Twenty years of Columbine

I feel jittery just thinking about it, just thinking about them sitting there around now. Imagine living that. Holy hell. Wasn't their last video around 10:30?

Yea. It was.

I honestly feel truly heartbroken for all that were involved and the whole community. Columbine shook the world. It woke us up. You can’t take things for granted. It’s surreal 20 years have gone by, and I can honestly say there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about a piece or part of Columbine. There’s always something to remind me or things we experience in the world today that all 15 will never experience.
I’m not in Colorado, but I do hope the events and memorials there today bring peace to everyone.

QuestionMark wrote:

It's about 10:00 in Colorado, where I am it's noon. I really wonder what their last hour must've felt like. The last hour! It's almost impossible to think about. I can hardly imagine how jittery they must've felt.

Watching the CCTV videos of them planting the bombs again kinda made me wonder as well, they looked pretty calm, especially eric on this morning. I know they knew it was their last day and they had planned this for over a year. I wonder if that detachment from reality/committing to suicide really worked on their emotions this last day.

I wonder if they thought that they wouldn't have been jittery if they had only decided to kill themselves. I also wonder if they had some last minute wonders, no serious doubts but things like: "What if we realize it was not worth it?", "What if I realize I cannot kill people?", "What if the cops catch us alive and we can never kill ourselves?" or if they thought a lot about how their parents would feel.

Well, I recall Eric saying something about imagining it’s just like Doom and shutting out any feelings and remorse. He probably went into it in a military sort of mindset. Like it’s a job. Dylan had one foot out the door for quite awhile and I think he just had no emotions left.
They probably wanted it to be a cop suicide instead of having to do it themselves. But just like the failed bombs, they failed to get a shootout that they hoped for.

Huh, 20 years and 10 minutes ago. Crazy...

I still don't like Dyldo.

Neah wrote:

I wonder if they thought that they wouldn't have been jittery if they had only decided to kill themselves. I also wonder if they had some last minute wonders, no serious doubts but things like: "What if we realize it was not worth it?", "What if I realize I cannot kill people?", "What if the cops catch us alive and we can never kill ourselves?" or if they thought a lot about how their parents would feel.

Great questions, in an act like this it would take total commitment. If these questions arose I'd have to label them as pointless as the detachment part, kind of like I chose to do this, no turning back now despite these feelings/thoughts. But they could of been different.

I think the "What if we realize it was not worth it?" question finally got to them once they killed in the library, it seemed like something hit them psychologically. I really want to know what caused it (the bombs not going off? is a logical one) but I wonder if it was something more, like seeing a dead body of a person you really didn't know knowing you killed them and for what?

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

Quote :

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

My theory is that killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down. So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile.

I think honestly there's still a good chunk left unsolved about the shooting. And as well, I think the impact Columbine left on our culture today will last for decades, even centuries maybe. We can never go back to a time pre-Columbine due to how much that shooting altered in terms of our mindsets of the media, violence, mental health, and so much more.

HanShotFirst wrote:

Quote :

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

My theory is that killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down. So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile.

I think the "high" of killing people wore off. Y'know all the adrenaline left. It wasn't fun anymore.

Right now 20 years ago, Dylan and Eric pull into the school, waiting (most likely with indescribable nerves) for their planted bombs to go off. Eric confronts Brooks, who unknowingly saw his friend, a soon shooter, for the last time. And would never think of him the same again

Westygalery wrote:

Right now 20 years ago, Dylan and Eric pull into the school, waiting (most likely with indescribable nerves) for their planted bombs to go off. Eric confronts Brooks, who unknowingly saw his friend, a soon shooter, for the last time. And would never think of him the same again

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Also a big coincidence, my brother's birthday is today, as he was born one year before the shootings.

It's 11:14. By this time they had arrived at the school and were getting out of their cars.

I'll be using the official timeline. There are others, but this one will do.

hvernon wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

Quote :

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

My theory is that killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down. So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile.

I think the "high" of killing people wore off. Y'know all the adrenaline left. It wasn't fun anymore.

I agree, after a while I guess it became redundant. And maybe too easy? Because after all, although I cannot deny that it takes some kind of malevolent courage to do what they did, when they realized that no-one would stop them until at least an hour and that they could not really be attacked they may have lost their excitement. Eric wanted it to be like Doom, but it was easier than Doom once you've accepted that the only issue was to die: in Doom your life is in danger, you can lose, you can be attacked. In Columbine they could only win, people had no way to defend themselves so they had even less way to attack them. I also wonder if they realized that they had no real reasons to hate the classmates they shot. In a video-game you are attacked so it is normal to hate them and want to kill them. When you are bullied I can understand that you hate others, same when you are depressed. But when you shoot people you don't know, and they beg for life and they cry and are so fragile, so innocent. I wonder if they thought they might have had more "fun" if they had attacked only specific people.

11:10 a.m.

On the last day of his life, Eric Harris arrives alone at the student parking lot at Columbine High School and parks his 1986 gray Honda Civic in a space assigned to another student in the south junior parking lot.

Dylan Klebold subsequently arrives at the high school student parking lot alone in his 1982 black BMW. He parks in a space assigned to another student in the southwest senior lot. Klebold’s and Harris’ cars flank the school’s cafeteria and the exits and entrances into the lower level.

Harris speaks to Brooks Brown briefly outside the west entrance of the school. According to the student, Harris tells him to leave the school because he likes him. Shortly thereafter, the same student is seen by witnesses walking south on Pierce Street away from the area. This student is the only person Harris and Klebold direct away from the school grounds moments before the killing begins.

"So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile." is very much what I think, but I am puzzled at how this is tied to "killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down." It along with the quote about knifing people seems to suggest they were bored, not worn down.

Also the second bomb was supposed to go off at 11:35, so they left the library and had to be afraid of engaging police in a way they weren't at all when they thought the bomb would work while in the library. They probably dick around in the science wing rather than head straight for the bombs to check their backs.

Then after setting one of the gas cans on fire, they move around the school. It just had to be looking for police. Nobody would have suspected them not to enter. The other options are remorse (whatever), getting bored with killing students and preferring to shoot walls and ceilings (whatever), or trying to destroy the school itself, which is maybe but I doubt it. If so, I think it's just to kill time waiting for the cafeteria bombs, and not because they hated the schools lockers.

For example, when they move through the art hall, they supposedly run shooting into the ceiling, then come out firing, as if they were planning for somebody to be on the other side.  Finding nobody, they figure cops aren't coming until the bombs go off, and return to the cafeteria, with guns drawn. Eric waves, their hand signal for "cops sighted"

"Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting" Nah, this doesn't follow and seems like a cope. The crime was so seditious people look for any excuse it seems. Had they drowned kids in toilets people would be saying it shows remorse, somehow. Just like not entering locked classrooms, sparing Evan Todd, and shooting at the bombs show this somehow.

11:14 a.m.

Between 11:14 a.m. and 11:22 a.m. Harris and Klebold leave their cars and walk into the school’s cafeteria, carrying two large duffel bags containing enough explosive power to kill the majority of the students who soon would be arriving for “A” lunch. The gunmen place the bags on the floor beside two lunch tables and walk back out.

Blending in with 400 other backpacks and bags scattered throughout the cafeteria, the duffel bags conceal 20-pound propane bombs timed to explode at 11:17 a.m. Harris earlier had determined that 11:17 a.m. was the exact time for the high school cafeteria to be packed with the maximum number of students possible.

The school custodian goes into the video room to change the school’s cafeteria surveillance videotape.

By now the bombs were planned to detonate and failed, and I can only imagine they were panicking and conspiring what to do now, when ambushing the school themselves came to mind.

11:17

After placing two 20-lb. propane bombs in the cafeteria, Harris and Klebold go back out to the student parking lots to sit in their respective cars and wait for the bombs to explode.

From their cars, they have a clear view of the cafeteria area. Based on comments Klebold and Harris made in their homemade videotapes, the investigation determined the two planned to shoot any surviving students able to escape from the cafeteria after the bombs exploded.

Klebold and Harris also have bombs constructed with timers in their cars, set to go off once they go back into the school.

LPorter101 wrote:

11:10 a.m.

On the last day of his life, Eric Harris arrives alone at the student parking lot at Columbine High School and parks his 1986 gray Honda Civic in a space assigned to another student in the south junior parking lot.

Dylan Klebold subsequently arrives at the high school student parking lot alone in his 1982 black BMW.  He parks in a space assigned to another student in the southwest senior lot. Klebold’s and Harris’ cars flank the school’s cafeteria and the exits and entrances into the lower level.

Harris speaks to Brooks Brown briefly outside the west entrance of the school. According to the student, Harris tells him to leave the school because he likes him.  Shortly thereafter, the same student is seen by witnesses walking south on Pierce Street away from the area.  This student is the only person Harris and Klebold direct away from the school grounds moments before the killing begins.

Always found it pretty weird how the CNN/Jeffco CD narrated like that, "On the last day of his life". Had the bombs worked, I don't think they would be showing this kind of sympathy for him.

11:19 - 11:23

Jefferson County Dispatch Center receives the first 911 call from a citizen reporting an explosion in a field on the east side of Wadsworth Boulevard between Ken Caryl and Chatfield Avenues. The explosion is actually a timed diversionary device. Two backpacks with pipe bombs, aerosol canisters and small propane tanks had been placed in a grassy open space three miles southwest of Columbine High School. Only the pipe bombs and one of the aerosol canisters explode but the explosion and subsequent grass fire are enough to get the attention of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the Littleton Fire Department. The bombs exploding in the field along Wadsworth Boulevard are intended to divert the attention of law enforcement away from what is planned to be a much more devastating scene at the school.

Several witnesses identify Harris and Klebold standing together at the top of the west exterior steps, both wearing black trench coats and carrying a backpack and duffel bag. That location is the highest point on campus and allows them an elevated vantage point of the school’s west side, the southwest senior parking lot and portions of the junior lot, the cafeteria exits and entrances, and the athletic fields to the west.

At about 11:19 a.m. a witness hears one of the suspects say, “GO! GO!” Klebold and Harris then pull their shotguns out of their bags. They already have 9-mm semi-automatic weapons hidden under their coats. From their position at the top of the steps they begin shooting at students in the area. Thus begins what is now known as the worst U.S. school shooting in history.

The first gunshots, fired toward the west doors, kill Rachel Scott and injure Richard Castaldo, students at Columbine High School. Rachel and Richard had been sitting on the grass eating their lunch outside the school's west upper entrance near the north side of the library.

Students Daniel Rohrbough, Sean Graves, and Lance Kirklin, having just come outside through a side door of the school cafeteria on their way to the “Smoker’s Pit” at Clement Park, are hit by gunfire. All three fall to the ground.

Five students, sitting on the grass to the west of the stairs, are shot at as they begin to run from the melee. Michael Johnson suffers gunshots wounds but is able to reach the outdoor athletic storage shed where he takes cover with others. Mark Taylor suffers a debilitating gunshot wound and falls to the ground, unable to flee with the others.

Klebold goes back down the stairs to the area outside the cafeteria and shoots Daniel Rohrbough again at close range, killing him instantly. He also shoots Lance Kirklin again, this time at close range, but Lance survives.

Klebold briefly enters the side entrance to the cafeteria and stands just inside the doorway, perhaps to discover why the propane bombs have not exploded. He then goes back outside and joins Harris at the top of the outside stairs.

Harris shoots down the stairs hitting Anne Marie Hochhalter. Anne Marie is shot multiple times as she stands to run for cover into the cafeteria.

Witnesses hear one of the gunmen shout, “This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome!”

From the onset, both suspects are seen lighting and throwing explosive devices onto the roof, into the parking lot and toward the grassy hillside.

Moment of silence for all the victims.

LPorter101 wrote:

11:17

After placing two 20-lb. propane bombs in the cafeteria, Harris and Klebold go back out to the student parking lots to sit in their respective cars and wait for the bombs to explode.  

From their cars, they have a clear view of the cafeteria area. Based on comments Klebold and Harris made in their homemade videotapes, the investigation determined the two planned to shoot any surviving students able to escape from the cafeteria after the bombs exploded.  

Klebold and Harris also have bombs constructed with timers in their cars, set to go off once they go back into the school.

This is bullshit, though. They didn't sit in their cars and wait for the bombs. No witness says this. They went to the stairs.

Also they don't need a crossfire, and few would be coming out the south entrance. Worse, glass and fireballs might go out into the parking lot, while you're shielded from the bombs on the stairs. Worse still, if people ran the other way, they'd be twiddling their thumbs in the parking lot, while they can go whichever way their victims go on the stairs.

11:21

Deputy Paul Magor, a Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputy patrolling the south Jeffco area, is dispatched to the scene of the fire and explosion on Wadsworth Boulevard.

11:22

The school custodian, after rewinding a recycled videotape, hits the record button on the VCR that records images of lunchtime activities in the school cafeteria. The tape immediately shows students near the windows beginning to notice something happening outside and some start toward the cafeteria windows to look.

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Neil Gardner, community resource officer at Columbine High School, has just finished his lunch while sitting in his patrol car at the students’ “Smoker’s Pit” when he receives a call from the school custodian on the school’s radio. He’s needed in the “back lot” of the school.

"Klebold goes back down the stairs to the area outside the cafeteria and shoots Daniel Rohrbough again at close range, killing him instantly"

Jeffco seems to have got this wrong strangely. The El Paso Report details no shotgun wounds to Daniel. Lance apparently got both shells in the face.

11:23

A 911 call from a Columbine High School student reports a girl injured in the south lower parking lot of the high school. “I think she’s paralyzed,” the caller tells dispatch.

Deputy Magor, on his way to the explosion in a field off Wadsworth, is advised of a female down in the south parking lot of Columbine High School.

Deputy Gardner, pulling his car onto Pierce Street and heading south to the student parking lot, hears the same call, this time coming over the Sheriff’s radio, “Female down in the south lot of Columbine High School.” He activates his lights and siren.

hvernon wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

Quote :

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

My theory is that killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down. So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile.

I think the "high" of killing people wore off. Y'know all the adrenaline left. It wasn't fun anymore.

Pretty much this. The fun disappeared and they went off to chase that high. Blowing and shooting shit up. Hoping to face down a fully armed and trained swat unit. They both felt it but kept up the shooting and bombing. Perhaps trying to convince themselves or the other one that this wasn't how it was supposed to feel at the end. Defeated, they returned to the library to see maybe if they would get that spark back and resume killing. But it was gone. Their anger was gone and all they had left was death. Their lives were over anyway. There was no going back from the atrocities they had just committed.

11:24

Several of the school’s custodial staff and faculty, including teacher William “Dave” Sanders, are attempting to find out what is happening outside the school cafeteria.

Realizing a danger, Sanders and school custodians Jon Curtis and Jay Gallatine enter the cafeteria and direct students to get down. Students begin to hide under the cafeteria tables.

Deputy Paul Smoker, a motorcycle patrolman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, is writing a speeding ticket on West Bowles Avenue, just west of Pierce Street, when he hears dispatch report that a female is down in the south lower lot of Columbine High School. Smoker’s traffic stop is just north of the school so he radios dispatch that he is responding to the school.

Teacher Patricia (Patti) Nielson is working as a hall monitor when she hears a commotion outside the west entrance of the school. She looks outside, seeing two male students with what she thinks are toy guns, and assumes that a school video production is being taped. She is on her way outside to tell the boys to “knock it off” when one of the gunmen fires into the west entrance, causing glass and metal fragments to spray into the hallway. Nielson suffers abrasions to her shoulder, forearm and knee from the fragments.

Beside Nielson is student Brian Anderson. Brian had been told by a teacher to get out of the school because of the explosions and commotion. Not realizing where the danger is, he exits through the first set of west doors, and is caught between the interior and exterior doors when Harris fires at the doors in front of him, shattering the glass. Brian suffers wounds to his chest from the flying glass fragments.

Despite their injuries, Patti Nielson and Brian are able to flee into the school library while Harris and Klebold are distracted by the arrival of Deputy Gardner. Gardner has just pulled up in the lower south parking lot of the school with the lights on his patrol car flashing and the siren sounding.

As Gardner steps out of his patrol car, Eric Harris turns his attention from shooting into the west doors of the high school to the student parking lot and to the deputy. Gardner, particularly visible in the bright yellow shirt of the community resource officer’s uniform, is the target of Harris’ bullets. Harris fires about 10 shots at the deputy with his rifle before his weapon jams.

Gardner fires four shots at Harris.

Harris spins hard to his right and Gardner momentarily thinks he has hit him. Seconds later, Harris begins shooting again at the deputy. Although Gardner’s patrol car is not hit by bullets, two vehicles that he is parked behind are hit by Harris’ gunfire. Investigators later found two bullet holes in each of the cars.

Harris then turns and enters the school through the west doors.

Students in the cafeteria realize the activity occurring outside is more serious than a senior prank. A mass exodus of students is seen on the school’s surveillance videotape as students escape up the stairs from the cafeteria to the second level. Several students recalled Sanders directing them to safety by telling them to go down the hallway to the east side exits of the school.

HanShotFirst wrote:

hvernon wrote:

HanShotFirst wrote:

Quote :

The events after the library really puzzle me, them wondering the halls for a long time really doing nothing but throwing pipe bombs and shooting at lockers, not even attempting to kill anybody else. Their motives had to have changed half way through the shooting

My theory is that killing their classmates while they begged for their lives began to wear them down. So they went off hoping to run into a swat team. Shooting at masked targets with weapons of their own would be more like the fantasy they were trying to live in, especially Eric with Doom. They also were ready to die and a quick fire fight with the swat team would grant them their wish. But no such team would enter the halls for awhile.

I think the "high" of killing people wore off. Y'know all the adrenaline left. It wasn't fun anymore.

Pretty much this. The fun disappeared and they went off to chase that high. Blowing and shooting shit up. Hoping to face down a fully armed and trained swat unit. They both felt it but kept up the shooting and bombing. Perhaps trying to convince themselves or the other one that this wasn't  how it was supposed to feel at the end. Defeated, they returned to the library to see maybe if they would get that spark back and resume killing. But it was gone. Their anger was gone and all they had left was death. Their lives were over anyway. There was no going back from the atrocities they had just committed.

I'm not sure they wanted SWAT rather than regular cops, though. SWAT would probably not end well for them.

11:25

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office dispatch advises that there are possible shots fired at Columbine High School. “Attention, south units. Possible shots fired at Columbine High School, 6201 S. Pierce, possibly in the south lower lot towards the east end. One female is down.”

Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter in the school library, calls 911 to report shots being fired outside the library.

Dave Sanders truly was a hero during this shooting. May he Rest In Peace.

11:26

Littleton Fire Department dispatches a fire engine to the explosion and grass fire on Wadsworth.

After exchanging gunfire with Harris, Gardner calls on his police radio for additional units. “Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me.”

Dispatch reports several shots fired at Columbine High School.

Teacher’s 911 call from inside the library reports smoke coming in through the doorway. She yells at students to get on the floor and under the tables.

Jefferson County Deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker arrive on the west side of the school and begin the rescue of two wounded students lying on the ground near the ballfields.

Smoker sees Gardner down the hill to his right, holding a service pistol. Gardner yells to Smoker as a gunman, carrying a semi-automatic rifle, appears on the inside of the double doors.

Harris, leaning out of a broken window on the set of double doors into the school, begins shooting a rifle. Smoker fires three rounds at him and the gunman disappears from the window. Smoker continues to hear gunfire from inside the building as more students flee from the school.

Student witnesses who entered the north main hallway from adjoining classrooms see Klebold and Harris standing just inside the school’s northwest entry doors. Both suspects, they later recalled, are armed with guns. Witnesses see Klebold fire a semi-automatic weapon east towards the students in the main hallway and south down the library hallway. They also hear bullets hitting lockers and other objects in the hallway as students run for cover.

A student in the gym hallway observes Klebold and Harris walking east down the north hallway. Both are firing weapons … and both are laughing.

Student Stephanie Munson and another student walk out of a classroom into the school’s north main hallway. As they enter the hallway, they see a teacher and several students running behind them. The teacher yells for the students to “Run! Get out of the building!” They both run through the main hallway leading to the school’s main entrance on the east side. Stephanie is shot in the ankle but both are able to escape the building and continue across the street to safety at Leawood Park.

A student in the counseling hallway sees students in the north hallway running east through the lobby. Klebold is running behind them, but comes to an abrupt halt near a bank of phones at the entrance to the main lobby area.

Yet another student, on the telephone with her mother, glances up in time to see the sleeve of a black trench coat shooting a TEC-9 towards the main entrance of the school. She drops the phone and hides in a nearby restroom until she can no longer hear any activity in the hallway. The gunman, she assumes, has turned around and gone back the other way. She goes back to the phone and whispers to her mother to come pick her up and then escapes through the east doors to the outside. Her mother’s cell phone bill shows this call is made between 11:23 and 11:26 and lasts 3.8 minutes. The student estimates that she talks to her mother about two minutes before she sees the gunman.

Klebold is last seen running back down the north hall to the west in the direction of the library hallway.

Teacher Dave Sanders, still on the second level, turns into the library hallway toward the west entrance and the sounds of gunfire. As Sanders passes the entrance to the library, he apparently sees a gunman coming toward him from the north hallway. Sanders turns around and heads back the way he had just come. Just before turning the corner to go east, he is shot. Sanders is able to crawl to the corner of the Science hallway where teacher Richard Long helps him down the hallway into classroom SCI-3. A group of students, including two Eagle Scouts, Aaron Hancey and Kevin Starkey, gather around him, attending to his injuries and administering first aid.

11:27

Deputy Gardner, who is in the south parking lot and has exchanged gunfire with Eric Harris, radios dispatch with a “Code 33.” Code 33 means “officer needs emergency assistance.”

Deputy Magor sets up a road block on Pierce Street at the southeast corner of the student parking lot. He immediately is approached by a teacher as well as students reporting a person in the school with a gun.

Dispatch announces that possible hand-grenades have been detonated at the school.

Harris and Klebold walk up and down the library hallway, randomly shooting but not injuring anyone. Investigators later scrutinized Nielson’s 911 call made from the school’s library. From the tape, the investigation shows that Harris and Klebold spend almost three minutes in the library hallway randomly shooting their weapons and lighting and throwing pipe bombs. They throw two pipe bombs in the hallway and more over the stairway railing to the lower level.

A pipe bomb is thrown into the stairwell from the library hallway and lands in the cafeteria below. A large flash is observed on the cafeteria videotape. A second pipe bomb also is thrown into the cafeteria from the upper level.

Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter just inside the library entrance, continues her phone contact with the Jefferson County dispatcher. Nielson reacts to the sounds of gunshots and explosions coming from the hallway outside the library. Interspersed with short conversations with the dispatcher, she screams at the students in the library to get under the tables and to stay hidden. She then reports that a gunman is just outside the library entrance.

I feel bad for Neil Gardner since I think they were by the west entrance, killing people in their way there to start, because they needed to enter it when people turned around. If so, it seems Gardner may have been more a hero for delaying their going into the west entrance than Sanders for having people turn around (which was planned for anyway), though he was nothing but shit on.

11:28

Numerous students, running from the school, seek safety behind Taborsky’s patrol car on the school’s west side. The students tell the deputies that gunmen are inside the school randomly shooting at people with UZIs or shotguns and throwing hand-grenades. They describe the younger of the two gunmen as possibly high school age and wearing a black trench coat and a hat on backwards. The second gunman is described as “taller, a little older” and also wearing a black trench coat.

Smoker can see other deputies on the west side of the school near the concrete shed and the ballfields.

Dispatch alerts the deputies that the shooter may have a shotgun.

A 911 call reports that students are injured outside the school.

Deputy Smoker radios that students are saying the shooter is wearing a black trench coat.

11:29

Gardner requests emergency medical response to the west side of the school.

Dispatch alerts all units that Deputy Gardner is under fire and the suspect just ran into the building. “Shots fired on the southwest side with a large weapon.”

Harris and Klebold walk into the school library. The 911 call records a male voice yelling, “Get up!”

11:29 – 11:36

Harris shoots down the length of the front counter. One student, crouched behind a paper copier, is injured by flying wood splinters from the counter.

The gunmen walk through the library toward the west windows, killing one student on the way, before they shoot out the windows toward law enforcement and fleeing students.

Law enforcement returns the fire.

The gunmen then turn their attention to students inside the library. They kill four and injure four more in the west area of the library before moving back toward the library entrance to the east.

Harris and Klebold shoot out the display cabinet near the front door before firing their guns in this section of the library, injuring five and killing three.

Harris and Klebold leave the library’s east area and enter the center section, reloading their weapons at this point.

Two more students are killed and two more injured in the library’s center section before the gunmen leave the library.

In 7 ½ minutes, 10 people are killed and 12 more wounded. There are a total of 56 people in the library; 34 escape injury.

Two library employees remain hidden in the television studio. One teacher hides in the periodicals room. Patti Nielson, originally hiding under the front counter, drops the phone. She ultimately crawls into the library’s break room to hide in a cupboard. All four women remain in the library until they are evacuated by SWAT around 3:30 p.m.

11:30

Jefferson County Patrol Deputy Rick Searle, on the upper grassy area on the southwest side of the school, is evacuating students who have taken cover behind Taborsky’s patrol car. In three separate trips, Searle transports the students, including those wounded, south to a safe location at Caley Avenue and Yukon Street. Medical triage soon will be established at this spot. As soon as he gets back from his evacuation trips, he discovers even more students who have escaped the school and taken cover behind Taborsky’s patrol car.

Deputy Kevin Walker, positioned at a southern point in the student parking lot, is able to watch the lower level main south doors of the school and the entrance to the cafeteria. He can provide rescue and cover for the students fleeing to the south from the school’s lower level.

Deputy Taborsky reports hearing additional shots being fired inside the school -- “large caliber.”

Dispatch reports possible shots fired in the library.

Littleton Fire calls for personnel to stage at the scene. As the department learns that some students fleeing the school are possibly injured, personnel are instructed to stage in several areas nearby and set up triage sites to treat the injured.

The county’s dispatch center goes into an emergency command system as the incoming reports begin to provide glimpses of the incident’s magnitude. Additional dispatchers soon arrive to help deal with the escalating radio traffic and 911 calls.

11:31

According to the FBI transcript of the 911 call, Eric and Dylan enter the library and begin shooting.

F.B.I. 07/16/99 DECLASSIFIED 01/15/02

DETAILS: On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and
killed twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School Littleton,
Colorado. During the incident, teacher Patty Nielson placed a call to
911 Emergency. Neilson was in the library when she placed the call. The
911 operator answered the call stating "911" AT 11:27:47 a.m. The phone
call lasted 26 minutes. During the call, noises including gunshots, explosions, screaming, and yelling can be heard. The initial background noises heard come from the hallway just outside of the library. Four minutes and ten seconds into the call, Harris and Klebold entered the Library and begin shooting. They left the Library eleven minutes and forty-five minutes into the call. The remaining gunshots and explosions heard on the tape occur in the Cafeteria, Science classroom area or the hallways of the school.

6:09 1134 HRS
---
6:15 SHOTS FIRED-HARRIS SHOOTING BERNALL
---
6:23 SHOTS FIRED-HARRIS SHOOTING AT TABLE 15
6:24 YELLING "YAHOO"
---
7:09 1135 HRS
7:10 DISPATCH ADVISES THEY LOST RP.
---
7:17 SHOT
---
7:23 UNKNOWN NOISE
7:24
7:25
7:26 SHOT
---
7:38 SHOT
7:39
7:40 SHOT "OH" KLEBOLD SHOOTING
7:41
7:42 SHOT KLEBOLD SHOOTING SCHNURR
7:43
7:44 SHOT "REB" VOICE KLEBOLD
7:45 "YEAH" VOICE HARRIS
7:46
7:47 "SHIT YEAH"
---
7:50 EIGHT CONTINUOUS SHOTS PLUS ONE SHOT- KLEBOLD SHOOTING TOWNSEND
7:51
7:52
7:53 "WHOO"
7:54
7:55 SHOT(SCREAM)
7:56 TWO SHOTS
7:57
7:58 SHOT
---
8:01 SHOT
8:02
8:03 SCREAMS
---
8:07 "OH MY GOD HELP ME"(SIMILAR PHRASES
8:08 REPEATED FOR SEVERAL SECONDS)
8:09 1136 HRS
---
8:41 SHOT-HARRIS SHOOTING NOWLEN
8:42
8:43 SHOT-HARRIS SHOOTING TOMLIN
8:44
8:45 THREE SHOTS-HARRIS SHOOTING TOMLIN
---
8:48 SHOT-HARRIS SHOOTING TOMLIN
---
8:54 SHOT
8:55 TWO SHOTS(SCREAMS) SHOTS FIRED AT TABLE TWO
8:56 SHOT
8:57 FEMALE SCREAMS
---
10:09 1138 HRS
---
10:14 THREE SHOTS-KLEBOLD SHOOTING DEPOOTER
10:15 SHOT
10:16 SCREAM
---
10:44 "REB COME HERE" VOICE OF KLEBOLD
---
10:55 "REB"(INAUDIBLE) VOICE KLEBOLD
10:56 "YEAH"
10:57 "GO"
10:58 "GO"
10:59 (INAUDIBLE)
---
11:04 (INAUDIBLE)"FUCKING TROUBLE." VOICE KLEBOLD
11:05 " I DON'T WANT."
11:06 "I DON'T WANT TROUBLE." VOICE OF EVAN TODD
11:07 (INAUDIBLE)
11:08
11:09 1139 HRS
11:10
11:11 "YOU LITTLE FUCKING FAT PIECE OF SHIT." VOICE KLEBOLD
---
11:14 "HEY,HEY."
---
11:20 SHOT
---
11:25 "LET'S DO IT THEN"
---
11:32 "REB YA READY?" VOICE KLEBOLD
---
11:39 SMASHING SOUND- KLEBOLD THROWING CHAIR

Such a short amount of time for so many people to die.

11:31

Deputy Searle reports smoke coming from the building.

Deputy Taborsky reports a person down on the southwest side of the school.

The 911 tape from the library records the sound of many gunshots being fired during this minute. One of the gunmen in the library yells, “Yahoo!”

The first fire alarm sounds from the upper level corridor of Columbine High School.

To think, if the students in the library ran out of the school, we would have seen a lot less deaths in Columbine.

11:32

Deputy Walker reports possibly seeing one of the gunmen through the windows on the upper level, southwest corner.  Walker describes him as wearing a “white T-shirt with some kind of holster vest.”

As students and faculty escape the school to the south, they report what they saw or experienced to Deputy Magor, whose patrol car is blocking the traffic on Pierce Street to the south.  Magor realizes the severity of the escalating situation and radios that the Sheriff’s Office needs mutual aid at the scene.

Many agencies already are aware of the situation at the high school because of the radio traffic they are hearing and personnel are quick to arrive at the scene.  Several arriving Denver police officers and one Littleton police officer have children who are students at Columbine.  One student, hiding with others inside the school’s kitchen, is on a cell phone with the Denver Police Department.  His father is an officer in the department.

The first call is received by the Sheriff’s Office from the media requesting information about what is happening at Columbine High School.

11:33

Jefferson County SWAT commander Lt. Terry Manwaring, on his way to the high school, orders the Jefferson County SWAT team and the Sheriff’s Office command staff to be paged.

Dispatch reports a possible shooter on the football field behind the shed.

Jefferson County Dispatch asks if any deputies on scene have a “long gun” (a rifle or shotgun).

In response to Magor’s call for mutual aid, Jefferson County Dispatch advises that additional assistance is coming from other agencies.

Westygalery wrote:

By now the bombs were planned to detonate and failed, and I can only imagine they were panicking and conspiring what to do now, when ambushing the school themselves came to mind.

This is surely a myth. They said the entire time in the library that the library was going to explode, they made John Savage run as a result, so this doesn't make sense. Also two bombs but having them both go off at the same time doesn't make sense either. Also shooting outside when the cafeteria is full of people only makes sense if they thought the bombs worked. Also up on the stairs you can't see the cafeteria, and Dylan checks on the bombs once it comes into view, which again makes no sense if they already knew they had failed.

The evidence suggests "11:17" meant 11:15 to 11:20, so they begin shooting at 11:19, thinking they are about to go off. The second bomb is set to go off at 11:35, hence they leave the library at 11:36 to try and make it explode and tell everybody they're gonna die when the bomb goes off before then.  Dylan even said "it will be the most nerve racking 15 minutes of my life (see the times)....when we charge through the school". There was no "plan B". They never panicked. They did not change plans after a year of fantasizing in 2 minutes.

At this very moment, people were dying inside that library.

11:34

Suspects move to the center section of the library.

11:35

Dispatch advises additional gunfire being reported.

Dispatch advises that several SWAT teams are en route.

The last victim is killed at Columbine High School.

Suspects move to the front counter of the library.

11:36 – 11:44 a.m.

From the library Harris and Klebold go into the hallway and make their way to the science area. Witnesses describe the two as looking through the windows of some of the classrooms’ locked doors, making eye contact with some of the students, yet not attempting to break into the rooms or harm any more students.

A teacher sees Klebold and Harris in the science hallway, stopping in front of the chemical storage room just east of Science Room 3 where she is hiding.

Several students witness the suspects shooting into empty rooms. Klebold and Harris also tape an explosive device on the storage room door next to the area where teacher Dave Sanders and several students are hiding. Witnesses say the gunmen do not appear to be overly intent on gaining access to any of the rooms. The gunmen easily could have shot the locks on the doors or through the windows into the classrooms, but they do not. Their behavior now seems directionless.