The self-righteous arrogance of Sue Klebold

Screamingophelia wrote:

The only thing I slightly disagree with is, when it comes to Eric and especially Dylan trying to relate and saying "I know exactly what you're going through' probably wouldn't have helped.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I don't think that would have done anything whatsoever. Someone on Dylans level would have had to open up to him and actually talk, like people used to do. The most difficult thing in my opinion would be resisting being pulled in by Dylan while your trying to help and pull him out. Much easier with my issues to join the misery than resist it.

Screamingophelia wrote:

Has there been discussion on why Dylan was trying to distance himself from Eric? According to SK for a while when Eric would call he would use her as an excuse to get out of plans. Maybe that was for show?

Eric seems like the friend that can be overbearing at times and you just need some space.

Eric was intense for sure. It seems like it was easy to get on his shit list.

Again I don't remember where I saw it, but someone mentioned that E and D rarely fought or they got mad at each other VERY rarely and would not talk for only a day or 2. Dylan always seemed like the chill one, I wonder when he got mad at others if Eric was happy that he finally let it all out?

Screamingophelia wrote:

Eric was intense for sure. It seems like it was easy to get on his shit list.

 I would love to go over all the various lists that Eric had made. He had shit lists, Semper Fi lists, etc. He liked to make lists.


I like to make lists as well. Shopping lists, grocery lists. Sadly they are usually forgotten at home and I am then forced to wander aimlessly around the store for hours trying to remember what was on them.

LOL, I have to do lists in my notebook, in my emails.. and some are just random notes like "Do this" WHAT? Why did you just write that? How is helpful?

Screamingophelia wrote:

LOL, I have to do lists in my notebook, in my emails.. and some are just random notes like "Do this" WHAT? Why did you just write that? How is helpful?

That would have frustrated the hell out of me trying to figure out what it was about. All the while thinking it was something of dire importance and lives were at stake.

I was going through EVERYTHING and seeing if I forgot something, if I had pick someone up at the airport.. EEK!!

Lizpuff wrote:

Have you read Kass' book about Columbine?  He writes a fair amount about Sue as a person and who she was before she was married and a mother.  Paints a good picture of her imho.  

I don't agree with all of what you said but I do think that Sue excuses Dylan from what he did quite a bit and I think that is a bit of motherly nature.  It is not right at all but it happens.  

The things she did with Dylan, and her parenting style relate back to who she is as a person which is where I feel the Kass book brings some of it to light.

She presents herself as a strong woman who was broken.  Someone who clings to logic rather than emotion but in reality is anything but

she's praying that he dies so she doesn't have to go see is fucked up ass in prison

I honestly wonder how Eric and Dylan would be on trial and in prison if they were caught.

I imagine they'd be separated from general population and I wonder if they'd have so many fangirls who adore them. Or if people would see them as the messed up kids they were.

17 year old me and present day me have different answers to that :\

silentprocess wrote:

Sue Klebold has said things that are inexplicable in my opinion.  Things that to me define her character and point directly to her part in everything that happened.  Her guilt lies beyond being simply the mother of a killer, her guilt is the creation of a killer.  

Some things Sue has said with my commentary then summary.

"Dylan did not do this because of the way he was raised, He did it in contradiction to the way he was raised."

Deflecting blame at it's finest.  Claiming no responsibility for something she had a direct hand in.  Raising a killer.  Dylan was not born a killer, regardless of her idiotic claim that she felt dread upon holding him as a baby.  Dylan was turned into a killer by his parents.

"I haven't done anything for which I need forgiveness"

LMFAO, seriously?  You brought up a son who killed people....  That is a statement that boggles my mind.  That someone can be so arrogant as to not realize they can actually make mistakes.

"I don’t understand the decision and I don’t agree with it, but I’m going to support it. This will be resolved quickly if we comply with the ruling, and I don’t want to make a bad situation worse by alienating you from the people running the school."

Said to Dylan on the way home after being suspended for 5 days due to hacking the schools servers.  What does she care about in this situation?  She cares about how the administration feels about her and Dylan.  Her reputation always takes precedence over anything and everything else.  She can do no wrong and her child cannot either, if she would admit that he did she would shatter her fabricated lie of a life.

"I told Dylan he couldn’t allow the obnoxious behavior of others to upset him."

In regards to being bullied.  Nice Sue, tell your child to hold everything in and pretend everything's fine like you do.  Again shifting blame, Dylan couldn't have caused anything that led to "obnoxious behavior" from others.  Shifting blame is a common theme in Dylan's writings, no clue where he got that from.  Not dealing with emotions...  Comes from Sue as well.

"I have read in the years since that the scratch read ‘Fags’ — a slur I have also read was frequently leveled against Dylan and Eric in the hallways at Columbine — but we did not hear that from the school."

In her book, in regards to Dylan scratching "fags" on a locker.  Her son cannot be blamed because he himself was called a fag!!!  Justification of actions because something was done to you.  I'm sure her lessons helped Dylan justify NBK.  Another thing is it would tarnish her and her sons reputation and that could not happen since that's all that ever mattered to her.

"This lack of follow-through on my part was uncharacteristic, but indicative: I believed Dylan was a psychologically healthy human being. I never considered that the paper could be a reflection of deep-seated problems. I knew it contained some rough language and a dark theme, but had confidence that his teacher and the school counselor would handle the situation appropriately.”

In regards to the paper Dylan wrote.  Has Sue done any parenting...  Ever?!  Severe lack of interest in her own child. Sue feels no responsibility for Dylan nor his actions.  This is one of the major factors that really makes Sue the responsible party for Dylans involvement in Columbine.  Sue believes others should take care of it...  WTF?!  Other don't have an investment in your child...  But neither did Sue.   I believe she was fooled by Dylan because she herself taught him to live a lie.  Never do anything that will give us a bad name, image means everything to her.  More than her children.

"I can be in a doctor’s waiting room and still hope they call me by my first name, rather than shout out Mrs Klebold, every time I meet someone and give my name, there’s a moment of hesitancy where I watch their face very closely. They may say, 'Gee, why does that sound so familiar?'"

Stated in 2016.  Still to this day caring solely about her reputation, not taking responsibility.  Some say it could be shame, but she has shown no shame other than her son brought a bad reputation to their name.

"They had different brain conditions. I believe Dylan had some kind of a mood disorder. I believe psychopathy is in a different category. For whatever reason, the two were like magnetic poles. They stuck together. They fed each other. I don’t want to say someone commits crimes because they have a mental illness – that is not true – but I believe strongly that both Dylan and Eric were victims of their own pathology, just as everyone else was a victim of that pathology.”

Here is a great one.  Dylan didn't choose to do this, he couldn't make the choice because he was mentally ill.......  She claims to be an advocate for mental illness but is at a complete loss when it comes to understanding it.  She says someone doesn't commit crimes because of mental illness and then says they were victims of their own pathology, ok then Sue.  Dylan is a victim of your upbringing.  Sue will divert blame to anything at any given moment.

Another event that shows Sue's culpability is how she reacted to Dylan saying "Stop pushing me, Mom. I’m getting angry, and I don’t know how well I can control it." Sue apologized later...  WTF?!  Your son cannot control his anger and you don't question it?  You don't talk to him?  You apologize because you yourself cannot handle emotions and you taught your son the same, Sue just simply could not handle it because she didn't know how.

"I never had anger towards him, except for the moment when I saw the Basement Tapes at the sheriff’s department, six months after he died. I felt about a day of anger because he was bad-mouthing everybody and everything – family members – and pulling things out of his past, some incident in day care when he was three years old. He was trying to latch on to things that made him feel angry, and he was grasping at straws because he’d had such a good life. But I just couldn’t sustain that anger."

Is Sue even human?  Dylan can do no wrong, not when he's killing people...  But he cursed on a tape!!  No one can see that!  Destroy the basement tapes!!!  She is a very sick person.

"I feel that Dylan was a victim of some kind of malfunction going on in his brain. If you explained suicide to a child, your grandfather died because he got sick in his brain and hurt grandma and then he hurt himself. That’s my thinking with Dylan. The Dylan I knew and raised was a kind person. He was thoughtful. He was conscious-ridden, which is why this is still so difficult for me to understand. I feel a need to apologize to anyone who might be offended because I’m not angry at him, or don’t judge him. But I don’t, because he is my son, and because I believe that whatever killed all the others, killed him, too.”

Explaining why she's not mad about the actual massacre.  Doesn't even talk about the victims..  Because according to Sue there are only 2 victims, herself and Dylan.  Dylan didn't kill anyone, his mental illness killed everyone...  But...  Mental illness doesn't cause crimes.... Sue??  Sue??  It's hard to even respond to this quote honestly, it's just simply sickening.

"I had the distorted belief that Dylan belonged to me. He was mine. And when I see movies, or plays, or songs, I have a sense that someone is taking him away from me, that they’re claiming ownership of something they know nothing about."

In regards to books, movies, ect.  Showing her true colors finally.  Dylan belonged to Sue, his legacy belonged to her.  Why?  Because who benefitted the most from Columbine?  Sue.  Sue the advocate, Sue the speaker.... Sue the murderer.

I could list quotes all day long that show how self-righteous, arrogant, manipulative and disgusting this woman is.  Dylans' tragedy was her creation and her property.  She wanted to be the only one to benefit from it.  He did no wrong because his mental illness did it, which diverts blame and doesn't "tarnish" her family name.  She created the perfect façade, she had this façade before Columbine and continues it today.  Caring mother, devoted, loving...  Her ignorance and inability to deal with emotions or any event that would make her or Dylan look bad caused the whole massacre.

Dylan didn't want to live a lie like his mother, he wanted to be real but was never taught how.

Burn in hell Sue.

Thank you for reading!

Let's not forget the simple fact that she does not even see this as a mass murder/massacre she's  still hung up on the fact of the idea of suicide....."""""Dylan did this through suicide Dylan committed suicide""""… Fuck lady,,, your son,,, a little boy that you born and bred whacked out the whole entire school....  THEN DID the graceful thing of committing suicide… That's not the ONLY damage he did that day. Maybe she could progress a lil more in her grief as a grieving parent when she clearly comes to terms with this. I sympathize for her loss but fuck.... face reality

I have a genuine query, what could she have done? Dextered him? Taught him to just kill bad guys? IF she knew Dylan was on the path to murder people how do you stop it? How could Zach, Nate or Devon have stopped him? They were with him everyday. They were kids too.

Though on the other hand I do find I get a very WASP vibe, much like how I was raised, another reason I feel so dang connected to Dylan in an odd way. Not like a "I love him so much" but a "if I knew you in HS, I would have been a friend, I would have listened and got it more than you know"

Even after death and before Sue spoke out there has always been a "sweet Dylan, mean Eric" vibe.

No one is speaking out for Eric at all. Sue is holding on tight to the son she remembers. Tom and Byron don't talk about him. Eric's family doesn't either.

If Kevin ever rights a book about Eric I will buy a copy in a second.

My message is a bit all over the place, sorry about that! What if Dylan did say "I feel like I want to kill people then blow my brains out, in fact my best friend and I are blowing up the school and dying on that day. What's for dinner?'

Why the hell would a parent do?

I told my mom I wanted to bring a knife to school and stab people and my mom was like "no, that's not a good idea. Just watch TV"... sighs.... Please note this was 20 years ago. Then she wonders when Columbine happened I was like "OMG Eric Harris!!!" anyhoo, it's late and I'm a bit drunk.

I haven't read her book yet (after having read Cullen's, I don't know if I can deal with the huge biased opinion that Dylan wasn't responsible for his actions), but there are a few things that have stood out to me that I feel I can speak on.

I absolutely hate it when parents claim that they did everything they could, and gave their child a good life and there were no mistakes involved. "He was grasping at straws because his life had been so good"?? Look, I get that you're old now and don't remember what it's like being a teenager and how confusing it can be, but you're just being an asshole. Dylan was not "grasping at straws to be angry," this boy was legitimately angry and depressed. These things he was "pulling from so long ago" were things that deeply affected him. Emotional pain is not like physical pain, as I'm sure you would know, and it doesn't matter how long ago that emotional pain was inflicted, it can still feel just as fresh ten years later as the day it happened. So lets not try to belittle that here, thanks.

I also can't understand how someone could say that they hoped their child was dead. No one should say that. I understand what he did was the worst thing he could possibly do, but damn, that's a bit cold.

Overall, I feel bad for Sue Klebold. I cannot even begin to imagine how you process something like that, and how it must feel. I definitely don't blame her for what happened, and while she may have had a bit of an indirect hand in propelling the chain of events that caused it, I can't hold her accountable like that. No one thinks their kid is going to do something like this. And on top of her losing her child in such a violent way, she feels the weight of innocent children who died at the hand of her son, probably feels guilty for grieving for him, and I can never imagine how that would feel. She has to bury her child, and also face the anger of her community, who is blaming her unfairly. I really can't blame her for trying to find sense in what her child has done, and coming up with what she has. I wish her nothing but the best.

Screamingophelia wrote:

No one is speaking out for Eric at all.

I feel this so hard. At this point, I roll my eyes if I see that someone is trying to paint Dylan as a sensitive, impressionable sheep, and Eric the commanding psychopath. I absolutely hate how a lot of people try to shift blame away from Dylan, and pile it onto Eric. I find it really disrespectful and insulting, really. These two boys planned this together. They killed people together. Did they not hear the 911 recording? Dylan was having a hell of time shooting kids. He was having a lot of fun. That doesn't sound like a meek follower to me.

I don't think either of them were mentally sound, and that definitely triggered what happened, but it was a slow burn. JUST being mentally ill doesn't make you want to kill people. I don't think either of these boys were full-blown psychopaths. The things Eric wrote, he wrote them to make himself feel powerful. He felt small, weak, and was very insecure with himself. He became angry with how he was being treated, and that he couldn't do anything about it. Dylan became angry, too. They didn't just decide to blow their school up because they were bored. They were reduced to nothing every day of their lives, and they became angry and bitter. I'm not trying to excuse their deplorable actions, but it just bothers me when people portray Eric as some complete psycho who just wanted to kill people for no reason. There are almost always reasons, and they build up.

Screamingophelia wrote:

I have a genuine query, what could she have done? Dextered him? Taught him to just kill bad guys? IF she knew Dylan was on the path to murder people how do you stop it? How could Zach, Nate or Devon have stopped him? They were with him everyday. They were kids too.

My answer to this is the same as the answer I would give [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in response to the comment that Sue is hung up on the suicide aspect of murder-suicide.

I think the truth in most cases is that if you can get a suicidal mass murderer to stop being suicidal, then you can also stop a mass murder. Regardless of how angry and resentful a person may be, it is the suicide factor (the "indifference to life") that is at the root of their willingness to engage in antisocial behavior. Sue discusses this in her book and she didn't come up with the theory on her own.

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

Quote :

They do not try to get away. In the end, half turn their guns on themselves or are shot dead by others. They not only want to kill, they also want to die.

...

Perhaps the aspect that most set these crimes apart, aside from their spectacular nature, was this: Regular criminals try to get away with their crimes. More than a third of regular homicides went unsolved in 1997. But among the 102 killers in the Times database, not one got away. Eighty-nine never even left the scene of the crime.

...

More tellingly, 33 of the offenders killed themselves after their crimes. Nine tried or wanted to commit suicide, and four killed themselves later. Nine were killed by the police or others, perhaps committing what some refer to as ''suicide by cop.''

''The number of people knowingly getting killed is striking,'' Prof. Alfred Blumstein of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University said after examining the review. Professor Blumstein is the director of the National Consortium on Violence Research.

Dr. Jamison said: ''The link between suicide and homicide is a very real one, and it hasn't been studied nearly enough. It has always struck me about Columbine, people forget they committed suicide. And that's understandable -- it was the least important thing from the public point of view.''

Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old Regents scholar in upstate Olean, N.Y., offered a glimpse into this suicidal impulse in the note he left before he hanged himself with a knotted bedsheet in the county jail. He was awaiting trial after firing random shots out the window from the third floor of his high school, killing two passers-by and a school custodian, and wounding nine others.

''I guess I just wanted to kill the person I hate most -- myself,'' he wrote. ''I just didn't have the courage. I wanted to die, but I couldn't do it, so I had to get someone to do it for me. It didn't work out.''

Barbaro's quote reminds me of Eric talking about how he makes fun of people who remind him of himself because he has low self-esteem and wants to rip on himself and also saying that this is where a lot of his hate comes from. You can't jump directly to the conclusion that this means that he wanted to kill others because he wanted to kill himself but it's not outside the realm of possibility and in any case, it's undeniable that if Eric had valued living more than he valued killing, then Columbine would not have happened. I think the same is true for the majority of mass killings.

In his journal, Dylan spoke of getting a gun and killing himself before he ever mentioned killing other people. That's why Sue focuses on the subject of suicide prevention. I think it's a very logical place to start.

Well she definitely doesn't like giving much responsibility to Dylan for his actions, instead swaying the blame in other directions.

If Sue is genuine about her feelings about Dylan and is not trying to distract people away from the shame his actions have brought her family then Dylan is a serious candidate for a psychopath.

I know people will try and deflect anything I say here about that but in my mind his manipulation, lies, deceit, anger, aggression, blood-lust and narcissism all point toward him being one when he was alive; as does his in-detail plan to attack his school which he carried out.

The fact nobody casts much blame his way and instead pin it all on Eric is quite telling, too, when evidence shows he was perhaps even angrier than Eric.

Ivan wrote:

Well she definitely doesn't like giving much responsibility to Dylan for his actions, instead swaying the blame in other directions.

If Sue is genuine about her feelings about Dylan and is not trying to distract people away from the shame his actions have brought her family then Dylan is a serious candidate for a psychopath.  

I know people will try and deflect anything I say here about that but in my mind his manipulation, lies, deceit, anger, aggression, blood-lust and narcissism all point toward him being one when he was alive; as does his in-detail plan to attack his school which he carried out.

The fact nobody casts much blame his way and instead pin it all on Eric is quite telling, too, when evidence shows he was perhaps even angrier than Eric.  

I agree wholeheartedly with you! I have always said that Dylan was the wolf in sheep's clothing. He was the one who had everyone fooled. I think Dylan was the better manipulator, was better at hiding his true intentions and feelings. No doubt he was suffering from mental issues, and everyone seems to try to use that to explain away or lessen his responsibility. But he was an equal participant in the massacre.

I think 4/20 gave Dylan the chance to let all of the "nice guy" go and let his inner rage out. I think there were some genuine things about Dylan. I don't think he was a complete liar, he probably did have some really earnest feelings but he had a LOT of issues that he was trying to deal with on his own, which for adults doesn't work, let alone a kid. Long before Sue's book the "sweet Dylan" image has been going around.

I'm not big on blaming Eric for everything.


I'd love to see their good bye messages one day, they show Dylan as being "cold" but Eric is a lot more emotional.

I sometimes looked at Dylan as the blunt object. Look at their shirts they wore too. Eric was more calculating and Dylan was the definition of Wrath.

It is also sad irony that her family was so anti gun, her son killed with guns and now when she goes on speaking tours she evidently has armed guards so no one tries to hurt her because of what Dylan did.