death. When I talk about his death as a suicide, I'm not trying to downplay the viciousness he showed at the end of his life. I'm trying to understand how his suicidal thinking led to murder. After a lot of reading and talking with experts, I have come to believe that his involvement in the shootings was rooted not in his desire to kill but in his desire to die.

4:29
The third challenge I have when I talk about my son's murder-suicide is that I'm talking about mental health — excuse me — is that I'm talking about mental health, or brain health, as I prefer to call it, because it's more concrete. And in the same breath, I'm talking about violence. The last thing I want to do is to contribute to the misunderstanding that already exists around mental illness. Only a very small percent of those who have a mental illness are violent toward other people, but of those who die by suicide, it's estimated that about 75 to maybe more than 90 percent have a diagnosable mental health condition of some kind. As you all know very well, our mental health care system is not equipped to help everyone, and not everyone with destructive thoughts fits the criteria for a specific diagnosis. Many who have ongoing feelings of fear or anger or hopelessness are never assessed or treated. Too often, they get our attention only if they reach a behavioral crisis. If estimates are correct that about one to two percent of all suicides involves the murder of another person, when suicide rates rise, as they are rising for some populations, the murder-suicide rates will rise as well.

6:01
I wanted to understand what was going on in Dylan's mind prior to his death, so I looked for answers from other survivors of suicide loss. I did research and volunteered to help with fund-raising events, and whenever I could, I talked with those who had survived their own suicidal crisis or attempt.

6:25
One of the most helpful conversations I had was with a coworker who overheard me talking to someone else in my office cubicle. She heard me say that Dylan could not have loved me if he could do something as horrible as he did. Later, when she found me alone, she apologized for overhearing that conversation, but told me that I was wrong. She said that when she was a young, single mother with three small children, she became severely depressed and was hospitalized to keep her safe. At the time, she was certain that her children would be better off if she died, so she had made a plan to end her life. She assured me that a mother's love was the strongest bond on Earth, and that she loved her children more than anything in the world, but because of her illness, she was sure that they would be better off without her.

7:22
What she said and what I've learned from others is that we do not make the so-called decision or choice to die by suicide in the same way that we choose what car to drive or where to go on a Saturday night. When someone is in an extremely suicidal state, they are in a stage four medical health emergency. Their thinking is impaired and they've lost access to tools of self-governance. Even though they can make a plan and act with logic, their sense of truth is distorted by a filter of pain through which they interpret their reality. Some people can be very good at hiding this state, and they often have good reasons for doing that. Many of us have suicidal thoughts at some point, but persistent, ongoing thoughts of suicide and devising a means to die are symptoms of pathology, and like many illnesses, the condition has to be recognized and treated before a life is lost.

8:29
But my son's death was not purely a suicide. It involved mass murder. I wanted to know how his suicidal thinking became homicidal. But research is sparse and there are no simple answers. Yes, he probably had ongoing depression. He had a personality that was perfectionistic and self-reliant, and that made him less likely to seek help from others. He had experienced triggering events at the school that left him feeling debased and humiliated and mad. And he had a complicated friendship with a boy who shared his feelings of rage and alienation, and who was seriously disturbed, controlling and homicidal. And on top of this period in his life of extreme vulnerability and fragility, Dylan found access to guns even though we'd never owned any in our home. It was appallingly easy for a 17-year-old boy to buy guns, both legally and illegally, without my permission or knowledge. And somehow, 17 years and many school shootings later, it's still appallingly easy.

10:00
What Dylan did that day broke my heart, and as trauma so often does, it took a toll on my body and on my mind. Two years after the shootings, I got breast cancer, and two years after that, I began to have mental health problems. On top of the constant, perpetual grief I was terrified that I would run into a family member of someone Dylan had killed, or be accosted by the press or by an angry citizen. I was afraid to turn on the news, afraid to hear myself being called a terrible parent or a disgusting person.

10:44
I started having panic attacks. The first bout started four years after the shootings, when I was getting ready for the depositions and would have to meet the victims' families face to face. The second round started six years after the shootings, when I was preparing to speak publicly about murder-suicide for the first time at a conference. Both episodes lasted several weeks. The attacks happened everywhere: in the hardware store, in my office, or even while reading a book in bed. My mind would suddenly lock into this spinning cycle of terror and no matter how I hard I tried to calm myself down or reason my way out of it, I couldn't do it. It felt as if my brain was trying to kill me, and then, being afraid of being afraid consumed all of my thoughts. That's when I learned firsthand what it feels like to have a malfunctioning mind, and that's when I truly became a brain health advocate. With therapy and medication and self-care, life eventually returned to whatever could be thought of as normal under the circumstances.

12:04
When I looked back on all that had happened, I could see that my son's spiral into dysfunction probably occurred over a period of about two years, plenty of time to get him help, if only someone had known that he needed help and known what to do.

12:26
Every time someone asks me, "How could you not have known?", it feels like a punch in the gut. It carries accusation and taps into my feelings of guilt that no matter how much therapy I've had I will never fully eradicate. But here's something I've learned: if love were enough to stop someone who is suicidal from hurting themselves, suicides would hardly ever happen. But love is not enough, and suicide is prevalent. It's the second leading cause of death for people age 10 to 34, and 15 percent of American youth report having made a suicide plan in the last year. I've learned that no matter how much we want to believe we can, we cannot know or control everything our loved ones think and feel, and the stubborn belief that we are somehow different, that someone we love would never think of hurting themselves or someone else, can cause us to miss what's hidden in plain sight. And if worst case scenarios do come to pass, we'll have to learn to forgive ourselves for not knowing or for not asking the right questions or not finding the right treatment. We should always assume that someone we love may be suffering, regardless of what they say or how they act. We should listen with our whole being, without judgments, and without offering solutions.

14:18
I know that I will live with this tragedy, with these multiple tragedies, for the rest of my life. I know that in the minds of many, what I lost can't compare to what the other families lost. I know my struggle doesn't make theirs any easier. I know there are even some who think I don't have the right to any pain, but only to a life of permanent penance.

14:52
In the end what I know comes down to this: the tragic fact is that even the most vigilant and responsible of us may not be able to help, but for love's sake, we must never stop trying to know the unknowable.

15:12
Thank you.

15:13
(Applause)

When 4/20 happened, Sue believed Dylan had no part to play in the Tragedy.

The reason she believed that is because she saw no signs from Dylan.

Sue & Tom were heavily in denial until they finally met Investigators on October 8 1999.

It is at this meeting that Sue heard about how the tragedy unfolded and saw the Basement Tapes.

I would like to include that part from the book here:

The “Basement Tapes” were videos of Dylan and Eric talking to the camera in various places and times in the weeks before the shootings. Many of them were shot in Eric’s basement bedroom, which explains the name they were given by the media.

We’d had no idea these videos existed, but as soon as the tape started to play, I realized I was going to have to let go of every one of my assumptions about my son’s life, and about the actions leading up to his death and the atrocities he committed.

My heart nearly broke when I first saw Dylan and heard his voice. He looked and sounded just as I remembered him, the boy I had been missing so much. Within mere seconds, however, the words he was saying came into focus, and my brain reeled. I stood up from my chair, wondering if I’d have time to get to the restroom before being sick to my stomach.

He and Eric were preposterous, posturing, giving a performance for each other and their invisible audience. I had never seen that expression of sneering superiority on Dylan’s face.

My mouth gaped open when I heard the language they were using—abominable, hate-filled, racist, derogatory words, words never spoken or heard in our home.

The dynamic between the boys was laid bare, and it was a revelation. Adrenaline coursed through me, making it hard to concentrate, though the information on the tapes felt so important I didn’t even want to blink.

On the first recording, we saw Eric act as emcee, introducing topics he wants memorialized on the tape, while Dylan adds contemptuous support. At first glance, Eric seems like the calm, sane one, while Dylan rages in the background. It is obvious that Dylan’s rage is a crucial component in the dynamic. Over and over, Eric urges him to “feel the rage,” and Dylan obliges by pulling out anything he can to lock himself into a state of anger and hold himself there. The lengths he goes to are ridiculous, as when he recalls slights from his preschool days.

The psychologists who reviewed the tapes would come to a similar conclusion: that Eric relied on Dylan’s slow-burning, depressive anger to fuel and feed his sadism, while Dylan used Eric’s destructive impulses to jolt him out of his passivity. It would take years for me to filter what I heard on the tape and to understand the role of anger in Dylan’s self-destruction.

Through the appalling bravado, and the shocking, hateful words spilling out of his mouth, I could see Dylan’s familiar adolescent self-consciousness, the same awkward embarrassment he displayed whenever Tom brought out the video camera to make a home movie. I wanted to both leap through the screen and beat him with my fists while screaming at him—and, in the same moment, to reach back in time, to hold him and tell him that he was deeply loved, and not alone.

I no longer remember the order in which the segments played. In one, the two boys sit in two chairs facing the camera, eating and drinking alcohol from a bottle. They list the people they want to hurt, and describe what they would like to do to them. (As Kate pointed out, none of the people mentioned on the tapes were injured in the attack.) In another segment, Dylan holds the camera while Eric plays dress-up and shows off weapons. They talk about keeping the plan a secret. Eric shows how carefully he hid the weapons so his parents would not find them.

Kate inserted a side comment here for our benefit. This portion of the video was a real eyeopener,
she said, even for those who worked in law enforcement. Investigators had failed to discover one of Eric’s hiding places in their initial search of the Harrises’ home; they’d had to go back after seeing the tape. She added that people on the team went home and searched their own children’s rooms as they had never searched before.

Dylan talks about sneaking his newly purchased shotgun into our house. He had sawed off the end, making it smaller and easier to conceal—not to mention illegal to own. He describes his tension as he held the gun inside his coat and slipped up to his room without being suspected. We’ve never learned whether the gun was stored inside our home or elsewhere. It might have been kept inside his box-shaped headboard; the inside could not be accessed unless the bed was taken apart. Watching, I felt hopeless. Even if we had continued to search his room, as we did regularly for six months after his arrest in junior year, we probably would not have looked there.

At one point on the tape, Dylan makes a derogatory comment about my extended family, and another about his older brother, Byron. We had been grieving for six full months, and nobody had borne the brunt of the world’s venom more bravely than Byron had. Our older son had stepped up and shouldered the terrible responsibilities that had landed on him with astonishing grace and courage. It was ironic. Dylan had so little to complain or be angry about that he was reduced to grasping at straws like his relationship with his brother or rarely seen relatives in order to stoke the rage Eric needed him to sustain.

In another snippet of tape, Dylan complains to Eric that I am making him participate in a Passover seder. On the weekend they made the video, I had decided to make a traditional Passover dinner and invite a neighbor to join us, and I asked both of my sons for their work schedules so I could plan accordingly. Dylan responded in a way I found immature and selfcentered.

He didn’t want to participate. The youngest person at the table has to read part of the service, and he found it embarrassing.

I asked him to reconsider. “I know this holiday means nothing to you, but it means something to me. We’ll have a good dinner. Do it for me?” When he said he would, I thanked him and told him I appreciated it. Then there he was on the video, complaining to Eric about his obligation to attend. Eric, who is playing with a gun while Dylan talks, becomes very still and silent when he hears the word “Passover.” He hadn’t known my family was Jewish. When Dylan realizes what he has let slip, he starts backpedaling. He seems afraid of Eric’s reaction, and tells him I’m not really Jewish—just a quarter, or an eighth. I couldn’t tell if he was worried about being judged, or being shot.

Eric finally breaks the tension by offering a word of consolation to Dylan. Watching it, I thought, You stupid idiots! All this talk about hating everyone and everything, and you don’t even know what you’re talking about. It’s all something you’ve invented in your minds to sustain your anger. The heartbreaking thing was that, for a moment there, it seemed like Dylan had almost realized it.

At one point on the tapes, Eric suggests they each say something about their parents. At that, Dylan looks down at his fingernails and says, almost inaudibly, “My parents have been good to me. I don’t want to browse there.” Neither one of them acknowledges a connection between the actions they are planning and the pain they will cause the people who love them.

In another recording, they go so far as to announce that their parents and friends hold no responsibility for what is about to happen, as if tidying this minor detail will make everything fine for their families when it’s all over.

The last segment was the shortest one. It was also the most difficult for me. In it, the boys pause to say a few words of farewell before going over to the school to carry out their plan.

Supplies are piled around them, as if they are heading out on an expedition. Eric tells his family how they should distribute his possessions.

Dylan does not utter an angry word or speak of hatred or vengeance. He makes no mention of the death and destruction to come. There is none of the braggadocio of the previous tapes.

He does not cry, either; his affect is flat, resigned. Whatever else he intends to do, he is going to the school to end his own life. He looks away from the camera, as if speaking only to himself. Then he says softly, “Just know I’m going to a better place. I didn’t like life too much….”

Watching this, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from screaming, Stop! Stop! Don’t go. Don’t leave me! Don’t do this. Don’t hurt those people. Give me a chance to help you! Come back. But wherever he was, Dylan couldn’t hear me anymore.

The fear of contagion was the main reason Tom and I fought so hard to keep the Basement Tapes sealed, but it was not the only one. Aside from whatever destructive behaviors another alienated kid might learn, I was horrified to think the friends and families of people who had suffered losses might be re-traumatized unwittingly, simply because they happened to be flipping through a magazine in a grocery store line, or sitting underneath a television at a sports bar.

I was also concerned that releasing the tapes would continue to feed the comforting fantasy that evil will present itself in a way only a fool could fail to recognize. For me, the tragedy at Columbine was proof of how dangerous this fantasy can be. When you watch Dylan on the videos, you think: That kid is insane, practically boiling over with rage. He is planning to commit real violence, and to die by suicide. Those parents must have been complete idiots.

There’s no way they could live in the same house with that person and not know he was dangerous.

All I can say is it’s what I would have thought, too.

There was no way to release the tapes responsibly. Nor was there a convincing reason to do so. An army of professional investigators and psychologists had studied the tapes, and they had been unable to reach agreement regarding why Dylan and Eric had committed this atrocity. What on earth was the general population going to learn?

I often think it would be far more instructive—and frightening—to show the video we took of Dylan on the afternoon of his prom, three days before the massacre, smiling and playfully tossing tiny snowballs at his dad behind the camera. To my mind, the expertise with which desperate people can mask their true feelings and intentions is the far more important message.

The tapes stayed private. Conspiracy theorists raged, but there was no cover-up. There just wasn’t anything worth seeing.

Leaving the sheriff’s office after seeing the Basement Tapes, I was in a whole-body state of shock. In the parking lot I staggered toward the car, slurring my words like a drunk. The horror of what we had just heard—not to mention that the tragedy could have been so much more severe, and the violence perpetrated so substantially worse—practically brought me to my knees.

In the days and months after that meeting, my entire world broke open all over again.

Viewing the Basement Tapes finally forced me to see my son the way the rest of the world saw him.

No wonder they thought he was a monster.

There’s a miniature gyroscope in each one of us, searching for equilibrium and maintaining our orientation. For months after seeing the Basement Tapes, no modulation was possible. I could barely tell which way was up.

Once I emerged from a state of shock and started to feel something again, I was consumed with fury. I was reeling from what Dylan had done to so many innocent people, and what he might have done to so many more. I had kept his loving memory alive in my heart all those months, but he had destroyed that memory, and everything else. At Thanksgiving, the only thing I could think of to be thankful for was that the bombs hadn’t gone off. Dylan’s empty chair was a reminder of the other families, mere miles away, with empty chairs of their own. I held Byron’s hand while he graciously gave his thanks for the food and for us, but there was no possibility of further conversation, or of eating more than a perfunctory bite. When Byron excused himself from the table after a miserable fifteen minutes and stood up to carry his dishes into the kitchen, Tom and I both started crying.

My digestive issues worsened that fall. When my annual gynecological checkup rolled around, my doctor was genuinely freaked out by the way I looked and sounded. I’d known him for years; he’d delivered Dylan, in fact, and I’d been pregnant at the same time as his wife, so we’d been in the same new baby care class. As a medical professional and as a friend, he was adamant: I needed to find a therapist.

In truth, I was only blindingly angry with Dylan for a few days after seeing the tapes. I had to let it go. Anger blocks the feeling of love, and the love kept winning.

It was my new therapist who helped me to see why that day at the sheriff’s office had devastated me so entirely. I’d had to start the grieving process all over again. The Dylan I had already mourned was gone, replaced by someone I didn’t even recognize.

Like Dorian Gray’s portrait, the picture I had of Dylan in my mind grew uglier every time I looked at it. The buffer I’d clung to all those months—believing he’d been an unwitting or coerced participant, or acting in a moment of madness—was gone. The evil face I’d seen on the tapes was a side of him I did not recognize, a side I’d never seen during his life. After seeing the tapes, it was really hard not to say, That devil—that is who he was.

With my therapist’s help, I would find there was no lasting comfort in casting Dylan as a monster.

Deep down, I couldn’t reconcile that characterization with the Dylan I had known.

The rest of the world could explain away what he had done: either he was born evil—a bad seed—or he’d been raised without moral guidance. I knew it wasn’t nearly so simple.

After we saw the Basement Tapes, I opened a small box in my desk drawer where I keep a few treasured keepsakes. Among them was a tiny origami horse. I checked and rechecked the box for the little horse, periodically taking it out to examine it as if its folds held the answer to the questions I was asking.

When Dylan was about nine years old, I contracted a nasty eye infection that persisted despite several trips to the doctor. Dylan had been concerned, checking my eyes often to see if they had improved. He was always a physically affectionate child, and I can still summon the sense memory of his hand on my shoulder as he peered anxiously into my eyes. While I was still healing, I discovered a tiny winged horse made of folded paper carefully placed on my desk, along with a note in his childish handwriting. The note said, “I hope my get well Pegasus makes you well. I made him especially for you. Love, Dylan.”

How could I reconcile the cherub with the halo of golden hair who used to giggle while smashing kisses into my face, and the man—that killer—on screen? How could the person who had made me this get-well Pegasus possibly be the same person I’d seen on that tape? I needed to synthesize my own experience of mothering that boy while acknowledging the person he’d become at the end of his life.

There was no longer any way to avoid the horrific fact that my son had planned and committed nightmarish acts of cruelty. But the gentle-hearted kid who’d made me that Pegasus; the lovely, shy boy who couldn’t resist helping with a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle; the young man whose characteristic bark of a laugh punctuated the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes we watched together—he had been real, too. Who was it I had loved, and why had I loved him?

A friend once e-mailed me the following quotation, and it struck me as so apt that I dug up the book to read more: “Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart,”

Rainer Maria Rilke writes in his fourth letter to a young poet. “Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

A time would come when my heart would fully open once again to my son—when I could weep not only for his victims, but also for him. I would learn of the deep suffering Dylan experienced, perhaps for years, of which I had been totally unaware. The anxiety disorder and PTSD I would experience myself after Columbine would provide me with firsthand experience in the ways that a crisis in brain health can distort a person’s reasoning. None of this would excuse or lessen what Dylan did. Yet my greater understanding of the brain illness I now believe gripped him enabled me to grieve for him again.

That process would take years. First I had to live the question, and everything unsolved in my heart. Seeing those tapes was the first step. As terrible as the experience was, I had to accept that Dylan had been an active and willing participant in the massacre. Going forward, I would need to piece together the contradictory fragments I had collected in order to understand how Dylan could have hidden a side of himself so entirely from Tom and me, as well as from his teachers, his closest friends, and their parents.

And I was determined to do so, not simply so I could have a context for my own grief and horror, but to understand what I could have done differently.


After this part of the book from Chapter 11 onward Sue describes moving towards understanding.

Has anyone watched Sue's TEDtalk? She's so brave. Teared up a little.

I just watched Sue Klebold's Ted Talk. She is such a brave woman and I admire her for publicly coming forward and trying to face the the horrible aftermath she has to deal with everyday. She is a very strong person and the interviews she has done always bring a tear to my eye. I may reread my copy of her book over the weekend.

Bethy,

I feel the Sue Klebold sees Eric as the ring leader and instigator, but still knows Dylan is equally responsible as to the end result. And yes, human nature to also want to see it that way. Wayne Harris showcased that in his notes on the Eric and Brooks ordeal.. it's natural as a parent to look to the other side vs internally.


Common theme for most of the inner circle friends to E & D if you read quotes and interviews. Both to blame, but this doesn't go down if not for Eric. One could extend that all the way to
Feds as well. It's one of the great debates when discussing NBK.

In regards to Sue, her choices and drive post 1999 is simply remarkable. As a parent, I would have reacted exactly as Sue has.. denial, shock and lets own this, share grief and take on the fight against mental health and public awareness etc..

I'm strong and accomplished.. I don't think I could hold a candle to what Sue has faced, overcome and become. My heart and respect goes out to her, unbelievably remarkable woman.

Has Sue ever spoken about it being Dylan's idea? I can't recall.

I completely agree [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - her strength is inspiring.

She mentions:

Dylan and Eric planned the massacre together, and they acted together, but I believe—as most of the investigators who examined the evidence do—that they were two different people, who participated for very different reasons.

My utmost sympathy to the Klebold and the Harris families. They didn't just have to deal with the suicides of their children, they also had to deal with the disparity of their perception of the kids they thought they knew, with the reality and finality of how their kids chose to exit life. Suicide us bad enough, but murder/suicide is so cruel.

I'm currently reading Sue Klebold's book. I was hoping for more insight to Dylan, but have been disappointed. I guess my expectations were unrealistic. The book is a memoir of Sue's experiences in the wake of Columbine. I shouldn't judge her. They are her experiences, and she has a right to share them. Nevertheless, I feel like she was more concerned with her new reputation in the community as a 'bad mother', when she was SO obviously a "good mother". Ugh. I think Marilyn Manson' comments about these kids not being listened to is spot on.

Thank you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], for sharing the transcript.I appreciated being able to read it.
I notice that even here Sue has to shade Eric as being more responsible and leading Dylan astray by referring to him as controlling.
It's only one word but it paints a vivid picture.I understand why she does this but it disappoints me each time.If Eric was controlling over Dylan in some ways so likely was Dylan over Eric.They were very dependent on each other especially in the last year of their lives.

Well, I stated this in another thread, they essentially became the bullies themselves when they murdered innocent people. They became Evan Todd 20 times over. The reason I keep bringing up this guys name is because it seems like he hasn't learned a damn thing since Columbine. What's he doing now to prevent bullying?

bradt93 wrote:

Well, I stated this in another thread, they essentially became the bullies themselves when they murdered innocent people. They became Evan Todd 20 times over. The reason I keep bringing up this guys name is because it seems like he hasn't learned a damn thing since Columbine. What's he doing now to prevent bullying?

Jeez Brad you would of thought you banging on about bullying and being reprimanded on a number of occasions and briefly banned would stop you making these comments over and over and over again.... but still here you are.... chucking out yet more bully debate-bait. Those topics have been discussed enough and whilst it's okay to disagree with people please stop bringing it up on topics that dont warrant it.

shades wrote:

Has anyone watched Sue's TEDtalk? She's so brave. Teared up a little.

At 14:05, she says that we'll have to forgive ourselves for "not asking the right questions", which is something that Eric Harris said on the tape.

Dylan Klebold anticipated this reaction from his mother as "if only we could have reached them sooner". I wonder how he would have reacted to a time traveler showing him this video. I lean on the side that he would have done the massacre anyways.

Honestly, one of the only missing puzzles to the whole Columbine shooting is to hear Eric Harris's parents speak at length about him from his childhood until the very last time they spoke with him. If we ever hear all of that, we'll have a much better understanding of Columbine and what really happened.

Bethy wrote:

I just watched Sue Klebold's TedMed talk and it's obvious she's still incredibly affected by the massacre - I have such sympathy for her. However, in A Mother's Reckoning she seemed very quick to blame Eric (thus absolving Dylan from some responsibility). Do you think she genuinely believes that? Or is it just comforting for her to think that way?

Nb - I think it's wonderful that she has spent the years since 1999 advocating for suicide awareness.

I don't agree with you that she absolves Dylan.

In her book, she says Dylan was "a mass murderer," that she is "the mother of a murderer," that "he committed an atrocity" and "participated in an atrocity," that she is the "mother of a murderer" who "raised a murderer," that he is a "sadistic killer" and a "vicious killer" and that she is the "mother of a killer."

That sounds like pretty definitive blame on Dylan right there to me. And if I had more time I could pull even more quotes.

Did we read the same book?