Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire at the suburban Denver school on April 20, 1999, killing 13 people before taking their own lives. The attack on Columbine is almost a prototypical school shooting, but one way in which it stands out is that it was committed by two people together. Over time, they became increasingly close, hanging out by often going out bowling, carpooling and playing the video game Doom over a private server connected to their personal computers. I could have built an atomic bomb in my bedroom and they wouldn't have known or cared. "They believe that what they call the "toxic culture" of the school the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying is the primary force that set Dylan off. Several phone callers to the Jewish News have . Some folks do indeed work from very primitive brain impulses. . He became more paranoid, forcing them all to flee a McDonalds because he believed a group of teens on the other side of the store were laughing at him. Just three days before the shooting, he went to prom with a friend. I've always felt sorry for Dylan, who seemed so lost and depressed. Harris was born in Wichita, Kansas, on April 9, 1981. . I think maybe his outlook grew worse over time. What happened isn't their fault. Based on what I've read so far, he's working off the assumption that Klebold was a depressive with self-destructive tendencies (he mentions suicide over and over in the journal kept for two years prior to the incident), and that Harris was a full-blown psychopath. Klebold's body was . Wayne worked as a transport pilot for the United States Air Force, while . Plus the drug industry makes a profit. She and the father lectured him, took away . Klebold, S. (2016). You can play the "if only" game all day long, but ultimately, it's nothing. He felt a need to be in control. His parents knew this, though not the extent of it. A place to discuss the massacre that took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO on April 20th, 1999. Dylan was a depressed teenager with many mental issues. They haff come here to haff a nice dinner und a nice time. Bit of a warning, it's a PDF file. Empathy; not so much. You teach them to recognize triggers that exacerbate symptoms. In the days after Dylan Klebold along with Eric Harris shot and killed 12 students and one teacher and then himself at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, his mother, Sue Klebold, remembered . The teachers at Columbine all seemed incredibly disengaged. Dylan Klebold had been accepted by the University of Arizona and planned to attend this fall. Yaron Steinbuch. How can that not bother you? 6. We didnt realize it until after the end, Tom Klebold said. His parents were Wayne and Katherine. So no, nothing in the gifted program could have helped this kid. Sue had no idea it was a life-and-death situation. They will live on forever !!!!!!!! These incidents happen because the majority of people choose to look the other way if a kid seems a little off. You shouldn't attack people for the actions of their offspring. Klebold attended the high . Hers was a love as dark and true, as embracing and self-abnegating, as Cordelia's. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, seniors at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., placed . Not to cure it, to manage it. There will always be apologists for the Harris parents who incredibly state that parents have no control over their children. We are not there yet. It was weird. And psychiatrists, rather dubious "doctors" push drugs. ", Eric: (shrugs) "My parents might have made some mistakes that they weren't really aware of. The recruiter cold-called him. Susan insists, "I haven't done anything for which I need forgiveness." Theyd never seen his rage, nor ever felt scared of him. For a couple reasons. : apparently tom was really hurt when 4/20 happened and grieved heavily because he felt like him and dylan were best friends, and had especially gotten closer in the months prior. I'd add that Tom watched the basement tapes and even after seeing them first-hand, stated something to the effect of 'see he didn't want to do it' (I'm paraphrasing here). Eric also said he had purposefully not been spending much time with his family so there wouldn't be much "bonding" leading up to April 20 since that would make it harder to do. [quote]Am I supposed to be impressed by dates, VOTN? Harris was a "budding psychopath, a person without a conscience," he said. No, they hated the gay boys almost as much as they hated the jocks. I don't believe that Tom and Sue were annoying parents. Bratty kids in Target are not mass murderers in the making. After college, the couple married and settled in the Denver area. In this difficult, jarring talk, Klebold explores the intersection between mental health and violence . Dylan is wearing a black baseball cap on backward, exposing a "B" embroidered in white on the back of the hat - the Boston Red Sox logo. Although in their rantings, they seemed to have special hatred for fags, and various other epithets for minorities that I don't even like to write, let alone speak. Yes, it's really terrible when there is the free-flow of information and ideas, isn't it? OP, I agree with you. The oblivious parents in Target or sitting inside their houses listening to their kids having a meltdown and completely ignoring it. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, walked into Columbine High School with shotguns, automatic weapons, and homemade pipe . Find it interesting Tom would say he was Dylan's best friend. That's why Dylan got one for Christmas 99, it was Tom's way of finding something to bond with with Dylan. He's wearing black BDUs (military-style pants) tucked into military-style boots. It is very difficult to assign causality in cases like this. Age : 36. It wasnt deemed something that needed further attention. A few weeks ago, I reviewed Sue Klebold's memoir A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy, about her experience as the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine High School shooters.While I was able to share the manner by which she communicated her ideas and insights, I wasn't able to . Spelling aside, Eric Harris had turned 18 about a week prior. They may show cruelty to animals, or alternatively a high degree of affection or attachment to animals. Without one factor (their brains) or the other (the guns), this wouldn't have happened the way it did, but I don't see the point of dismissing/elevating one over the other. Ten years after the Columbine killings, the Harris family has not spoken publicly at all, and the Klebold parents have given one interview, to the columnist David Brooks here at the New York Times. The parents cars were in the driveway. They are rare. My parents didn't know anything I did, didn't care,and were happy if I stayed invisible. The parents of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have often been portrayed as disengaged from the lives of their sons and unaware of the dark paths lying ahead. By his junior and senior years, Dylans parents knew something was wrong. Sue received a number of letters from people whod gone to Columbine who were more surprised that a shooting hadnt happened sooner than that one had happened at all. Those kids were their responsibility legally. He still was the boy his parents joked seemed to be on autopilot (p. 65), but Sue notes that this may have been particularly dangerous in his case. Or is your tiny mind only capable of two viewpoints? A 'Gentle Boy,' His Parents Told Investigators, Klebold Was Enrolled in an Elementary School Program for High Intellectual Potential Students. Asking how points the way forward, and shows us what we must do. School shooters often show little attachment to their school. School officials, law enforcement, and the adult community learned a lot after Columbine and are doing a better job of detecting trouble. That's the first thing. Focus on the mental. His father was a geophysicist and a mother worked with the disabled . Dang, I'm unemployed and I wanted to watch today's Oprah about Columbine. Yet, despite a happy upbringing, Dylan still did what he did. (p. 277). Their teenage son, along with his classmate Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. OP is an idiot, laying the whole thing at the parents' door. The problem, Cullen concludes, was that there is almost nothing that can be done to help psychopaths. Eric, on the other hand, was a psychopath, Cullen concludes, and he spends 400 pages convincingly making his case. Good thing I did because Dylan hasn't exactly risen to a level of responsibility in my absence. The school shooting took place on April 20, 1999 at . If anything, they seemed to hate everyone equally. A Mothers Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy. This thread is going to hell in jig time if it turns into the all-too-familiar "they were running up and down the aisles and that caused Columbine!!!" Dylan seems to have been a very unhappy person. He did it in contradiction to the way he was raised.. 'Toxic culture' blamedHe was hopeless. Klebold's parents, Thomas and Susan, lived in a sprawling, secluded house on a dirt road. Reb". I remember Oprah had teachers and students from Columbine on her show within a month of the event. While I was able to share the manner by which she communicated her ideas and insights, I wasnt able to actually share those insights and ideas. The narrator seemed to revel in the graphic violence he was depicting, but it was the final passage that was particularly disturbing, where Dylan conveyed unabashed awe and . A Further Examination: Sue Klebolds case study of her son, Dylan Klebold, Trauma and Suicide within Law Enforcement, Mental Health and Mass Murders: The Connection between Trauma and School Shootings, Mental Health Treatment in Correctional Facilities, Forensic Behavior Analysis: Self Care in the CJ Field, Trauma in Female Juvenile Inmates and Delinquents. Christ R22/R32/R39 et all. Not only had Dylan experienced bullying in school, his school fit some of the factors that meant it was most at risk for a shooting by ignoring certain behaviors and otherwise unevenly enforcing the rules. And he's not pulling a lot of punches about the media saturation either, and doesn't let the Rocky off the hook. [quote]Did Harris or Klebold have any siblings? Wayne - who owned guns himself - told the clerk he hadn't ordered any clips. Sue Klebold with son Dylan in 1985. Credit: Sue Klebold via Penguin/Random House Tall, slim and graceful (her younger son was a gangly 193 centimetres tall), she is given to direct eye contact . The mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold says she thinks every day about the people her . It wasnt accepted.. Were not qualified to sort this out. The second of the Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold was a "born genius" who, despite a sensitive disposition, experienced explosions of rage (most often brought on by failure or humiliation,) suicidal tendencies, a disdain for the "zombie"-like human race, and a suggestibility upon which the psychopathic . That kid was born with some sort of brain injury. When you think about it, in his journals he didn't have too much positive to say across the board. Tom and I failed to recognize these conditions and to curtail the influences violent entertainment, his friendship with Eric that exacerbated them. I'm glad Oprah isn't going to help this man promote his book. I shudder to think what kind of excuses you make for YOUR spawn's horrific behavior, R62. WOuldn't one of the friends have felt him a little bit off, at the least? ", [quote]Eric: "Morris, Nate, if you guys live, I want you guys to have whatever you want from my room and the computer room.". Join date : 2014-02-11. But she focuses greatly on the lead-up to that day, hoping to shed light on what happened to her son in order to help someone else see signs in their own child while they still have a chance to intervene. Of course, if the Klebolds and Harrises said they were ready to talk to the media, you can be sure they'd all scramble for the exclusive. And for a best friend, did they spend much time together at all? He was steady enough on his feet to run, but not to stop himself from losing balance and falling, which he did, forehead-first right into the metal bed frame. However, there is credible, tangible, measurable, and repeatable evidence that there are some people, for whatever reason, have their brains wired differently. IE 11 is not supported. 1/12 Tom is home from the hospital. Sue and her husband were vehemently opposed, but Dylan still asked for a gun for Christmas his final year. Sorry if I can't be interested in something without arousing your ire. I've met members in USA, UK, Norway, Sweden,Germany,Brazil, Chile, Ireland, India and the Bahamas. No scientist knows this absolutely. Too bad. The couple said they felt under siege after the shooting and never had a chance to grieve for their son. I can handle them "spending too much time on the killers", but unfortunately I recognize there are too many whackjobs in this country who would just see it as glorification. AAron Ontiveroz/the Denver Post via Getty Images I cannot have my uzzer patrons being upset. But perhaps he/she IS a charter member of the Reb&VoDKa fan club - and you're just going to IGNORE it? I don't believe I've said anything about gun control, of which this country has far too little of. I think he was broken over the loss of his son, and wants to remember the boy Dylan was and not the murder he became? I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any crap this might instigate as far as (inaudible) or something. [quote]No, they hated the gay boys almost as much as they hated the jocks. "In my opinion, what went on in their home led to Columbine.". Theres to me a level of skepticism we have usually of course with the scraps of info we had, but also the slight weirdness/more to it/unreliability when it came down to this particular topic, Find it interesting Tom would say he was Dylans best friend. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you. I'm sure they still live in Columbine and are active in many community functions, especially the PTA. I got picked on a lot and dealt with a lot of shit from the "jocks" and the "cool kids." For happy, easy-to-raise, and successful kids like him, it was easy to fly under their parents radar precisely because they were the shiny pennies, hiding the terrible pain they were in from their parents as capably as they did everything else (p. 65). [quote]I can't believe Oprah canceled her Columbine show today. After I wrote a column a few weeks ago about the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, I got e-mail from Tom Klebold, the father of Dylan Klebold, one of the . The term "psychopath" was in academic use by the early 1910s, and the definitive work on psychopathy was published in 1941. Not only would that give us someone to blame (someone still living, unlike Eric and Dylan, who turned their guns on themselves), but it would also allow the psychic distance between x93usx94 and x93themx94 that frightened humans crave. I think it is really interesting to think about the many things that lead someone to commit a school shooting. The interview is set to air on "20/20" this Friday, coinciding with . Tom seemed to view Dylan as his best friend/soulmate, at least according to what Sue has told us. You can criticize psychiatry without being a Scientologist. armed with one 10-shot hi-point model 995 carbine rifle, one intratec ab-10 (tec-9) pistol, two savage 12-gauge shotguns, and as many as . Kids do know about their frineds. Both Adam and Dylan seemed to have good relationships with their moms (though Adam actually ended up killing his mother the day of the shooting), both struggled in school (Adam actually switched schools a few times. When asked about Dylan's behavior, Byron indicated that Dylan appeared to be somewhat detached and he went on to explain that as a "pissed off teenager." Byron went on to state that Dylan gave no indication to believe that something like this was going to occur. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were charged with theft, criminal mischief, and criminal trespassing for breaking into a van and . I think those that readily (and outrightly) blame the parents are inclined to do so as to perpetuate some aspect of control, otherwise the shear nature of the case becomes too frightening. Tom Klebold said they hope to understand someday why the shooting happened. At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in trench coats, began shooting fellow students outside Columbine High School, located in a suburb south of Denver. "I wonder if there was any homosex between those two.". However, it is my understanding from reviews that he contends the boys actually had a circle of friends and were, in fact, popular within that group. This is my (completely layman's) opinion, but I've always figured that we have more or less tamped down the "How" of the brain, but we're still working on the "Why" of the brain. crap, that is what I think of. If only we would have asked the right questions." (21 at the time). Under different circumstances it would've been a lot different. Who is "limiting" the discussion to the brain? She behaves as if it is normal, as if she doesn't even hear it. here are some tidbits that might help you with the question. It just seems all a bit odd. Attacks seem planned in advance, with the shooter expecting to be killed or planning to commit suicide in conjunction with the attack. Ridiculous. Dylan Klebold. R71, having seen Patti Lupone shit all over Gypsy, I can assure you, there's a Hell. To me its really hard to determine the quality of a relationship based on how teenagers feel about it. I think he suffered horribly before he died, Susan Klebold said. [quote]But even if you work with them to avoid their *own* pain, that's a start. so it seems that they had a pretty solid relationship from what has been released. His grades fell to average. Harris was born in Wichita, Kansas, but moved around frequently as a child due to his father's occupation in the United States Air Force, while Klebold was born and raised near Columbine. That doesn't make them monsters. He didn't even say hi to Tom or ask how he was. Those kids were their responsibility legally. VERIFY: In the past 20 years did the majority of mass shooters take psychotropic drugs? Harris parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, have never spoken to reporters. His dad followed him around with a camcorder, capturing every move. I can't remember. It was obvious that the attack had been in the works for a long time, and the plan carefully thought out. They opened fire on students and teachers at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, on the Nazi leader's birthday in 1999, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 23 people before taking their own lives. How often did they fix things up, was he emotionally available for Dylan? ". Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two shooters at Columbine High School in 1999 who killed 15 people before ending their own lives, a tragedy that saddened and galvanized the nation. When I was in high school, my mother knew everyone I went, who I associated with, what I read, what I had my room, etc. The world was shocked and sickened on April 20, 1991, when crazed students Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, slaughtered 12 students and one teacher at Colorado's Columbine High School. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to the prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal. Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold. His father Wayne was a U.S. Air Force transport pilot . I'm not saying that there's no guilt, no responsibility, because no matter how our brains are wired, we're all creatures of free will and able to make moral choices, but to lay everything at the feet of society, or the parents, or the school, is way, way too simple. Oprah asked the teachers to describe Harris/Klebold, the teachers talked about how they didn't fit in, wore trenchcoats, seemed troubled and dangerous, and so on. They made sure to know who their kids were spending time with, and made sure they knew and felt that they were loved. Dylan Klebold's mother: 'I felt I was a good mom'. Few more places I can't think of now. Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2017). In Cub Scouts, he was a bright, dedicated boy who worked hard for his badges. When someone is in a store, that is not their own private property. Subject: Re: Dylan's house google earth Tue May 10, 2016 10:18 pm. Parents were not paying attention to what was in plain sight, or didn't want to deal with it. Agreed that Klebold's parents seem like total cunts, delusional in their whiny victim mentality. Every parent has flaws and every parent makes mistakes, but to me they mostly come across as a very normal family like there are millions all over the world. That's not contrition, it's a final fuck you to the world. The Harrises moved away almost immediately. After the killing: How parents of attackers cope. I am certain that Sue no longer lives there but she still does visit the house as two Columbiners took a Columbine/E &D tour" in Jan .or Feb and saw Sue outside the house as they drove by. Sue Klebold broke down in tears as she remembered the funeral of her son Dylan. He went to his senior prom and based on his journal had a wonderful time, and was invested in his future to such an extent that he chose a college and made a trip out to Arizona to look at dorm rooms with his father. That doesn't mean that it's always successful. As a teen, Dylans aversion to embarrassment became more severe, his self-consciousness more pointed. Reviews: 81% of readers found this page helpful, Address: Suite 369 9754 Roberts Pines, West Benitaburgh, NM 69180-7958, Hobby: Worldbuilding, Shopping, Quilting, Cooking, Homebrewing, Leather crafting, Pet. As we ourselves have often concluded in class, it seems Sue also came to the understanding that the massacre was the culmination of a number of different factors for Dylan, none of which on their own would have created such an act. I don't think I can categorize Dylan's relationship with his parents as bad or good, because Dylan was incredibly disturbed teen and clearly had a skewed perception of reality. Outside Dylans journals, most of the information Sue got about Dylans frame of mind for the shootings came from a series of videotapes he and Eric had secretly made together. That's why I have so much contempt for the Harris and Klebold families. When I hear this "We never knew a thing was wrong with our child!" This page is focused on the tragedy as well as its perpetrators so we can try to better understand the psychology and motives behind this horrific event. ", Dylan: (interrupts) "We did what we had to do. Eric says if either the clerk or his father had asked just one question, "we would have been fucked.". Eric Harris was beyond needing a therapist. Indeed, up until he died, he had been going to school, working a part-time job, hanging out with his friends, planning for college all behaviors of a normal teenager. It is also true that environmental stimuli can make the difference between a kid with "problems" and a kid who becomes a "monster." It is actually a lot of conformist bunk to serve the status quo. In any case, teenagers can be quite unfair to their parents. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives. R17, would you call yourself more of a Harris or more of a Klebold? LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) _ Columbine High School gunman Dylan Klebold was a follower, not a leader, who went astray after he met Eric Harris, friends say. I do find it odd that you'd characterise your 17 year old son as your 'best friend' anyway, you're his father.