Cafeteria blows up as planned...

Hi all..This is my first post. I have been interested in Columbine for a couple of months. So lets just say that the cafeteria blew up as planned. Then what? E & D wait outside and shoot the escaping survivors and they trigger their car bombs as emergency personnel arrive? I am quite interested to know what was their suicide plan. Were E & D planning on blowing themselves up in their cars? Or did they intend to go back into the school ( after the cafeteria blew up) and cause more explosions and shoot people??  We know that their REAL PLAN did not workout. How would it have worked out if it went EXACTLY to plan?

Hello, welcome to the forum. I hope you like it here.

The bombs are always my favorite topic to talk about and great question, BTW.

I do not think they planned on getting blown up by the car bombs because the car bombs were meant to explode 1 minute after the Cafeteria bombs. And they did not plan on getting killed right away.

Their original plan was to stand outside, in two separate locations and start shooting students who ran out of the school after the explosion in the Cafeteria. They figured students would run out into both parking lots. That is why Dylan and Eric each parked their car in a different parking lot because they wanted to kill as many people as possible. And they figured if one car bomb blew up in the junior lot and one bomb blew up in the senior lot, they'd get more people that way.

While students were running outside into the parking lots, Dylan and Eric were each going to be standing close to a separate entrance to the school and start shooting people as they came out. So if the bombs blew up as planned, I would imagine they would continue on with the plan to shoot anyone who ran out the doors.

What they planned to do after that? I really don't know. I do think they still would have went inside the school, that way police couldn't get to them right away. I think they would have walked around and killed more people and then probably still end up committing suicide in the end. However, they were aware of the possibility of being killed by police in the process. Ultimately though, I think they knew their lives would end by their own hand. The fact that Dylan kept an extra bullet in his boot just makes me believe that he knew he'd be killing himself all along. That he put that bullet in his boot in case he ran out of ammunition during the shooting, he'd still have one bullet left, to use on himself.

Hi Jenn ,thanks for accepting me. Thanks for the info.  

rik75 wrote:

Hi Jenn ,thanks for accepting me. Thanks for the info.  

No problem.

It's possible that if the bombs had ignited, we might have seen fewer, not more, casualties. Let me explain.

Harris and Klebold successfully ignited the bomb at 0:53 in this video.

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If the bombs had actually "worked," the above video shows what would have happened. As you can see, the ignition creates a fireball that would have undoubtedly injured a number of people. However, it does not produce anything like what they imagined would happen.

What would have occurred after that? It depends on what Harris and Klebold planned to do. I've read that they planned to wait by the entrances and shoot students. Had the gasoline ignited as above, some students would have no doubt fled through the cafeteria west doors before quickly reversing when they saw Harris and Klebold. However, the vast majority of the school would have exited through the east doors, far from where Harris and Klebold were located. Why? Because when a fire happens people don't exit toward the smoke.

This means that Harris and Klebold would have ended up shooting at the people already outside anyway, the same people they shot at to begin with. Of course, these people would've been given warning by seeing the flames in the cafeteria, and many might have already begun to flee toward the parking lot from the outdoor dining area.

It's possible that Harris and Klebold would have entered very soon after the blast to "charge through the school," as Dylan says on the basement tapes. However, at no point did they show any inclination to charge through crowds of people. I mean, they could've charged through the school anyway when the bombs didn't blow up, but they didn't. In my opinion, they were scared of their fellow students at this point.

Jenn, what is the evidence that they planned to stand close to a separate entrance?

Hi lastrain ,thanks for the link. It was quite a fireball and thankfully no one was burnt..

lasttrain wrote:

It's possible that if the bombs had ignited, we might have seen fewer, not more, casualties.  Let me explain.

Harris and Klebold successfully ignited the bomb at 0:53 in this video.

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

If the bombs had actually "worked," the above video shows what would have happened.  As you can see, the ignition creates a fireball that would have undoubtedly injured a number of people.  However, it does not produce anything like what they imagined would happen.

lasttrain, I see what you're saying but I'm not sure I agree. I feel like having the bomb truly go off, but not work in the way that he planned would have really pissed Eric off. It seems like (from what we know of actual events during the shooting) he was mostly puzzled and confused as to why it didn't work. But if it had gone off, he would have been blaming the school and his classmates and who knows what else. And I see pissed off Eric as being a bad thing in this situation. (A worse thing? I don't know.) I think he would have been more energized by his anger and potentially do more damage.

Not leaving Dylan out - I don't subscribe to the Eric leader, Dylan follower theory. However, I think Dylan was just having a good time and rolling with it, and he would have carried on basically the same way no matter what. Hell, I think that if Eric had said, "You know what? Let's go turn ourselves in," Dylan would have shrugged and told him to go on and killed himself anyway.

Yes i am looking into it