Abstract
The Columbine High School Massacre was the bloodiest school killing spree in the United States of America ever committed. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 of other students, one professor and injured 24, before committing a suicide (Aronson, 2000). The perpetrators had versatile arsenal of weapons and pipe bombs, which, according to the US Security Service estimates was sufficient to kill 200 people (Kass, 2009).
Theorists extensively debated about the motives of their attack. Some argued that the reasons were psychological (Atheide, 2009), while others actively advocated the notion that their attack was a retaliation for bullying and psychological abuse, which they suffered from the school athletic community (Larkin, 2009). Whatever the real causes of their attack might have been, this incident attracted the policymakers and the academic community to one of the most egregious problems of the American academic landscape – bullying, hatred, resentment and aggression at schools.
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Columbine incident on the families of the victims and the American society in general. Thus, this paper investigates the motives of the assailants, the causes of that unprecedented outbreak of violence and subsequent reaction of the public authorities, families of the victims and the policymakers.
CONTENTS
I. Introduction 4
II. Preparation and Background Information 5
III. The Incident 6
IV. End of the Massacre 7
V. The Causes and Outcomes of Shooting 7
A. Bullying of the Victims 8
B. Psychopathic and Depressive Situation of the Offenders 8
C. Impact of Video Games and Musics 9
VI. Impacts on Victims of the Massacre 9
VII. Conclusions 10
References 12
Introduction
The school shooting, which happened in Columbine, Jefferson County, state of California on April 20, 1999, was the most disastrous and the largest in number of casualties school shooting in the United States of America. In total, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who were the perpetrators of that notorious crime, killed 13 people, among whom 12 were students and a one teacher. Twenty-one people were severely injured as a result of their actions. After that fata killing spree, the perpetrators committed a suicide (Kass, 2009).
Despite the fact that their motives have not been discovered yet, the records found at their homes after the police searches showed that one of the possible motives behind the attacks was a retaliation for Oklahoma city bombing and a series of other incidents, which involved American dissidents and the law enforcement authorities at the beginning of 1990s.
As a result of this massacre, hot public debates about gun laws, bullying and subcultures at schools sparked in the United States. On practical level, this case resulted in the enforcement of different zero tolerance policies at schools, as well as this incident urged further research in gun culture, internet and violent video games abuse by the American teenagers and misuse of medical anti-depressant drugs (Larkin, 2009).
This paper aims at pursuing several objectives. Firstly, it attempts providing a comprehensive and accurate description of the incident, which happened at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Secondly, it evaluates the impact, which was inflicted on the victims of that killing spree. Thirdly, this paper seeks to analyze the changes, which were introduced by the American policymakers after those tragic events. In particular, this paper analyzes how the educational and law enforcement authorities of the USA plan to avoid similar incidents in the future.
Preparation and Background Information
In 1996, Eric Harris created a web site. Initially planned to be platform for hosting video-games level, the site gradually evolved into the place, where Harris started to publish instructions on how to make explosives and how to do mischief to the community. Starting from 1997, the information contained on the blog became more radical. It indicated that Harris had strong hatred to the society. In particular, the website contained many threats against other students and academic staff of Columbine High School, where Eric Harris was studying. Additionally, a ‘hit list’ was publish by Eric on the website.
On January 30 1998, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris stole some equipment from a van. Soon after that, they were arrested by the police. They pleaded guilty, and the judge sentenced to take part in a juvenile diversion program, where their criminal inclinations were expected to be treated. Because of their successful performance at the program, they were released several weeks earlier before the scheduled date. Harris removed all violent content from the website and re-instated its original genre (hosting custom-made levels for a video game). Instead, he started to write a hand-written journal, where he expressed his thoughts about the neighborhood and the events in his life. Although he wrote a letter of formal apology to the owner of the van, in his journal he vehemently derided him, arguing that a person is entitled to any property, which he wants to possess (Aronson, 2000).
While Harris was participating in the diversion program, he had scheduled classes with the psychologists. He confessed that he heavily suffered from depression, uncontrolled anger and thoughts about suicide. The psychologist prescribed him to start taking in Zoloft antidepressant drug (Cullen, 2010).
Months before the assault, Klebold and Harris started to document their plans and activities. When the investigators discovered their journals, it was revealed that the duo considered organizing a series of bombings in the city to retaliate Oklahoma City bombing, as well as their journal entries contained descriptions about possible methods of escape to Mexico. Finally, there was a detailed description of the assault they wanted to organize at school. The video records collected by the investigators after the assault also revealed that the couple hid their ammunition arsenal at home (Atheide, 2009). The last video was recorded thirty minutes before the attack. In the video, they perpetrators were saying farewell to everyone and sought apologies from their relatives and friends (Cullen, 2010).
The Incident
Before coming to the school premises, the couple installed several small bombs in several miles south of the school. Their intent was to make an explosion, which would divert the attention of police, firefighters and other emergency response teams from the events, which will be happening at school. However, the explosion was not as big as the perpetrators expected, and the fire was promptly put out by the fire department.
The plan of the duo was to make a big explosion in the school cafeteria, and, sitting outside in their vehicles to shoot the survivors, escaping from the building. While they were waiting for the explosion in the cars, Brooks Brown, one of their classmates, approached them and asked Harris about his absence at the important test. Harris, who had some sympathy towards Brown, recommended her leaving the area.
At 11:19, the armed gunmen entered the school building and threw a pipe bomb, which barely detonated. After that, Harris and Klebold pulled the arms and started shooting. The first two victims were Rachel Scott and Richard Castlado. Then, at West Staircase Harris fired several shots at Daniel Rohnbough, Sean Graves and Lance Kirklin, seriously wounding them. The situation was aggravated by the fact that many students believed that it was a kind of senior prank. Only a business teacher Dave Sanders and the varsity sport coach entirely understood gravity of the problem (Kass, 2009).
At 11:30, the perpetrators entered the school library, where they hunted members of the college athletic team, whom they especially despised. The death toll in the library was 10 killed people and 12 wounded, though the investigators subsequently calculated that the gunmen had sufficient ammunition to kill all 56 hostages. At 12:08, the both perpetrators locked themselves in the library and committed a simultaneous suicide. Harris killed himself by firing into his mouth, while his accomplice targeted his left temple.
In total, their actions resulted in 15 deaths (including themselves) and 24 non-fatally injured victims (Atheide, 2009).
End of the Massacre
Immediately after the building was declared safe for entry by the civilians, the local sheriff declared that the investigation started. The process of identification of the victims, evidence collection and witness questioning commenced soon thereafter (Cullen, 2010).
The Causes and Outcomes of Shooting
After the situation was over, intense academic debates sparked in relation to the motivation of the gunmen, as well as speculations about the possibility of murder prevention began to circulate in the media. Specifically, in contrast to multiple similar incidents, which occurred in the United States in the past, the both killers committed a suicide, which made a subsequent evaluation of the case difficult.
After a comprehensive investigative work, a series of reports, analyzing the rationale of that massacre were issued. Thus, the investigators speculated that the main causes of the situation were the following:
Bullying of the Victims
Columbine High School Massacre re-kindled interest of the psychologists to bullying at schools, because the both victims were reported to be taunted and humiliated by the physically superior schoolmates during the four years before the massacre. A post-incident analysis conducted by the United States Secret Service revealed that in 37 similar cases some form of bullying, which “bordered intense torment” was present (Pantziarka, 2002) (. The school administration was also condemned for condoning the climate of resentment, offence and intimidation to fester at school (Brien, 2001). Many psychologists expressed strong concerns that it might have been the unhealthy social environment at school, which triggered the outburst of violence from Harris and Klebold (Larkin, 2009).
Psychopathic and Depressive Situation of the Offenders
Five years after the massacre, a team of FBI investigators and specialists in psychopathy issued a report, where they declared that Harris suffered from strong form of clinical psychopathy, while Klebold was in deep depression (Cullen, 2010). Thus, they believed that Harris, who allegedly masterminded the attacks, had a form of superiority complex, desiring to show his superiority to all around him. The report also exposed that the attack was a premediated one. It involved more than a year of meticulous preparations, acquisitions of guns and creations of the pipe bombs. The assailants even conducted several test detonations.
Impact of Video Games and Musics
The investigation showed that both Klebold and Harris were addicted to violent video games, such as Doom. Some scholars speculated that their predisposition to violence might have been developed by their addiction to such games. Parents of the wounded and killed victims attempted to file a lawsuit against the game producers (Cullen, 2010).
Together with being fans of the violence-depicting videogames, the both perpetrators liked heavy music. Marilyn Manson was personally accused for fomenting violent thoughts among the young people. In his response, he said that the music like his should be viewed as a relief, not as an instigator of hatred and violence.
Impacts on Victims of the Massacre
The incident lead to grave repercussions to the victims and their families. Firstly, relatives of those, who were killed, suffered irreparable psychological harm, which cannot be remedied financially (Kass, 2009). After their children were shot dead, the parents of several victims were reported to have divorced. Some parents sought professional psychological assistance. Several parents were internalized, losing their career opportunities and family knots (Cullen, 2010).
The surviving victims suffered from strong symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Several of them had to take gap years and postpone their college studies. The psychologists admit that for them of them complete recovery may take years, if it will ever happen. In general, the families and future careers of many of the victims and their family members were utterly destroyed.
After the incident, the survivors and family members of the deceased started legal proceedings against the local law enforcement authorities and families of the perpetrators. In particular, the case against local sheriff was based on the idea that the actions of his subordinates prevented the team of paramedical professionals to reach the injured, even when sheriff became completely aware that the perpetrators were shot dead. The case resulted in a US $, 1, 500, 000 settlement.
In addition, a civil claim was filed by the families of the victims against the families of the perpetrators. In total, they paid a settlement amounting to US$ 2,500,000. Despite the fact that these sums are comparatively large for murder cases, the medical community unanimously admitted that severe psychological traumas suffered by these people cannot be offset with money (Atheide, 2009).
Conclusions
The Columbine Massacre put the problem of school violence into spotlight. The incident was a culmination of the long-lasting inertia and connivance of school authorities in relation to social problems in the educational world of the country, as well as it was an explicit signal that the national law enforcement agencies are not prepared to deal with such threats.
A series of post-incident reports revealed that current school safety policies were not adequately prepared for such incidents, as well as the authorities did not pay enough attention to evaluate violent inclinations of their students. The notorious ‘zero-tolerance’ policies, which were ubiquitously enforced across the United States were said to be largely ineffective against such attacks.
Thus, among the main causes of high casualty rates in similar incidents, the scholars identified the following problems:
Firstly, the community should not be over-reliant on the professionalism of the SWAT teams, because armed students arrive long in advance before the police people;
Secondly, bullying and unhealthy educational climate is one of the main causes, which can trigger violent behavior. The youth does not have developed psychological systems, and thus, is more prone to resolving the problem in a criminal way.
Thirdly, reliance on metal detectors is not justified, because the assailants rarely hide their weapons before entering the building.
Additionally, a landmark 2002 report of the United States Secret Service revealed the following important findings:
The cases, similar to Columbine massacre were in their majority impulsive, impetuous deeds.
In many cases, other people were aware about intent of the attackers, but either did not pay heed to those manifestations, or failed to notify the law enforcement timely.
The majority of the attackers did not make any threats to the targets before the attack.
Many attackers considered or attempted a suicide before the attack.
Many perpetrators suffered from social stigmatization, bullying or intimidation from the victims before the attacks.
Finally, the practice revealed that in the majority of cases the atrocities were stopped not by the SWAT or police teams (Atheide, 2009).
After the incident, educational establishment across the United States started to improve their school security policies by hiring heavily armed security guards, making obligatory to wear school uniform and launching other measures (Kass, 2009). In addition, many schools fundamentally reconsidered their anti-bullying policies and started to enforce them more sharply.
References
Altheide, D. L. (2009). "The Columbine Shootings and the Discourse of Fear". American Behavioral Scientist 52: 1354–70
Aronson, E. (2000). Nobody left to hate: teaching compassion after Columbine. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Brien, B. (2001). Killing for pleasure: the global phenomenon of mass murder. London: Blake.
Cullen, D. (2010). Columbine. New York, NY: Twelve
Kass, J. (2009). Columbine: a true crime story: a victim, the killers, and the nation's search for answers. Denver, Colo: Ghost Road Press.
Larkin, R.W. (2009). "The Columbine Legacy. Rampage Shootings as Political Acts”. American Behavioral Scientist 52: 1309–1326. Web. Retrieved from http://www15.uta.fi/arkisto/aktk/projects/sta/Larkin_2009_Rampage-Shootings-as-Political_Acts.pdf
Pantziarka, P. (2002). Lone wolf: true stories of spree killers. London: Virgin.
