Photo by Olga Mendenhall
Written by Leo Gonzales
Columbine Shootings
Date: April 20th, 1999
Where: Columbine, Colorado
Injured: 20
Killed: 14
Killers: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
Story: A typical day for most of the students at Columbine High School, April 20th, 1999 was an easy one to navigate through for the citizens of the quiet town of Columbine, Colorado as much.
The killing spree began at 11:19 AM and began after the two killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, approached the school from a distant lawn. After the first shots were fired at student Sean Graves, the cafeteria began to panic and the fire alarm of the school went off. Spoofs of shooting videos were created by Eric and Dylan, while they dress in trench coats on the day of the shooting.
What was once a gag between the two was all of a sudden real. Real bullets resound in their footage at Rampart Range, echoing through the vast wilderness. Both young men were passionate about computers and did not believe in war – they were Pacifists. A possessive anger took hold of Eric in one report; an instance where a kid had taken Eric’s backpack and returned it to a family friend. Said family friend recalls the anger of Eric when the decision was to return the backpack at Eric’s mom’s house. Dylan Klebold would journal constantly, mentioning suicide.
By 11:27 AM, the two killers had made their way to the library. Taunting and racial epithets were engaged in while the two killers turned the high school’s safe space into a nightmare. Ten students were killed in the library. Aspirations of wanting to bomb the school were also involved in their premeditation, what came from these goals fizzling into a detonation in the cafeteria. By 12:02 PM Sean Graves, unconscious from his wound, began to awake to an ambulance behind him. Ammunition was fired at the direction of the paramedics, the two killers shooting at the victim once more. At 12:08 PM Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took their own lives.
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