2. What was the Columbine
Shooting?
The Columbine Shooting was an event that occurred on April 20th, 1999 at
Columbine High School. Columbine High School is located in Littleton,
Colorado.
There were two gunmen, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, both boys attended
Columbine High School at the time of the shooting. They were seniors at the
time.
The boys had planned the attack before they went into the school, the attack
was planned about one year before April 20th.
They planned to kill hundreds of people, with all different kinds of weapons,
knives, bombs, and guns.
It is marked down as the fourth deadliest school shooting in the United States of
all time.
The two had planned the shooting for 1997 onward.
3. Time line of Columbine
Shooting
At 11:10 AM the boys enter the school, driving separate cars, they park near the cafeteria.
The boys enter the cafeteria at 11:14 AM, as planned, carrying two twenty pound bombs that were going to detonate at
11:17AM.
After the bombs were set the boys walked back to the car and wait for them to explode, instead nothing happened. It is
estimated that almost all of the students would have been killed in the cafeteria if they would have exploded.
At 11:19 AM two pipe-bombs go off in a field, they set the bombs up so that it would distract police officers.
At 11:19 AM they started firing shots at students outside of the cafeteria, and Rachel Scott was killed, another boy was
injured.
Many students believed that the shooting was a prank and many did not react to the shooting as soon as they should have.
They continued to shoot many people, and most ignored the guns because of the fact that they thought it was a senior
prank, three students walked right past the boys because they though the guns were paintballs.
They continued to throw small bombs in many areas.
Both boys walked down the stairs and shot at three wounded people on the floor, at point blank range one student died
instantly, one survived his wounds, and one crawled back into the cafeteria and pretended to be dead so that the boys
wouldn't notice him.
A policeman arrived and fired at Harris, but nothing happened to the policeman or Harris.
They entered the school at 11:25 AM walking down the hallways shot at a girl, she was injured but survived.
4. Time line of Columbine Part 2
A teacher by the name of Dave Sanders was shot when he was coming up the stairs from the cafeteria, he was shot in the
leg. He was pulled into a classroom by another teacher, they tried to revive him for over 3 hours.
Both boys continuously threw bombs and shot randomly at anything they saw down the hallways.
At 11:29 AM the boys entered the library.
They entered the library and shouted “Get Up!”, fortunately no one got up, they shot randomly and only one student was
injured by flying debris.
Walking through the library they shot and killed Kyle Velasquez who was sitting at a computer table instead of hiding
underneath the desk.
Klebold then shot at three other students in the library, injuring all three. Harris then shot and killed Steven Curnow. He then
walked to another desk where he found two other girls hiding underneath, he said “Peak-A-Boo” before he shot, he killed
Cassie Bernall.
Harris asked Bree Pasquale if she wanted to die, she pleading and begged for her life, before he could shoot, Klebold
called Harris over because he found a black male underneath the table, Klebold grabbed the black male and Harris shot and
killed Isaiah Shoels. Klebold then shot and killed Michael Ketcher.
They shot rapidly, killing Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, and Kelly Flemming.
While Klebold was reloading he found an acquaintance of his underneath a table, the boy asked what Klebold was doing,
Klebold responded with, “Oh, just killing people.” the student asked if he was going to die, Klebold let him run out of the
library unharmed.
The police then came to enforce, which the Law Enforcers tried to shoot at the two boys, but then soon realized they had
committed suicide.
The police entered the school to help who ever was wounded or dying.
5. Aftermath of the Columbine
Shooting
There were over 2,000 students attending the school when the event
happened.
Some students took a bus to a nearby Elementary School for safety.
Harris and Klebold killed thirteen people, (twelve students, and one
teacher).
They fired 188 rounds, they set off 76 bombs (30 exploded, 46 did not),
they also set off 13 bombs in their cars, which none of them exploded.
Dave Sanders, the teacher who was shot, was lying in the science
room. He was shot at 11:26 AM, students were trying to revive him until
2:47 PM, they were given emergency instructions on how to help him,
the SWAT team arrived right before he took his last few breaths.
6. Why was the crime
committed?
There is no real official evidence why the crime was committed, however, there
are many beliefs of why it happened.
Many say that the two boys were bullied and picked on throughout high school,
some say it was because of video game violence, music, racism, their parents,
depression, and many other things.
Strangely, the Klebold family had taken a trip the month before to the University
of Arizona, where Dylan was accepted to the college the following year.
The boys kept many hidden things that no one found out about until after the
shooting, there were many video tapes, journals, books, there were even
weapons in clear site if the parents had looked in their rooms. Harris even
created a website about hateful things said about many things.
7. How the Columbine Shooting
effects us today
The Columbine Shooting was shocking to everyone, it showed that any
school could go under the same situation and how dangerous it could be.
The Columbine Shooting wasn't as deadly as expected, if everything
would've gone as planned the whole school would’ve been dead.
Rachel's Challenge is an organization that is helping kids that are in a
bad situation so that events like this never have to happen again.
Sadly, since the massacre there has been another shooting, which
happened in 2007, The Virginia Tech Shooting which killed 32 people.
Many schools have police officers in the school for protection against
terrible events like this.
8. Rachel Scott
One of the most famous students from the Columbine Shooting,
aside from Dylan and Eric was Rachel Scott, a senior at the time of
the shooting.
She had known Dylan since kindergarten, they were in the same
class until their deaths.
She is well known for the diaries she had written prior to the
incident, almost predicting her own death.
Her funeral was attended by 2,000 people, and was watched on
television nationwide, it was the most watched event on CNN up to
that point.
Rachels Challenge is a popular organization that is spread
throughout High Schools across America, it is a organization to
spread hope and educate students that they can change if they are
depressed.
9. Columbine Shooting Quiz
1. Who were the two boys involved in the crime?
2. What day did the event take place?
3. Who is the student that has her own
organization led by her parents?
4. Have there been any other crimes like this
since?
5. What was the name of the boy who escaped
the library?
11. Works Cited
Columbine Shooting. Digital image.
Http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7714/columbine3.jpg. Web. 24
May 2012.
"Columbine Massacre." About.com 20th Century History. Web. 24
May 2012. <
http://history1900s.about.com/od/famouscrimesscandals/a/columbine.htm
>.
"The Columbine High School Shootings." The Columbine High
School Shootings. Web. 24 May 2012. <
http://vanessawest.tripod.com/columbine-4.html>.
Columbine Shooting Cafeteria. Digital image.
Http://scrapetv.com/News/newsbrief/usa/images-1/columbine-
shooting.jpg. Web. 24 May 2012.
