The Massacre at Columbine

Many adults already know well what happened at Columbine that fateful day.  Some people still tell me they remember what they were doing when they heard the news.  Much has already been written and documented in great detail, but for the sake of those who weren’t born yet or didn’t follow it, I will provide just the basics of what happened that day at Columbine, and leading up to it. 

At 11:14 a.m. on the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, walked into the cafeteria at Columbine, carrying two large duffle bags, each loaded with a 20-pound propane tank bomb, and placed them on the floor next to some tables and walked away.   

They had set a timer to detonate the propane bombs at 11:17, a time carefully selected by Harris to kill the maximum number of students.  Harris and Klebold proceeded to their cars in the parking lot outside the cafeteria, planning to wait for the explosion and shoot survivors as they fled the building.  The killers waited with two shotguns, a TEC 9 handgun, a Hi Point 9mm carbine rifle, and 76 homemade explosives. 

The propane bombs didn’t detonate, so they decided to use the guns and explosives to kill their classmates.  They scrambled to the top of a small hill on the west side of the school and began shooting students who were outside. 

A sheriff’s officer arrived on the scene and exchanged gunfire.  The killers took cover in the school through the west entrance door, firing shots at fleeing students in the hallways. 

At 11:27 the killers were in the hallway outside the library, firing their weapons and setting off bombs for three minutes.  A teacher inside the library called 911.  The 911 operator told her help was on the way. She told the 54 students in the library to take cover under the tables. 

At 11:29 the killers entered the library, firing one shot as they entered, injuring one student. They shouted at the students to “Get up!”  but none did.  The library then became an execution chamber, as the killers walked around, taunting students, then shooting them.  Some were shot and some were spared. 

Near the end of the shooting spree in the library, Eric Harris approached  Daniel. Harris taunted Daniel by calling him a geek and “four eyes.”       

At 11:34:55 Eric Harris fired a bullet from the Hi Point Carbine.  It pierced Daniel’s hand, but probably was not life-threatening.  Daniel pushed a chair at Harris.  Daniel paid for that act of defiance, as Harris called out, “Get up!” and, at 11:34:57,  fired another bullet, this time into Daniel’s face.  The bullet entered near his nose and traveled into his brain, likely killing him quickly.  God rest his soul.    

In a short time, the shooters had killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded more than 20. God rest their souls.

At about 11:44, the killers entered the cafeteria, firing several bullets at one of the unexploded propane bombs, but again it failed to explode.  At noon they returned to the library, fired some shots at the police from a window, then at around 12:06 p.m. committed suicide by shooting themselves in the head.

Meanwhile, students at Columbine were terrified. Horrified parents rushed to the school to find their teens. The world watched in horror as a badly injured student found his way to a window in the library and fell out of the window onto rescuers below.

At no point during what I described above did law enforcement enter the school and engage the killers.  Law enforcement responded that they were following what was standard operating procedure (SOP) at that time for such situations–creating a perimeter so the perpetrators could not escape, as well as to develop a plan for negotiating with the perpetrators.  Unfortunately, this procedure does not account for active shooter situations. 

For us the day was a nightmare, from the time we heard about the shooting until almost 24 painstaking hours later when law enforcement finally confirmed that Danile was dead.  I write about that awful 24 hours in my book, as well as the many controversies that unfortunately surrounded the massacre, including the failure of law enforcement to respond to threats made by the shooters and the cover up of it.