Tom's suspicions.

I was thinking about the beginning of Sue's book and how on the day of the massacre Sue's only worries were for Dylan's safety but Tom called a lawyer. Sue seems to think it was because Dylan may have been involved in a prank, after hearing that the kids doing the shooting were wearing black trench coats... and Sue still thought it seemed absurd.

So it seems to be Sue was pretty steadfast that Dylan was hurt or dead until the lawyer called back and said it was Dylan doing the shooting.

However to me, the more I think about it, Tom seemed to always think Dylan was involved. Am I the only one?

Say you had a child who always wore a green coat. However, they had never been in trouble, they were not giving you any red flags etc.. then there was a shooting and someone said "the shooter is wearing a green coat" would that make think your child was doing the shooting? I wonder if Tom had more suspicions about Dylan's deterioration than just his voice being higher?

Seems possible.  Of course anything is possible.  Since I have never read Sue's book and have no idea on what Tom thought/thinks about Dylan, I can't say.  Calling a lawyer immediately does seem to send flags up that he had suspicions.  Perhaps he always knew/suspected Dylan unstable.  I don't mean psychotic but maybe emotionally?  

I was a ticking timebomb growing up.  Always angry, even worse in High School.  Each passing year in H.S. the more I hated .  Not like Eric or Dylan hate just loathed the idea of H.S. but never hated the student body.  I wasn't considered a jock but I did play football with the jocks.  I never fit in with those guys.  A lot of them gave me shit because of my name but I wasn't necessarily bullied.

To my point, I bet even my parents would have called in immediately if something like this happened just because of my intolerance towards life (wasn't suicidal) at that time if something similar went down.  I graduated two years before E & D, so the idea of school shootings was foreign.  I don't think they [my parents] would have done anything before that. They never even searched my room.  If they had they would have found some things they certainly wouldn't have approved of.  

I don't mean guns or violent things either.

I remember reading an interview with Tom and him recalling having a chat with Dylan after the van break-in. And he admitted being shocked by Dylan's stance on the whole event and its implications. So yeah, it's possible Tom's eyes were slightly more open to the possibility that something terrible could have been going on with Dylan all along.

Screamingophelia wrote:

Say you had a child who always wore a green coat. However, they had never been in trouble, they were not giving you any red flags etc.

Well let's hold on here, Dylan had been in trouble and showed red flags. The van break-in, the computer hacking, the locker vandalism, the short story with the killer that looks exactly like Dylan, etc. Granted it's not as severe as Nick Cruz showing people decapitated cats, but it's certainly something.

Quote :

Dylan had been in trouble and showed red flags

Good point but were these just chalked up to juvenile mischievousness?  Is it inconceivable that the parents just dismissed it as that.  Clearly they got in trouble.  

In H.S. I too did 'missions'.  We didn't call them missions but we certainly had no problems egging homes (there were weekly routine targets of certain individuals), greasing cars and causing general teenage mayhem.   Hell a few of us made pipe bombs and blew them up out in the desert.  My friend at 17 bought a glock from a private seller.  

Fortunately we never got caught and the most harm we were was to ourselves anyways.  We were just having fun.  Most of us ended up joining the military anyways.  

Hindsight is 20/20 however.

QuestionMark wrote:

Screamingophelia wrote:

Say you had a child who always wore a green coat. However, they had never been in trouble, they were not giving you any red flags etc.

Well let's hold on here, Dylan had been in trouble and showed red flags. The van break-in, the computer hacking, the locker vandalism, the short story with the killer that looks exactly like Dylan, etc. Granted it's not as severe as Nick Cruz showing people decapitated cats, but it's certainly something.

QuestionMark, I don't think i was clear with my example. I didn't phrase it properly.

I was trying to ask if there were no red flags with Dylan and there were no worries would hearing about someone committing a shooting in a coat like Dylan had really worry you? Probably not, so Tom had to have some more worries about Dylan than maybe even Sue had...

As mentioned above, Dylan had shown warning signs (the story, the van break in, the locker defacement, the locker combo hacking) that something was wrong.

But, remember, Nate Dykeman had also called Tom while the attack was going on and expressed his concerns that Dylan was involved. Nate heard on the news that the gunmen wore trench coats, and Dylan and Eric were pretty much the only ones that still did so. Nate also knew that Dylan had purchased a gun with the help of Phil Duran and he had been present with them when they had detonated crickets and pipe bombs. He knew that both Eric and Dylan were not at school that day, which he noted was unusual. Nate is the one that told Tom to look to see if Dylan's coat was in the house; they could have talked about some of these other things, as well, which would have raised Tom's index of suspicion. Tom called Sue after he spoke with Nate.

thelmar wrote:

As mentioned above, Dylan had shown warning signs (the story, the van break in, the locker defacement, the locker combo hacking) that something was wrong.

But, remember, Nate Dykeman had also called Tom while the attack was going on and expressed his concerns that Dylan was involved. Nate heard on the news that the gunmen wore trench coats, and Dylan and Eric were pretty much the only ones that still did so. Nate also knew that Dylan had purchased a gun with the help of Phil Duran and he had been present with them when they had detonated crickets and pipe bombs. He knew that both Eric and Dylan were not at school that day, which he noted was unusual. Nate is the one that told Tom to look to see if Dylan's coat was in the house; they could have talked about some of these other things, as well, which would have raised Tom's index of suspicion. Tom called Sue after he spoke with Nate.

Those are good points!

It kind of shows Sue's denial too, because in the book she talks about "stupid pranks" as to why Tom called a lawyer.

Good points I agree. However are a van break in, locker defacement and hacking indicative of homicidal mania? I agree they're criminal acts but nothing that would have indicated they're planning a mass murder. I know the story was a huge red flag and that should have raised suspicions.