COMPREHENDING COLUMBINE RALPH W. LARKIN COMPREHENDING COLUMBINE TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1601 North Broad Street Philadelphia PA 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright © 2007 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2007 Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Larkin, Ralph W., 1940- Comprehending Columbine / Ralph W. Larkin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-59213-490-8 ISBN-10: 1-59213-490-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-59213-491-5 ISBN-10: 1-59213-491-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Columbine High School (Littleton, Colo.) 2. School violence—Colorado. I. Title. LB3013.33.C6L37 2007 373.17'820978882—dc22 2006020365 246897531 To Andrew and David CONTENTS 1 ARMAGEDDON (WELL, ALMOST) 1 2 GOD’S COUNTRY 17 3 CULTURAL WARS AT COLUMBINE 39 4 THE PEER STRUCTURE OF COLUMBINE HIGH 62 5 THE OTHER COLUMBINE 82 6 ERIC AND DYLAN 122 7 FROM OKLAHOMA CITY TO COLUMBINE 155 8 DEAD CELEBRITIES 175 9 GIVE PEACE A CHANCE 196 METHODOLOGICAL APPENDIX 231 NOTES 237 REFERENCES 241 INDEX 249 FIGURES 2.1: A view of the Rockies from near Golden in late Spring 18 2.2: Racial composition of Columbine and United States 21 2.3: Nativity for Columbine and the United States 22 2.4: Income distribution for Columbine and the United States 22 2.5: Educational attainment for Columbine and for the 23 2.5: United States by gender 2.6: Family composition for Columbine and the United States 24 2.7: Rebel Hill 27 2.8: Columbine High School sign, Pierce Avenue 28 5.1: Hall scene videotaped by Dylan Klebold 90 8.1: Homicide and suicide rates for whites, age 15–19, 1970–2000 186 1 ARMAGEDDON (WELL, ALMOST) OTHING HAPPENED. It was 11:19 A.M., April 20, 1999. By 11:09 A.M., Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had hauled into the Columbine High School cafeteria two bombs hidden in large duffel bags and placed them near the tables where the athletic Ncrowd ate lunch. Each bomb was a twenty-gallon propane tank wired to a one-gallon can of gasoline that was attached to a detonator and a timer set to go off at 11:17 A.M. The duffel bags blended in with the backpacks strewn all over the cafeteria floor by the approximately 480 students who were eat- ing lunch at the time. Eric was in the junior parking lot, southeast of the main entrance, and Dylan was in the senior parking lot, southwest of the main entrance. Each was strategically located approximately forty-five degrees from the south entrance of the high school so they could shoot at fleeing students without endangering each other. Klebold was dressed in cargo pants, a black T-shirt that said “Wrath,” and a black trench coat. Underneath his coat was an Intratec TEC-DC-9, 9-mm semiautomatic handgun attached to a strap slung over his shoulder. His cargo pants had large pockets that allowed him partially to conceal a Stephens 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun, particu- larly since the barrel had been cut down to approximately twenty-three inches. Harris, also wearing a black trench coat, wore a white T-shirt under- neath that said, “Natural Selection.” Both wore combat boots. Harris hid a 2 | chapter 1 Hi-Point 9-mm carbine rifle on a strap under his coat. He carried a Savage Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun in a duffel bag that also held numerous explosive devices, including pipe bombs and CO2 canisters, and ammunition. The shotgun’s stock and barrel had been cut off, reducing it to twenty-six inches. In addition, the boys were armed with several knives, including a nine-inch kitchen knife, a dagger, and two combat knives, one a folding blade knife about four inches long, and the other having a hatchet blade of about 3 1/2 inches in length, the handle of which doubled as brass knuckles with ten sharp spikes pro- truding outward. Their cars were booby-trapped with bombs timed to explode later in the day when the parking lot would be filled with emergency personnel. By 11:19 A.M., nothing had happened. The bombs did not explode. No ball of fire ripped out the cafeteria windows. No dismembered body pieces were pro- pelled through the air. No mortally wounded students were lying on the cafete- ria floor, groaning and calling for their mothers. The ceiling above the cafeteria did not collapse, dropping the fifty-six students studying in the library above, the debris from the floor, and the tables, chairs, stacks, and other equipment onto the unsuspecting students in the cafeteria below. The ground did not reverber- ate; thick black smoke did not emanate from the cafeteria. No chaos had bro- ken out as students ran from the scene. No flood of students ran for safety through the south entrance to the high school only to be mowed down in a withering crossfire from semiautomatic weapons. Harris and Klebold’s apocalyptic vision of the destruction of their high school was thwarted only because the detonators they had purchased were defective. The Columbine massacre was the most important news event in 1999; throughout the 1990s, only the O. J. Simpson trial received more media cover- age (Muschert 2002). Despite the overwhelming media coverage and the sub- sequent national debate over youth violence, precious few attempts were made to analyze the causes of the shootings. As Downs (1998) has shown, the media have a very short attention span, moving from excited involvement to loss of inter- est in a short span of time. Because of the magnitude of the story of the Columbine shootings, daily reportage lasted for a full month. Despite the salience of the story, the vast media presence, the large number of local, state, and national investigators, at the close of the investigation, nobody could offer a coherent explanation as to why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out to kill their peers and destroy their school. Even though there was agreement, for the most part, about the facts of the case, the question of “why” has never been ade- quately addressed. This study examines personal, local, and societal factors that propelled Harris and Klebold to attempt to kill 500 of their fellow students and destroy their high school. ARMAGEDDON ( WELL, ALMOST) | 3 THE ASSAULT Months of preparation and meticulous planning culminated in that moment. Over the past year, the boys had collected weapons, made and tested pipe bombs, wrote to-do lists, drew up plans, conducted field research, and fantasized about the coming revenge that they were going to exact from Columbine. In his Trenchcoat Mafia web site, Eric Harris opined that he could kill 500 students. If the bombs had exploded as the two boys had originally planned, the number of dead and wounded may well have approximated that number. With their watches and the timers synchronized, they waited in the parking lot for an explosion that never happened. They had apparently walked to the top of the stairs that led to the west entrance of the school. When they realized that their plans needed revision, they looked at each other, and one of them said, “Go, go!” It was a warm spring day, and Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo had decided to eat their lunch on the grass beside the west entrance. When Harris and Klebold reached the top of the stairs, they saw Rachel and Richard. Rachel was killed in a hail of bullets, and Richard was seriously wounded. The assault had begun. Then they turned and started shooting down the stairs at students who were behind them and who were apparently walking to the “smokers’ pit,” a congregating place in Clement Park just to the north of the school where smokers gathered to have a cigarette. They shot Daniel Rohrbough, Sean Graves, and Lance Kirklin. Rohrbough died instantly, but Kirklin and Graves survived. Then Harris and Klebold turned in a more westerly direction and began shoot- ing at five students on a grassy slope. As they ran away from the gunman, two were hit: Michael Johnson was able to run up the hill and hide behind a shed containing athletic equipment; Mark Taylor was seriously wounded and could not move. Dylan Klebold ran back down the stairs toward the rear entrance of the cafe- teria. On his way, he shot Lance Kirklin at close range. Klebold entered the cafe- teria and stood at the rear, apparently trying to figure out why the bombs did not explode. He stood there for less than a minute, exiting the cafeteria and running back up the stairs to Eric. By that time, Eric had taken off his trench coat. He shot down the stairs at Ann Marie Hochhalter and hit her several times as she struggled to run for cover into the cafeteria. One of the gunmen shouted, “This is what we always wanted to do! This is awesome!” The boys threw pipe bombs onto the grassy area, into the parking lot, and onto the roof of the school, creat- ing several explosions. 4 | chapter 1 At about this time, teacher Patti Nielson, who was on hall duty during the lunch period, heard a commotion outside the west entrance to the school. Think- ing that students using toy guns to film a video were making too much noise, she intended to tell them to “knock it off” as she approached the doors of the west entrance.