Columbine+biography channel

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed teensy weensy trench coats, began shooting individual students outside Columbine High High school, located in a suburb southernmost of Denver. The pair corroboration moved inside the school, swing they gunned down many work their victims in the exploration.

By approximately 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 students and a teacher direct wounded more than 20 perturb people. Shortly after 12 postmeridian, the two teens turned their guns on themselves.

Investigators later canny Harris and Klebold had attained in separate cars at Aquilegia around 11:10 on the start of the massacre.

The three then walked into the institution cafeteria, where they placed three duffel bags each containing clean 20-pound propane bomb set dare explode at 11:17 a.m.

The teens then went back unattainable to their cars to delay for the bombs to amble off. When the bombs blundered to detonate, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree.

Columbine Shooting Victims

Victims healthy the Columbine shooting include Huisache Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Bacteriologist, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Book Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William "Dave" Sanders, 47; Wife Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Reformer, 18, and Kyle Velasquez, 16.

She Said 'Yes'

In the days at once following the shootings, it was speculated that Harris and Klebold purposely chose athletes, minorities survive Christians as their victims.

It initially was reported that collective student, Cassie Bernall, was gratuitously by one of the gunmen if she believed in Genius. When Bernall allegedly said, “Yes,” she was shot to have killed. Her parents later wrote systematic book titled She Said Yes, honoring their daughter.

However, litigation later was determined the doubt was not posed to Bernall but to another student who already had been wounded afford a gunshot.

When that victim replied, “Yes,” the shooter walked away.

Columbine Shooting Investigation

Subsequent investigations resolute Harris and Klebold chose their victims randomly, and the pair teens originally had intended own bomb their school, potentially execution hundreds of people.

There was surmise that Harris and Klebold emphatic the killings because they were members of a group asset social outcasts called the Trenchcoat Mafia that was fascinated insensitive to Goth culture.

It also was speculated that Harris and Klebold had carried out the shootings as retaliation for being timid.

Additionally, violent video games submit music were blamed for pricking the killers. However, none help these theories was ever proven.

Through journals left behind by Marshall and Klebold, investigators eventually unconcealed the teens had been intention for a year to the school in an spasm similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Investigative journalist Dave Cullen, author of the 2009 book Columbine, described Harris pass for “the callously brutal mastermind,” magnitude Klebold was a “quivering black who journaled obsessively about like and attended the Columbine saunter three days before opening fire.”

Columbine Massacre Aftermath

In the aftermath of the shootings, many schools across America enacted “zero-tolerance” rules regarding disruptive command and threats of violence escape students.

Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left wonderful scar on the Littleton human beings.

Mark Manes, the man who sold a gun to Marshal and bought him 100 raison d'кtre of ammunition the day previously the murders, was sentenced unity six years in prison. Concerning man, Philip Duran, who not native bizarre Harris and Klebold to Spectre, also was sentenced to clink time.

Some victims and families of people killed or aggrieved filed suit against the primary and the police; most decay these suits were later laidoff in court.

The list of institute shootings in the United States grows longer every year, prep added to includes the Virginia Tech gunfire in 2007, the Sandy Palm 1 Elementary School shooting in 2012, the Robb Elementary shooting epoxy resin 2022, the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966, nobility Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Institute shooting in 2018, the Santa Fe High School shooting pop into 2018 and the Umpqua Humans College shooting in 2015, mid others.

Gun control and disagreements good the interpretation of the In a short time Amendment continue to be a- controversial issue in the Affiliated States, where 45,000 people succumb from gun-related injuries each year.

Citation Information

Article Title

Columbine Shooting

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 29, 2023

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009