How do you think Eric and Dylan felt about being on CCTV?

Ok I think we can all agree the boys were well aware they were on CCTV when they went to the cafeteria 3 times on 4/20, considering they probably spent their lunches there and stuff (or maybe not), but when you think when they went there the next 2 times (after planting the bombs), shooting at the bombs and throwing explosives, what was going through their heads? Do you think they were probably thinking to themselves "Wow, this is cool! we're on video! Hehehe!" or something like that?

i think they were more focused on making the bombs go off

It is hard to say with how much adrenaline they would have been experiencing. It's probably safe to assume that Eric was a bit shaken because the bombs didn't go as planned, he broke his nose and exchanged fire with the police all within a very short span of time. Even with combat training the amount of adrenaline dump at this point would have been intense and Dylan was the more energetic after this point from most eye witness accounts, probably because his main motive the whole time was more to die. My bet is they didn't even think of the cctv if they were aware it was recording to tape it's very likely to have slipped the mind as higher brain function shuts down under these types of payloads.

Oh also just thought of the fact they may or may not have believed those bombs would detonate as they anticipated which would have rendered the cctv footage to ashes that would have made it a non factor in their initial planning further pushing it to he back of their minds during the attack.

It still baffles me, with all that time planning, that their most important and crucial part of the plan (bombs) were so badly executed. I mean like, terribly bad.

Even if the petrol cans had caught fire with the clocks they set, surely they must have known that a propane tank wouldn't explode like a bomb.

I mean, they were both very intelligent.

I wonder if, deep down, Dylan or Eric knew this but didn't want to put up too much fuss, just so they could just get on with shooting, killing and setting off pipe bombs? Who knows?

If they wanted a huge kill count and to do it from a distance, I wonder why they didn't just set off the fire alarm and unload at students gathered at the assembly point?

Come to think of it, the whole thing was such a failure from the start. They didn't even make sure that the basement tapes were put out there.

I wonder if they really felt dissatisfied and stupid right before committing suicide?

I have wondered about that a lot myself. It is pretty shocking how bad the bomb design was. It is the one area of the whole thing that truly makes me believe Eric had a full blown personality disorder such as mania, or narcissism. To overlook such a major detail seems almost impossible. The most popular still image from the cafeteria footage, that shows Eric looking into the distance and shows Dylan walking in the forefront, the body language tells a lot there. I would assume Eric felt like it was a failure and went out not feeling the best, and Dylan was just riding the massive adrenaline dump of actually doing it and knowing he was going to commit suicide. Further makes me believe the way they actually died was Eric suddenly without much or any warning just shooting himself leaving Dylan alone.

shwnmnstr wrote:

I have wondered about that a lot myself. It is pretty shocking how bad the bomb design was. It is the one area of the whole thing that truly makes me believe Eric had a full blown personality disorder such as mania,  or narcissism. To overlook such a major detail seems almost impossible. The most popular still image from the cafeteria footage,  that shows Eric looking into the distance and shows Dylan walking in the forefront, the body language tells a lot there.  I would assume Eric felt like it was a failure and went out not feeling the best,  and Dylan was just riding the massive adrenaline dump of actually doing it and knowing he was going to commit suicide.  Further makes me believe the way they actually died was Eric suddenly without much or any warning just shooting himself leaving Dylan alone.

Superb post my friend! I really enjoyed reading that.

That last bit of footage of them leaving the cafeteria, going up the steps totally wrecks my mind too.

Eric looks like he is still on a major mission, the way he jogs up those stairs with full intention of further action.

Dylan however, looks tired and bored of the whole show.

I read a post on here a good while back, from a guy that had used guns during hunting and such. He said that carrying two heavy guns like that, reloading, carrying the bag with the ammunition and pipe bombs must have been really exausting. They shot off a lot of rounds too!

Dylan looked shattered going back up there!

No ear protection either. By the time they were on their way back to the library, i doubt they could even hear each other speak. Just their ears ringing!

And let's face it, that shotgun that Eric put in his mouth at the end, it must have tasted very metallic, smoky, and probably at a high temperature too.

People wonder if they said anything to each other before suicide. If they did, they must have shouted it to each other!!!

Deleted

I have also often wondered if they considered calling it off and trying to get the bombs out, but decided it was too risky, or maybe assumed the bombs had already been found. In retrospect, they could likely have just walked back in, picked them up and left. As I mentioned earlier, high levels of arousal (adrenaline) cause the higher brain functions to shut off, it is likely they panicked and just started shooting people. Also when bombs don't detonate as planned it creates the tense situation of everyone around it basically assuming it will go off now at any moment, they maybe have also thought the bombs would detonate randomly at any point so started shooting, Dylan checking on them while Eric stayed back makes me think maybe they had talked about this possibility in their plans, it would make sense Dylan would have volunteered to be the guy going in to the bombs, as he was suicidal, Eric would stay back to carry out the shooting. Who knows, just a thought.

Juniper wrote:

Interesting discussion.  I don't know about the effectiveness of the design.  I don't have any knowledge to evaluate it.

They probably got an idea out of the Anarchist's Cookbook or at least the version floating around online at the time. The book would have been like 25+ years old at the time and who knows how old the information itself was. They probably read something about propane tanks and didn't have any real life experience to know it wouldn't work. I mean even now I wouldn't just let a camping stove tank fall into the campfire or something, and they probably do say something about keeping it away from a flame.

They would love it. It would be their money shot for the newspaper covers.