Wednesday 27 July 2011

Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris

The Columbine High School Massacre

WARNING: A single image in this article may be found disturbing to sensitive viewers.

Dylan Klebold & Eric Harris

Early Life: Dylan Bennet Klebold
Dylan was born in Lakewood Colorado to parents, Thomas Klebold and Susan Klebold.
Dylan was born into a very religious family, attending a Lutheran church were Dylan and his brother Byron attended Sunday school.

Dylan attended Normandy Elementary School during for grade 1 and 2 but then moved to Governor's Ranch Elementary School, to be part of a educational program called CHIPS(Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students), this is where he met Brooks Brown.
A year before the massacre Brooks ended the friendship with Dylan due to a fight they had outside of Dylan and Eric’s then place of employment “Blackjack Pizza” when Dylan threw a chunk of ice through the windshield of Brown’s car.

Early Life: Eric David Harris
Eric was born in Wichita Kansas to parents Wayne and Katherine Harris.
The Harris family relocated constantly due to the fact that Eric’s father was a U.S Air force pilot.
Eric finally settled with his family in Colorado after his father retired from the Air Force.
Eric and Dylan finally met up in 1996 in Junior High.

Eric suffered from depression and was prescribed Zoloft, but the side-effects of the Zoloft were too extreme for Eric to handle and was put on a different drug called Luvox.
These medications have been argued the reason for Eric’s lack of judgment and remorse on the day of the killings.

9 mm Hi-Point 995 carbine, 1 of the weapons used

Earlier Crimes
In 1998 Eric and Dylan were caught stealing computer equipment from a van, for these crimes they were charged with breaking and entering and theft.
However their criminal records were expunged due to their excellent behavior and they only had to complete community service, receive psychiatric help and attend a anger management class.

The Weapons
In one of the Movies based on the Columbine High School Massacre, their weapons were bought over the internet when in fact, a friend of Dylan, Robyn Anderson, purchased the weapons for them.
The weapons purchased was a 311-D 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, two 9 mm Hi-Point 995 carbines and two TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handguns.

Not only handheld weapons were used by Dylan and Eric.
Dylan and Eric also constructed bombs made from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipes and propane tanks, these were placed throughout the school but only 2 partially detonated.

Columbine High School


Hit Men For Hire
“Hit men for hire” was a video that Dylan and Eric made as a school project.
In this film Eric and Dylan are playing the roles of hit men sent into their school to kill certain students.
Dylan and Eric were not the only students working on this project, and even though this video showed extreme violence and made use of extremely offensive language, it was still praised by their teacher stating that it was well written and well recorded.

The Massacre
On April 20 1999 Eric and Dylan arrived at the school with their weapons and bombs.
As a diversion Eric and Dylan placed one of their bombs in a field 800 meters away from the school and set to detonate at 11:14am, but the bomb only half detonated which only caused a small fire.
They took 2 more bombs which were placed in duffle bags, into the school and placed them in the cafeteria and set them to detonate at 11:17am and they headed back outside, each covering a exit of the school.
Their initial plan was to shoot and kill any students that were to exit the school after the bombs detonated in the cafeteria.

After they noticed that the bombs did not detonate they headed back towards the school using the west entrance steps.

At 11:19am Eric yelled “Go! Go!” and started shooting at the first student to be killed, Rachel Scott who was having lunch with her friend Richard Castaldo on a grassy knoll a few yards away from the entrance.
Rachel was shot 4 times and died instantly while Richard was shot 8 times and was critically wounded.

While walking up the stairs towards the schools entrance Eric and Dylan turned around and shot at 3 more students walking up the stairs behind them, all three were critically injured.
While still on the steps they started shooting away from the school towards a group of 5 more students sitting just outside of the school entrance on the grass 2 of these students were injured and the other 3 escaped unwounded.

Stairway to entrance used


A local teacher Patti Nielson started to head outside to tell Dylan and Eric to stop what they are doing, since she thought they were working on another video project.
As Dylan and Eric came towards the entrance they shot out the glass, the glass shrapnel hit Patti in the face, this is when she realized what was really going on.
Patti ran into the library and started to warn students to get under their desks, Patti then also hid herself under a desk and dialed 9-1-1.

After the 9-1-1 call a deputy sheriff arrived at the scene and started firing at Dylan who was still just outside of the entrance, Dylan reacted by shooting back at the officer but did not hit him.
After Dylan ran out of ammunition he ran inside.
While inside Eric and Dylan patrolled the hallways shooting at any student they came across, while doing this they shot Stephanie Munson in the ankle but she manage to escape.

While Eric and Dylan were on their shooting spree in the hallways, the schools coach, Dave Sanders was evacuating the students who were in the cafeteria, as Dave and another student came around a corner they walk right into Dylan and Eric, Eric ran after them and shot Dave in the chest, Dave later died in a Science class, the student that was with Dave got away.
It is believed that Dave was heading to the Library to evacuate the students there, not knowing the Library was Eric and Dylan’s next target.

Crime scene at used entrance


When Dylan and Eric entered the Library, Eric ordered all the jocks to stand up, when none of the students got up Eric shot at a random desk and injured a student hiding under it.
While in the Library, Dylan noticed that Police officers were evacuating students.
Dylan and Eric reacted by shooting at the officers from the windows but when the officers returned fire, they quickly retreated.

Eric took his shotgun and started to fire underneath the row of computer desks, with his first shot he killed fellow student Steven Curnow and with his second shot injured student Cacey Ruegsegger.
After this Eric walked to another desk and knelt down in front of it and shot the student under the table in the head, a witness stated that Eric had said “peek-a-boo” before he shot the student.
The recoil from the gun caused it to hit Eric in the face and break his nose.

9 mm TEC-DC9 pistol, 1 of the weapons used


When the 2 finally decided to leave the Library, the casualties were tremendous totaling at 11 deaths and 10 injuries occurring in the Library alone.

After Dylan and Eric left the Library the remaining students left alive, evacuated the school.
After leaving the library Dylan and Eric caused random havoc, throwing firebombs and shooting into random class rooms.
Later Dylan and Eric Returned to the Library and started shooting at Police officers again through the window but did not hit any of the officers.
Finally around 12:08pm Dylan killed himself with a shot to the head and Eric Killed himself by placing the gun in his mouth first and then pulling the trigger.

Eric and Dylan after commiting suicide

Media Aftermath
After investigation of Eric and Dylan’s personal effects after the shooting it became known that Eric was a big fan of the German Industrial Rock Group Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid (also known as KMFDM), soon after the events of the massacre KMFDM posted on their website that they do not in anyway support the actions of Eric and Dylan and that their music had no involvement in the matter.

It also became known that Eric and Dylan were very active in online gaming communities and spent allot of time playing Quake and Doom online.
Before the killings Eric created deathmatch mode maps for the game Doom, these maps were made widely available online after the killings and are known as “The Harris Levels”.

The American musician Marilyn Manson wrote a song entitled “The Nobodies” which was inspired by the events of the massacre.
Many people criticized Marilyn Manson for this song and the specific line from the song “"Some children died the other day / We fed machines and then we prayed / Puked up and down in morbid faith / You should have seen the ratings that day."” In an interview with Marilyn Mason he was asked if he could have said anything to Eric and Dylan what would it have been, Manson replied “I wouldn't say a single word to them, I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did.

Many movies such as, Heart of America, Elephant, American yearbook and Duck! The carbine school massacre were inspired by the massacre.

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