.jpg)
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Unraveling the Columbine Tragedy Final Episode
Ten days before the Columbine tragedy's first anniversary, families of victims faced a devastating choice: trust officials who had been stonewalling them for a year or file lawsuits before the statute of limitations expired. For most, it wasn't a difficult decision.
What followed was a years-long legal battle that gradually pried loose thousands of pages of evidence Jefferson County officials had desperately tried to conceal. Through court orders and persistent advocacy, families uncovered proof that authorities knew about Eric Harris's threatening website and bomb-making well before the shooting—contradicting their public denials. The struggle culminated in revelations that police had actively prevented rescue attempts for teacher Dave Sanders, who bled to death over three hours while volunteer rescuers were kept at bay.
Behind the headlines, Principal Frank DeAngelis carried his own burden, shepherding traumatized students through three years of emotional aftershocks while battling PTSD himself. Despite developing a heart condition and eventually losing his marriage to the strain, DeAngelis made the surprising choice to remain as principal after his mission to graduate the last class of Columbine survivors was complete.
The tragedy transformed how America responds to school violence. FBI and Secret Service research shattered prevailing myths about school shooters, revealing no useful "profile" exists—except that 81% confide their intentions before acting. Law enforcement abandoned its old containment approach for the now-standard active shooter protocol that prioritizes neutralizing threats immediately.
Through their relentless pursuit of accountability, Columbine families didn't just uncover a troubling pattern of deception. They fundamentally changed how schools and communities identify potential threats, support troubled students, and respond when violence erupts. The full story won't be known until 2027, when depositions from the killers' parents are finally unsealed after decades of court-ordered silence.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and we will continue with Unraveling the Columbine Tragedy. Let's begin. Ten days before the first anniversary, brian Roeber threw a Hail Mary. The cops had been stonewalling and litigation looked like the only answer. Families could sue for negligence or wrongful death and use the process to force out information. Should they sue? How could they know? It all rested on Jeffco's final report. If Jeffco released all the evidence, most families would be satisfied. If Jesco held back, they were going to court.
Speaker 1:No one had anticipated that the report would take this long Way. Back in the summer of 1999, jesco had said its report was six to eight weeks away. It was April now and officials were still saying they had six to eight weeks away. It was April now and officials were still saying they had six to eight weeks to go. The investigators had wrapped up most of their work in the first four months, but Jeffco was skittish about presenting the information. Yet the longer they waited, the more leaks they risked, the more rebukes, the higher the stakes to get every sentence right. Even the school administration was frustrated. The delays were maddening. But a practical problem was also arising. The first anniversary coincided with the statute of limitations anniversary coincided with the statute of limitations by delaying the report past April 20, 2000,. Jeffco forced the families to trust them or sue. That was an easy choice.
Speaker 1:On April 10, the Robarts and the Flemings filed an open records request demanding to see the report immediately. Filed an open records request demanding to see the report immediately. One last option to avoid a lawsuit. Since they were filing, they asked for everything, including the basement tapes. The basement tapes are the killer's journals, the 911 calls and surveillance videos. Robo wanted to compare the raw data to the narrative under construction by Jeffco because he predicted a chasm. District Judge R Brooke Jackson read the request. He said yes Over furious objections from Jeffco. Three days before the anniversary he allowed the plaintiffs to read the draft report. He also granted them access to hundreds of hours of 911 tapes and some video footage. He agreed to begin reading the 200 binders of evidence himself but noted they would take months.
Speaker 1:The ruling stunned everyone, but it was too little, too late. Fifteen families filed suits against the Sheriff's Department that week. They would add additional defendants later. The Cleberts chose not to sue. Instead they issued another apology letter and the Harris's did the same.
Speaker 1:The lawsuits were expected to fail. The legal thresholds were too high In federal court. Negligence was insufficient. Families needed to prove officers have actually made the students worse off. And that was only the first hurdle.
Speaker 1:The main strategy was to flush out information. The one suit with a plausible chance came from Dave Sanders' daughter, angela. She was represented by Peter Grenier, a powerhouse Washington DC lawyer. They charged the Jeffco officials when, beyond neglecting Dave Sanders for three hours, they impeded his movement, prohibited others from getting him out of there, they deceived volunteer rescuers with false claims about an imminent arrival to discourage them from busting out a window or taking him down the stairs. By doing so, the suit argued Jeffco accepted responsibility for Dave and then let him die, argued. Jeffco accepted responsibility for Dave and then let him die. In legal terms, they have denied his civil rights by cutting off all opportunities to save him when they were not prepared to do it themselves. The Robles and others follow similar logic. The library kids could have escaped easily, they said, unencumbered by police, by police help.
Speaker 1:It looked ugly, but legal analysts were skeptical about any case holding up. Sam Kaming, who is a law professor at the University of Denver, said quote it's going to be tough to ask a jury to say we know better than a SWAT team how to handle the situation. A professor at the University of Denver said, quote In legal circles the lawsuits had been expected, but their ferocity shook the community. The anniversary was overwhelmed by animosity again, and media were everywhere. Many of the 13 left town. The school closed for the day and conducted a private memorial. A public service was held in Clement Park A few days after the anniversary.
Speaker 1:Judge Jackson ordered the Sheriff's Department to release its report to the public by May 15. To release its report to the public by May 15. He also released more evidence, including a video that drew a lot of heat For months. Jeffco had referred to it as a training video created by the Littleton Fire Department and it was based on footage that was shot in the library shortly after the bodies were removed. It would be the family's first look at the gruesome scene. It would be difficult to watch. Jackson's ruling stated, but was no reason to suppress it.
Speaker 1:The next day Jeffco began duplicating the tape and selling copies for $25. Spokesman said the fee was to defray copying costs. The families were aghast and then they saw the tape. There was no instruction, no narration, no attempt at training. It was someone's ghastly attempt at commemoration. Grizzly crime scene footage set to pop music, and it was the Sarah McLachlan song I Will Remember you. Mclachlan's record company threatened to sue for copyright infringement so Jeffco removed the music. But sales remained strong. Brian robot had broken through jeffco's armor.
Speaker 1:Judge jackson kept ordering releases. In may he unleashed all the 911 tapes and a ballistics report For everything he read. The killer's families tried to stop him and on May 1st they filed a joint motion to keep material seized from their homes private, and that would include the most vital evidence the journals and the basement tapes. Just Gov released its report on May 15, as ordered. The focus of the package was a minute-by-minute timeline of April 20, 1999, in great detail it dramatically illustrated how fast everything happened. Just seven and a half minutes in the library, all the deaths and injuries in the first 16 minutes. How convenient.
Speaker 1:According to critics, the cops' report was dedicated to illustrating that the cops had never had a chance. As expected, the report ducked the central question of why. Instead, it provided about 700 pages of what, how and when. The logistics were useful, but they were hardly what people had been waiting for. There were three paragraphs about advance warning by the Browns, one paragraph summarizing and two defending. The department claimed it had been unable to access Eric's website, despite the fact that officials had printed the pages, filed them, retrieved them within minutes of the attack on April 20th and had cited them at length in the search warrants issued before the bodies were found. But a year after the murders, jeff Go was still suppressing the file and the search warrants. So the family suspected a lie, but they couldn't prove it. Jeffco was ridiculed for its report. Officials seemed truly bewildered by the response. Privately, they insisted they were just acting the way they always did building a case internally, keeping their conclusions to themselves. Communicating the results was the prosecutor's role. It wasn't their job. They still couldn't grasp that this was not any normal case.
Speaker 1:The anniversary also offered a window of political opportunity. Tom Mauser had been energized at the NRA protest and devoted himself to the cause. Tom took a one-year leave of absence to serve as chief lobbyist for Save Colorado saying alternatives to the firearms epidemic. Save Colorado saying alternatives to the firearms epidemic. They supported several bills in the Colorado legislature to limit access to guns for minors and criminals. Prospects looked good, especially for the flagship proposal to close the gun show loophole. It was narrowly defeated in February, a similar measure buckged down in Congress.
Speaker 1:So a week before the anniversary, president Clinton returned to Denver to encourage survivors and support SAVE's new strategy, which was to pass the same measure in Colorado with a ballot initiative. Colorado Republican leaders rebuked the president and refused to appear with him. Republican Governor Bill Owens supported the ballot initiative but refused to attend an MSNBC town hall meeting that was hosted by Tom Brokaw until President Clinton left the stage midway through the show. The visit appeared to force a little movement in Washington. Just before the meeting with Brokaw, house leaders announced a bipartisan compromise on gun show legislation. But it had been a year already and there was still a long way to go. A year already and there was still a long way to go.
Speaker 1:Tom Mouser kept fighting At a rally. The same week, safe spread 4,223 pair of shoes across the state capitol steps, one for each minor killed by a gun in 1997. Tom took the sneakers off his feet and held them up to the crowd. Tom took the sneakers off his feet and held them up to the crowd. They had been Daniels. Tom took to wearing them to rallies. He needed a tangible link to his son and they helped the shy man connect Daniel to his audience.
Speaker 1:May 2nd the governor and attorney general the state's most prominent Republican and Democrat put the first two signatures on the petition for the Colorado ballot initiative. It requires 62,438 signatures. They gathered nearly twice that many. The measure would pass by two to one margin. The gun show loophole was closed in Colorado. It was defeated in Congress. No significant national gun control legislation was enacted in response to Columbine.
Speaker 1:The season ended well. On May 20th the second class of survivors graduated. Nine of the injured crossed the stage two in wheelchairs. Nine of the injured crossed the stage two in wheelchairs. Patrick Garland limped to the podium to give the valedictorian address. It had been a rough year, he said, quote. The shooting made the country aware of the unexpected level of hate and rage that had been hidden in high schools. End quote. Patrick was convinced the world was inherently good at heart. He had spent the year thinking about what had gotten him across the library floor. At first he assumed hope. Not quite, it was trust, he said, quote. When I fell out the window I knew somebody would catch me. That's what I need to tell you that I knew the loving world was there all the time. End quote. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1:The principal, mr D, knew the date his mission would wrap May 18, 2002. He had one objective after the massacre to shepherd nearly 2,000 kids to emotional high ground. The last class of freshmen would graduate that May. Frank had no idea what he might do afterward. He could not plan yet. His hands were full. He had three school years to get through. He had seriously underestimated the turmoil of the first. Nobody had foreseen that torrent of aftershocks. He would not make that mistake again.
Speaker 1:The second summer offered a respite, just like the first. But when the doors reopened in August 2000, the faculty braced for the next onslaught. It never came. There was never a year like that first one, never Anything close. The second year got off on a high note. In addition had been constructed over the summer with a new library. The old one was demolished, converting the commons into a two-story atrium.
Speaker 1:Most of the parents' group attended the opening. Sue Petron Glow and for the past 16 months she had felt physically weak every time she had stepped inside the school. All that was lifted away. She had been fighting for more than a year and she was done. Nearly all the parents were Sue's ex-husband was the exception. Brian Robo and Frank DeAngelis dominated the ceremony, standing 30 feet apart in the cafeteria with a cluster of reporters around, each talking about each other. Mr D was diplomatic and tried to avoid the few altogether, but reporters kept shuttling over from Robor with fresh accusations for Mr D to respond to. Brian was brutal and direct. The school caused these murders, he said, and the administration must pay.
Speaker 1:Mr D developed a heart condition. It appeared the first autumn after the shootings. Stress, the doctor said no kidding. Frank was riddled with symptoms of PTSD numbness, anxiety, attacks, inability to concentrate and reclusiveness. Therapy helped sort them out. Immediately after the murders he had trouble making eye contact. It got worse. He discovered that it was guilt and he said that he had never heard of survival guilt and he felt guilty that Dave and the kids died and that he lived. His wife wanted to help because he was eating him up, but he couldn't express it to her. He was just like his students.
Speaker 1:The years after the tragedy were tumultuous. He got to Columbine at 6 am, left at 8 or 9. In the evening Weekends he came in for shorter stints, quiet time to catch up. At any given time he had a dozen kids on suicide watch. Breakdowns were a daily occurrence among the students and the staff. He got tremendous satisfaction out of helping the kids, but it was a terrible drain. He had a couple of hours every night to forget it all. His wife implored him to open up. His son and daughter were concerned. His parents and siblings seemed to call constantly are you eating? Should you be driving? And he would say to them I think I know when to eat. Everyone had to know how he was feeling, how are you doing? And he would say enough, please stop.
Speaker 1:Mr D struggled with some of the staff too. A therapist complained that she spent years in his school after the tragedy and he never learned her name. He could name all 2,000 students. He had a strong team of administrators who were great at heading off problems, but some of them needed support themselves. His family resented him. He would say that they could not understand why he was acting that way. He wasn't the person he wanted to be and he felt awful too. He started counseling immediately after the attack and he credited it with saving him. If he could do one thing over, it would be to include his family in the therapy, because they had no idea what PTSD was. He said If they had just understood what he was going through it would have been all right, but unfortunately his marriage didn't make it Early.
Speaker 1:In 2002, he and his wife agreed to divorce. He said Columbine had not been the sole reason, but it was a big part. As he prepared to move out, frank came upon 4,000 letters he had received in 1999. Received in 1991, uh, 1999, sorry, um. Most were supportive, some angry, a few threatened his life. He had to try to read 25 a day and that proved traumatic. Now he was ready to face them. He read through a big stack and one name caught him off guard Diane Mayer. Diane Mayer had been his old high school sweetheart. They had broken up before graduation and lost touch for 30 years. He looked her up. Her mom was in the same house so he called Diane and she was so understanding. They spoke several times, never in person, but long comforting chats. She helped him through the divorce and the emotional upheaval ahead of him.
Speaker 1:In May he had one more thing he had to do. Columbine was a cathartic experience for much of the faculty. They revaluated their lives. Many started over on new careers. By the spring of 2002, most of them had moved on Every other administrator, but Frank was gone.
Speaker 1:As May approached, mrd considered what had made him the happiest. How did he really want to invest his remaining years? And he decided no compromises. He would follow his dream. He chose to remain principal at Columbine. He loved the job.
Speaker 1:Some of the families hated him. They were disgusted by his announcement. Others were pleased the kids by his announcement. Others were pleased the kids. They were ecstatic. Robert was furious, but he was having success with the cops.
Speaker 1:His Hail Mary pass had broken the dam and eventually Jeffco was ordered to release almost everything except to supposedly incendiary items, the killer's journals and the basement tapes. The mother load came in November 2000. 11,000 pages of police reports, including virtually every witness account. Jeffco said that was everything. It was still hiding more than half. Reporters and families kept chipping away, demanding known items. Jeffco acted comically in its attempts to suppress. It numbered all the pages and then eliminated thousands, releasing the documents with some gaps, numbered gaps. One release indicated nearly 3,000 missing pages.
Speaker 1:Jeffco was forced to cough up half a dozen more releases over the next year, in 2001,. In November of 2001, officials described a huge stack as the last batch. More than 5,000 pages. More came by the end of 2002 and 10,000 in 2003,. January, february, march, june and three separate times in October. Halfway through all that, in April 2001, district Attorney Dave Thomas inadvertently mentioned the smoking gun, the affidavit to search Eric's house.
Speaker 1:More than a year before the massacre, jeffco had rigorously denied its existence for two years. Jackson ordered its release. The affidavit was more damning than expected. Investigator Guerra had astutely pulled together the threats of Eric's early plotting and hand-documented mass murder threats and the bomb production to begin realizing them. To begin realizing them. The purpose of the cover-up was out in the open, but it continued for several years. Then, finally, in June 2003, the search warrant Cape Bataan had composed on the afternoon of the massacre came out and it demonstrated conclusively that Jeffco officials had been lying about the Browns all along, that they knew about the warnings from the beginning, that the missing webpages were so accessible they had found them in the first minutes of the attack. So now we have anger and contempt rising. A federal judge finally had enough and he ruled that Jeffco could not be trusted even to warehouse valuable evidence. So he ordered the county to hand over key material such as the basement tapes to be secured in the federal courthouse in Denver. Agent Fusilier beat Mr D to retirement.
Speaker 1:Six months after the massacre the investigation was largely complete. Dr Fusilier continued studying the killers, but he transitioned back to his role as head of domestic terrorism for the Colorado-Wyoming region. Few Americans had heard of Osama bin Laden, but a life-size wanted poster of him greeted visitors to the FBI branch office. Fusilier saw enemy number one's picture every morning as he got off the elevator on the 18th floor. Fusilier also resumed training hostage negotiators and went back on call for serious incidents. And went back on call for serious incidents. Two years later he concluded one of the most notorious prison breaks in recent history, the Texas 7, that had escaped a maximum security facility and embarked on a crime spree. The ringleader was serving like 18 life sentences. He had nothing left to lose. And on Christmas Eve 2000, they stole a catch of guns from a supporting goods store and ambushed a police officer and they shot him 11 times, ran him over on the way out to be sure he was dead and there was a reward posted that said $500,000.
Speaker 1:The gang kept moving and on January 20, 2001, they were spotted in a trailer park near Colorado Springs. A SWAT team captured four of them. A fifth killed himself. To avoid recapture, the two holdouts barricaded themselves in the Holiday Inn. So of course they sent Agent Fusilier and with his team. It took like five hours to talk them out. They were fixated on corruption in the penal system. So Fusilli arranged a live interview on a local TV station at 2.30 in the morning there was a cameraman that came inside the room so the holdouts could see they were actually broadcast live. Both convicts surrendered. Eventually they were sentenced to death and all six survivors await lethal injection in Texas.
Speaker 1:But this was just too much stress for Fusilier. It finally wore him down. He would have 20 years at the Bureau that October. He was already eligible for his pension, so he announced his retirement for that date he will be 54 years old. On September 11, 2001, the country was attacked. Bin Laden was behind it. So Agent Fusilier decided to postpone his retirement and spend most of the next 11 months on the case.
Speaker 1:By the summer of 2002, the United States had taken over Afghanistan, bin Laden had fled into hiding and the urgency had abated. Fusilier's son, brian, graduated from Columbine High that May. The last class Mr D had been waiting for Brian was leaving for college in July. Dwayne scheduled his retirement for the week afterwards, so Brian wouldn't see his dad lacing about jobless and Agent Fusilli of course missed work, missed the work. Agent Fusili, of course missed work, missed the work. Within months he was consulting for the State Department. It sent him to conduct anti-terrorism training in third world countries. He spent a quarter of the year in sketchy sections of Pakistan, tanzania, malaysia, macedonia, anywhere that terrorists were being active, and his wife Mimi worried. But Agent Fusilier didn't think about it much and his son, brian, didn't hear the tension return to his voice. So fear wasn't the problem at the FBI, it was the responsibility.
Speaker 1:Shortly before Brian left Columbine, marco Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine drew raves at the Cannes Festival and it became the top-grossing documentary at that time in US history. And it wasn't really much about Columbine and the title feature of Minor Myth that Eric and Dylan went bowling on April 20th. But it included a dramatic scene where Moore and a victim went to Kmart and asked to return the bullets still inside the guy. And you know the stunt the publicity around it shamed Kmart basically into discontinuing Ammunition Sales Nation. Why Then Marilyn Manson was interviewed in this film?
Speaker 1:Moore asked Manson what he would say to the killers if he had a chance to talk to them and Manson said 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. End quote. That was the story the media had told. The connection to KMFDM, the band that Eric did idolize and quote frequently, was ignored by major media. Fans got word, however, and the band issued a statement of deep remorse and they said quote we are sick and appalled, as is the rest of the nation, by what took place in Colorado. None of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever. End quote. The killer's parents remained silent. They never spoke to the press.
Speaker 1:Pastor Don Maxhausen stayed close to Tom and Sue Klebold. He was great comfort. Sue went back to training disabled students at the community college and that helped her cope, and she said that it was amazing how long it took her to get up and say her name at a meeting and to say I'm Dylan Klebold's mother. Dylan could have killed any number of the kids of people that she worked with. Shopping could be intimidating, anticipating that moment of recognition as a salesperson examining her credit card. It was a distinctive name and sometimes they did notice. One time one clerk looked at her name and then looked at her and she said boy, you are a survivor, tom. Her husband worked from home so he had a choice about when to go out. He stayed in all the time and Pastor Don worried about him.
Speaker 1:Reverend Maxhausen paid for that compassion. Much of his parish loved him for it. Others were outraged. The church council split. Were outraged, the church council split. It was unattainable. And a year after the massacre he was forced out of his church. Markshausen had been one of the most reverent and revered ministers in the Denver area but now he could not find even a job. After a bout of unemployment he left the state and that's how he was able to head up a small parish. He missed Colorado and eventually moved back. He got a job as a chaplain at a county jail. His primary function was to advise inmates when loved ones had died. He was born for the job ministering to the desperate. He empathized with each one and it sucked the life out of him.
Speaker 1:The lawsuits sputtered on for years. They got messier. A rash of new defendants was added all the time, including school officials, the killers, parents, the manufacturer of Luvox, anyone who had come in contact with the guns. The suits were consolidated in federal court. Judge Louis Babcock accepted the county's two major arguments that he was not responsible for stopping the killers in advance and that cops should not be punished for decisions under fire. Babcock said the authorities should have headed off the massacre months earlier but were not legally bound In November 2001,. He dismissed most of the charges against the sheriff and the school. The families appealed. The county settled the next year $15,000 each a fraction of their legal fees.
Speaker 1:The discovery process never brought much to light. It didn't need to. The robots' initial offensive has set the legal process in motion and it continued under its own power. Judge Babcock refused to dismiss the Sanders case. He balked at the contention that Dave's rescue involved split-second decisions and Babcock boomed that they had time in the third hour. That Dave's rescue involved split-second decisions and Babcock boomed that they had time in the third hour. The cops have hundreds of people to rescue. Their attorney responded they had to allocate resources. More than 750 cops had been on the scene. The judge reminded him it's not as though they were a little shorthanded out there that day. He said In August 2002, jeffco paid Angela Sanders $1.5 million.
Speaker 1:It admitted to no wrongdoing. The last Jeffco case to close was Patrick Ireland's. He got $117,500. Most of the fringe cases were dismissed. Luvox was pulled from the market. That left the killer's families. They wanted to settle. They didn't have a lot of money but they had insurance. It turned out their homeowner's policy covered murder by their children. They didn't have a lot of money but they had insurance. It turned out their homeowner's policy covered murder by their children. About $1.6 million was divided between 31 families. Most of it came from the Cleberts' policy. Similar agreements were reached with Mark Maines, philip Duran and Robin Anderson for an estimated total of approximately $1.3 million.
Speaker 1:Five families rebuffed the Harris's and Clairvaux's no buyout without information. It really wasn't about the money for the robots and for others. They were battling for information and they proved it, but they were caught in stalemate. The killer's parents would talk if the victims dropped the lawsuits. The victims would drop the suits if the parents spoke. For two more years it continued. Then the judge broke a deal. The holdouts would dismiss their suits if the killer's parents answered all their questions privately but under oath. It was a bitter compromise.
Speaker 1:In July 2003, the four parents were deposed for several days. Media came to photograph them. They had remained so private that few reporters even knew what they looked like. Two weeks after the depositions an agreement was announced and it appeared to be over, but Don Anna called for the depositions to be made public. Understanding the warning signs could prevent the next Columbine. A chorus gathered behind her. A magistrate ruled that the transcripts would be destroyed per the agreement. That set off a public outcry and a wave of open record requests. Judge Backcock agreed to consider arguments. It had taken four years to reach this point and they were only halfway there In April 2007,. Judge Backcock finally ruled quote there is a legitimate public interest in these materials so that similar tragedies may hopefully be prevented. I conclude, however, that the balance of interest still strikes in favor of maintaining strict confidentiality. End quote, so he said on a compromise. End quote, so he said on a compromise. The transcripts will be sealed at the National Archives for 20 years. The truth will come out in the year 2027, two years from now. 28 years after the massacre.
Speaker 1:Though he was retired, agent Fusilier hoped to see the depositions. He would like to question the parents himself. He knew where the boys ended psychologically, but their origins were a mystery, particularly Eric's. Only two people had an 18-year perspective on his path to psychopathy. When did Eric start exhibiting the early hallmarks and how were they visible? Wayne had adopted a stern parenting style. How bad that worked. Eric wrote little about interaction with his mother. What had Kathy's approach been? Were there any successes? Anything that could help the next parent? Fusilier understood the refusal to talk. We'll be right back. One thing is that a lot of people expected copycats. The country braced for a new level of horror School shooting. Deaths actually dropped 25% over the next three years. But Eric and Dylan gave young eyes a fresh approach Terrorist tactics for personal aggrandizement.
Speaker 1:In 2001, a pair of ninth graders at a Fort Collins Colorado middle school procured a small arsenal Tech 9, shotgunss rifles and propane bombs. They plan to reverse Eric's chronology seal off exits, mow down students and save the bombs for stack stragglers. They would finish by taking ten hostages, holding them in the counseling office for fun, then killing the kids and themselves. But they leaked. Kids nearly always leak. The bigger the plot, the wider the leakage. The Fort Collins pair went recruiting for gunmen to cover all the exits. One of the plotters told at least seven people that he planned to redo Columbine. He bragged to four girls that they would be the first to die. They went straight to the police. Teen peers were different after 1999. Jokes scared the crap out of kids. Jokes scare the crap out of kids. Two more grandiose plots there was one in Malcolm, nebraska, and Oakland, new Jersey, and those were foiled in the first five years.
Speaker 1:School administrators around the country responded with zero tolerance, meaning every idle threat was treated like a cocked gun. That drove everyone crazy. Nearly all supposed killers turned out to be kids blowing off steam. It wasn't working for anyone. The central recommendations that came from the FBI and Secret Service. Each agency published reports in the first three years to help guide faculty to identify serious threats and these recommendations contradicted prevailing post-Columbine behavior. They said identifying outcasts as threats is not healthy. It demonizes innocent kids who are already struggling. It's also unproductive.
Speaker 1:Outposts are not the problem. They do not fit the profile. There is no profile. Other reason school shooters share exactly one trait 100% male. Since the study they have been females, aside from personal experience. No other characteristic at 50% and even close. And the Secret Service also said there is no accurate or useful profile of attackers because attackers came from all ethnic, economic and social classes. The bulk came from solid two-parent homes. Most had no criminal record or history of violence.
Speaker 1:The two biggest myths were that shooters were loners and that they snapped. A staggering 93% planned their attack in advance. The path toward violence is an evolutionary one, with signposts along the way. Cultural influences also appeared weak. Only a quarter were interested in violent movies, half that number in video games, probably below average for teen boys. Most perps shared a crucial experience 98% have suffered a loss or failure. They perceived as serious Anything from getting fired to blowing a test or getting dumped. Of course, everyone suffers loss and failure, but for these kids, the trauma seemed to set anger in motion. This was certainly true in Columbine, because Dylan, for example, viewed his entire life as a failure and Eric's arrest accelerated his anger. So what should adults look for? One of the things that they recommended was advanced confessions. 81% of shooters had confided their intentions. More than half told at least two people confided their intentions. More than half told at least two people.
Speaker 1:Most threats are idle, but the key is specificity. Vague, implied, implausible threats are low risk. The danger skyrockets when threats are direct and specific, identify a motive and indicate work performed to carry it out. Melodramatic outbursts do not increase the risk. A subtler form of leakage is preoccupation with death, destruction, violence. A graphic mutilation story might be an early warning sign or a vivid imagination. Add malice, brutality, an unrepentant hero and concerns should rise. Don't overreact to a single story or drawing, according to the FBI he warned us, because normal teen boys enjoy violence and are fascinated with the macabre, so writings and drawings on these themes can be a reflection of a harmless but rich and creative fantasy life. The key was repetition leading to obsession. The Bureau described a boy who had worked guns and violence into every assignment and even in home ec class he baked a cake in the shape of a gun.
Speaker 1:The FBI compiled a specific list of warning signs, including symptoms of both psychopathy and depression Manipulation, tolerance, superiority, narcissism, alienation, rigidity, lethargy, dehumanization of others, externalizing blame. It's a pretty daunting list and few teachers are going to master this. The FBI recommended against trying. It suggested one person per school be trained intensively, and for all faculty and administrators. Just to turn to that person. The FBI added one final caution. They said that a kid matching most of its warning signs was more likely to be suffering from depression or mental illness than planning an attack. Most kids matching the criteria needed help, not incarceration.
Speaker 1:Columbine also changed police response to attacks, so no more perimeters. A national task force was organized to develop a new plan, and this you know. In 2003, it released the active shooter protocol and basically what it says is if the shooter seems active, storm the building, move toward the sound of gunfire, disregard even victims. There is one objective neutralize the shooters, stop them, kill them. The concept had been around for years, but it had been rejected. Pre-columbine cops had been exhorted to proceed cautiously, secure the perimeter, get the gunman talking, wait for the SWAT team. The key to the new protocol that was established after Columbine was to be more active. Mass shootings the vast majority were labeled passive the gunman was alive but not firing. Those cases reverted to the old protocol. So success depended on accurately determining the threat in the first moments. This is this.
Speaker 1:Protocols have continued to be reviewed because we have had other shootings post-2001, like the one in the East Coast with elementary school students and other ones that went in Florida. We have others that are more recent. So a lot of the protocols, they are revising them and shooting them. I'm just communicating the ones that were established post-Columbine, the ones that were established post-Columbine. So this is something that is constantly reviewed Now. Even now, schools have their protocols and they do practice active shooters in the schools in different scenarios.
Speaker 1:Where do you go if you're in the classroom? What do you do if you're in the hallway? What do you do if you're in the outside? And during recess, what do you do if it's in the cafeteria? If you're in the library, if you are in the bathroom? So there is a a lot of drills, at least once or twice a year, that students have to do these drills, and the teachers have to know the protocols and all that Supertron. On the other hand, if we continue a little bit here, she asked for two blocks, the two sidewalk blocks where her son Danny died on, and so what they did is that they jackhammered one well, two of them, two of the blocks out of the ground and installed in her backyard, and they were underneath a spruce tree that she had Around the slab. She created a rock garden with two big wooden tubs overflowing with petunias, and she had a sturdy oak truss constructed over the slab and a porch swing suspended from the crossbeam, and that's where her husband and her dog go and hang out.
Speaker 1:Linda Sanders kept the Advil tablet found near Dave's body. Her husband, dave. He had trouble with knee swelling so he always had an Advil in his pocket and it was only one, so that's why they know it's probably his. She took his bloody clothes, a swath of the carpet from under his head, a little fragment of tooth that chipped off when he fell, and his glasses. She would never let those glasses go. She snapped them into an eyeglass case and placed them on the nightstand by her bed. She intends to leave them that way forever. The lawsuit on behalf of Dave Sander outlived all other lawsuits but chosen a part that I read the police. She was not at the school or the parents. She was angry at her situation because she was lonely. She has lost her, her husband. We'll be right back.
