Twenty years of Columbine

true_crime wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Mr. Sanders was the only one who was released?

I know it was just their bodies and they had no awareness but I’ve always felt awful thinking of them there. Especially Cassie’s family, she lived so close

Yeah Screamingophelia, completely agree. It’s unimaginable to know that your child, and their resting place, is so close you can see it from your home.

There are so many heartbreaking stories that came out of this tragedy. To me some of the saddest are Dave Sanders bleeding to death while a couple of students try to comfort him, Anne Marie’s mother taking her own life 6 months after the shooting, and all of the other shootings that were motivated by Columbine. No one also really thinks about the siblings of those killed.

I’ll probably be scoffed at this, but I also feel sorry for Eric and Dylan, as well as their parents/families. They were victims, too. All humans act in certain ways with particular reasons why.

No scoffing from me. I find myself torn but I feel sorry for eric and dylan and their families. I know it probably hurt Sue and Tom and I am sure even kathy and wayne that their kids were alone and did something horrible.

Any kid who feels so angry that they need to destroy peoples lives in the way that Eric and Dylan did break my heart.

Westygalery wrote:

I do and I don't get the tradition of seeing bodies at a funeral...if you want to remember them happy, why look at their dead body....

I've been to my fair share of open casket funerals and I've began to see them as morbid. Putting make up on a corpse, glueing the eyes and lips shut and expressionless like a doll is just weird. Keep pictures and just keep casket closed

LPorter101 wrote:

There are as many possible interpretations of the available evidence as there are stars in the heavens. Columbiners on Tumblr cling to their bullying-revenge narrative; Cullen spews his psychobabble; I dump everything into a circular file labeled "the perfect storm."

If I have proven anything in the last two decades, it is that nothing can be proven. In the end, no one perspective can satisfy everyone.

What I have learned about Columbine is that we all have our own Columbine and that it is the only thing we can start to understand. We cannot understand Columbine, we can only understand our Columbine and what it reveals about ourselves.

9:04 am Mountain Time. Unlike 20 years ago, it is not snowing. The sun is shining. 15 families are waking up without their kids. This is going to be the first full day of the new normal that students of Columbine will live with. Danny R's dad sees a picture of his son on the front page of the paper. In a couple of hours the bodies of 14 children will be taken from the school.

In A Mother's Reckoning Sue says that one of the mothers of a child who was killed was at the very same salon earlier in the day. Sue also performs this task but the community looks at it differently. She's looked at as a monster who doesn't seem to care.

The ceremony in full: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I've not watched it and don't know if I can stomach watching all of it. It's not that I don't want to listen, but I have a feeling most of it is recycled.

It was really. A lot of it was very, very recycled.

Were you there?

I was!

I loved hearing from Sean Graves. He really powered through it.

[quote="Screamingophelia"]

Screamingophelia wrote:

Mr. Sanders was the only one who was released?

I know it was just their bodies and they had no awareness but I’ve always felt awful thinking of them there. Especially Cassie’s family, she lived so close


Yeah Screamingophelia, completely agree. It’s unimaginable to know that your child, and their resting place, is so close you can see it from your home.

There are so many heartbreaking stories that came out of this tragedy. To me some of the saddest are Dave Sanders bleeding to death while a couple of students try to comfort him, Anne Marie’s mother taking her own life 6 months after the shooting, and all of the other shootings that were motivated by Columbine. No one also really thinks about the siblings of those killed.

I’ll probably be scoffed at this, but I also feel sorry for Eric and Dylan, as well as their parents/families. They were victims, too. All humans act in certain ways with particular reasons why.

No scoffing from me. I find myself torn but I feel sorry for eric and dylan and their families. I know it probably hurt Sue and Tom and I am sure even kathy and wayne that their kids were alone and did something horrible.

Any kid who feels so angry that they need to destroy peoples lives in the way that Eric and Dylan did break my heart.

You hit the nail on the head. Even though they committed this tragedy together, they probably never felt so alone. And it’s unimaginable to be that far gone in that state of mind to murder innocent people.

20 years ago tomorrow. April 24, 1999 was a Saturday and marks from what I recall the first day of 14 funerals... let that sink in. 14 funerals in I believe 4 days.

Rachel and Dylan had their funerals on the same day. Dylan's friend wrote that she was torn between going to Rachel or his. She went to Rachel's but regrets it to this day. I think she said because it was like denying that Dylan meant something to her too.

John Tomlin is buried in Wisconsin. Dylan was cremated. The rest are laid to rest in the Denver area.

It was cold and snowy on that day. Tomorrow spring will be in the air, it will be sunny and warm. The world spins forward.

I've made this thread a sticky, so it can now be found at the top of the page. Thank you again, Porter, for doing this thread on the 20th anniversary and everyone else who contributed to it, thank you as well

Jenn wrote:

I've made this thread a sticky, so it can now be found at the top of the page. Thank you again, Porter, for doing this thread on the 20th anniversary and everyone else who contributed to it, thank you as well

You're welcome. It's still hard to believe that so much time has passed. It seems like just the other day to me.

LPorter101 wrote:

Jenn wrote:

I've made this thread a sticky, so it can now be found at the top of the page. Thank you again, Porter, for doing this thread on the 20th anniversary and everyone else who contributed to it, thank you as well

You're welcome. It's still hard to believe that so much time has passed. It seems like just the other day to me.

I know. It goes by so fast. I remember coming home from school and sitting in the kitchen with my Grandmom watching the live footage of it. When I got into Columbine, it was after the 12th anniversary and now it's the 20th. It's crazy how fast it went by.

Thanks everyone. Again I was MIA during all this. K was going to go to the memorial and then the closed private event in my sister's place but my auntie who raised me had a heart attack and I had to fly to Hawai'i where she unfortunately passed away a few days later. So i know I'm super late to the topic but reading this made me remember what that day was like for me.

Its hard to think 20 years ago on 4/20 I was in my 3rd grade classroom at Normandy Elementary having a normal day until the substitute teacher in the class room beside us came running in crying telling Mrs. B our teacher that there was a shooting over at Columbine. Mrs. B had a daughter there and she told us we had free time and she ran out of the room. She was a strict teacher so this wasn't normal for her. When she came back she was crying and said there was a problem up at the high school but it was being taken care of a s turned movies on for us and said we had to stay in our classroom for the day and locked the door. We were all super confused had no clue what was going on but were happy to watch movies even though they were boring old school ones. The teachers in our pod kept running in and out through the back opening that connected our classrooms whispering and crying with each other. Then one by one all my classmates started to leave as their parents came. Mrs. B had to one by one escort us down to the principals office to meet our parents. I was the last kid there and just saw my friends and classmates leave one by one. My mom finally picked me up way after the end of the school day distraught since she still hadnt made contact with my siblings. She said something bad had happened at their school. I thought maybe it was a fire or a tornado (I was a little kid and those were the only drills we did back then so i figured thats what had happened) I didnt get why all my teachers and my mom and all the adults everywhere were crying and so upset. She took me to Leawood the elementary school down the street from mine for a little bit I remember being so overwhelmed and confused by all the crying adults and crying teenagers. We didnt stay long my mom was frustrated that things were so unorganized and she hadn't been able to find Lindsey or Anthony so we finally went home. I thought my sister was in trouble like other times when my mom waited up for her to come home worried while she waited
but then she would be angry when she finally did. I remember when my sister came home that night though my mom wasn't mad at her she was so happy to see her she cried and cried d kept hugging her and saying how much she loved her. And my super cool big sister didn't roll her eyes or tall back but she did the same. All the police everywhere confused me too, we could see the Harriss house caddy corner and all the lights were on all night and there were police everywhere. My mom explained that the boy down the street went to school with Linds and Tony did some very bad things and hurt a bunch of other kids and teachers really bad.

I couldnt sleep that night, my room faced the back and could see the house with all the lights and police. I was afraid one of the bad boys would come hurt us. I heard my sister in her room beside me up all night talking on the phone and crying. In the middle of the night I remember she came into my room and crawled into bed with me and hugged me sobbing and said how much she loved me. I was confused but felt safe with her and finally fell asleep having no idea the magnitude of what had happend or how much it would affect my family.

It was revolting to leave Dave Sanders for a long time while those around him watched him bleed to death. Something else revolting was the way families of those killed found out. Sure, there were no protocols to follow at that time, no guidelines for how to respond to such an event. But Lauren Townsend’s family found out from the nightly news that evening (I believe before advocates showed up at her mother’s and stepfather’s house). Brian Robourgh found out when his child’s body was sprawled out on the front page of the next morning’s paper.

But something that no one talks about or remembers is the hell that Eric’s and Dylan’s parents went through on that day. The horror of having the police on their doorstep, having to sit outside while the police wreaked havoc inside trying to find dangerous items (ie explosives), the slow dawning realization of the extent of the event and the denial of your child being involved in any way, and the anxiety of not knowing their safety. Then given a little time to pack a few important personal effects- while being watched, having to try to find a place to run (like Sue says in her memoir, they couldn’t go to a hotel in fear of someone recognizing their last name, having to avoid the press, and still not knowing if your son is okay (perhaps the Harrises, since we know about the Klebolds). What a terrifying and surreal situation that would be.

Do we know anything at all about the Harrises right after the shooting? Did they stand outside their home like the Klebolds while police ransacked it? Where did they go that night and in the couple of days afterwards?

Also @screamingorphelia, in one of the very early posts you were asking about Eric’s birthday, if his birthday fell on the same day as his get together. His birthday would have fell on a Friday and we know he and a few close friends went bowling on a Saturday night, so his party get together was the next day.