No Easy Answers (25 page)

Of course, seeing things like that happen worsened the pain everyone was feeling. A year after the murders, I was still struggling with what had happened that day. No matter how much I analyzed it, I still didn't understand why my friends had done what they'd done. I still had nightmares about the shootings. I still asked myself if there was something I could have done.

There was no peace to be found. No easy answers. No closure.

On April 20,2000, Colorado Governor BiH Owens called for a moment of silence to remember the shootings at Columbine. “Today is about the angels who are watching over us, helping us to heal and helping us to remember,” he said outside the state Capitol in downtown Denver.

At a private tribute to students and teachers, Principal Frank DeAngelis read the words of President Clinton to an audience of over a thousand in the Columbine gymnasium.

“What happened in Littleton pierced the soul of America,” Clinton wrote, according to the
Rocky Mountain News.
“Though a year has passed, time has not dimmed our memory or softened our grief at the loss of so many whose lives were cut off in the promise of youth.”

As they had done a year before, media trucks gathered in Clement Park to record these events. Many were preparing stories of healing and closure.

Away from it all, Brooks stood alone, smoking a cigarette and remembering.

Contrary to what some in the community were saying, the one-year anniversary had nothing to do with closure—at least, not for those closest to the tragedy. That week, the families of fifteen people killed or wounded at Columbine filed suit against the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

The Sanders family sued because Mr. Sanders had been left to die in the school, even though the police knew for hours where he was. The police didn't reach Sanders until 2:42 p.m. From there, they made the students who were caring for him evacuate. Yet, even after they had reached the room, it took over half an hour for paramedics to be brought in. By that point, it had been nearly four hours since Sanders had been shot. He bled to death.

Other lawsuits used the Web pages my family had turned over to argue that the police could have stopped the massacre from happening, but didn't.

Sheriff Stone called the lawsuits “ridiculous.”

“We didn't do anything wrong,” he told the
Rocky Mountain News.
“We have people who did some pretty heroic things that are now getting
kicked in the face for rescuing people, for saving people's lives. Because of greed.”

Heroic? How? Who had they actually saved? The police stood outside and did nothing during the entire massacre. Not one officer attempted to engage Eric and Dylan after entering the school. Mr. Sanders was alive for three hours before officers even reached him. Lives could have been saved if the police had gone in, but they didn't. Stone was trying to portray his police force as a noble organization that had done everything it could. However, the events of the next month would show just what kind of police force we were really dealing with.

A month after the first anniversary, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office released its official report on the Columbine killings. The bulk of the report was a timeline showing the events of April 20.

This was how the police described my last conversation with Eric:

“Harris speaks to one student briefly outside the west entrance of the school. According to the student, Harris tells him to leave the school because he likes him. Shortly thereafter, the same student is seen by witnesses walking south on Pierce Street away from the area. This student is the only person Harris and Klebold direct away from the school grounds moments before the killing begins.”

This description was incorrect. I never spoke to Eric outside the west entrance. I spoke to him in the parking lot near the east entrance—on the opposite side of the school. On paper, it seems like a small mistake. Yet Eric and Dylan reportedly started their shooting at the west entrance. Saying that I met Eric there implies that I saw guns, ran away without warning anyone—and ran to the other side of the school in order to be moving south on Pierce later.

Was it a mistake? If so, I can't help questioning the accuracy of the rest of the police report. On the other hand, perhaps it was intentional. After all, putting me at the west entrance certainly makes me look suspicious to anyone who reads the report.

The police made brief mention of Eric's Web pages in the report, but played them down. “The information was reviewed by Sheriff's investigators,” the report reads. “However, Harris's Web site could not be accessed nor could reports of pipe bomb detonations be substantiated. Because of Brown's request to remain anonymous, Klebold and Harris were not contacted. Further investigation was initiated but no additional information was developed.”

This was incorrect, too. My family did not request to remain anonymous. We asked that the Harris family not be given our name, but my father offered to sign a police report; he was told that would not be necessary. Also, my parents were told in their meeting with Detective Hicks that there were reports of bomb activity in our area, so “reports of pipe bomb detonations”
were
substantiated. And if the police were having problems accessing Eric's Web site, they could have called us back and asked for help. They never did.

The Sheriff's Report was supposed to answer all of the public's questions about Columbine. Instead, the more I read, the angrier I became.

Sheriff Stone and the Jefferson County Police Department continued to infuriate survivors of Columbine as the summer progressed. In June, Sheriff Stone was asked to testify before the Columbine Review Commission, an investigative panel assembled by GovernorOwens. Stone originally said he would, but the day before his scheduled testimony in June, he changed his mind.

Stone told reporters he had “no choice” because of the lawsuits his department was facing from the victims' families. He had been advised by attorneys not to testify. He stood by that decision, even as Governor Owens himself urged Stone to change his mind.

Stone also refused to hand over Danny Rohrbough's clothing to his parents, even though other parents had received their children's possessions long ago. The police told Brian Rohrbough that Danny's shirt was a biohazard. Then they claimed that they wouldn't hand it over because the case was still open. This seemed odd to observers; after all, by now the police had publicly stated that Eric and Dylan had been the only ones involved in the killings. However, as long as the case wasn't closed, the police weren't obligated to hand over evidence.

Frustrations such as these motivated the Browns—with the blessing of several of the victims' families—to launch a recall effort against Sheriff Stone. By June 9, 2000, theirrecall petition was approved by the Jefferson County Clerk's Office. They would have sixty days to gather at least 42,000 signatures from registered voters.

The petition listed four reasons for Stone's recall:

1. Because Sheriff Stone has lost our confidence and trust.
   
2. Because he has put his political career ahead of the interests of the citizens of Jefferson County.
   
3. Because he has mismanaged the Columbine investigation.
   
4. Because he has mismanaged the sheriff's department during his term in office.
   

Randy Brown pointed to the
TIME
debacle, the suspicion cast on Brooks, and the behavior of police at Columbine on April 20 as examples of inexcusable behavior by Stone.

“Why aren't people mad?” Randy Brown told the
Rocky Mountain News.
“Don't they get it? They let children die. Innocent, defenseless children were murdered while they waited outside, and that was a command decision by Sheriff Stone.”

However, the recall effort proved too daunting a task for the Browns and the handful of volunteers who joined them. While the Browns gathered a substantial number of signatures, they couldn't reach their goal by the time the sixty-day period was up.

Even though their effort had fallen short, the Browns still wanted to make a statement. Fearing retribution by Stone against those who had signed the petition—including officers in his own department—the Browns chose not to turn those names in. Instead, they chose to leave just two names on the final petition. Their own.

My family's battle with Sheriff Stone taught me an important lesson about politics. When my parents were circulating that petition, people would say to them, “If he weren't doing his job, he would be fired.” People have to understand that when it comes to elected officials, we, the public, are their bosses. We hire them through our votes. We are also the only ones who can fire them.

Too many people ignore politics in their lives, refusing to vote or get involved in the process. Yet even the smallest and most unimportant elected official will affect them.

For elected officials, character has to matter, because they are setting an example for the rest of us. The President of the United States sets that standard. Yet who was President when Columbine happened? It was Bill Clinton, who was embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, getting oral sex from an intern in the Oval Office and then lying under oath about it. If that's the example we get from the highest elected official in the land,
and he suffers no real penalty, then why would anyone bat an eye if Sheriff Stone lies to parents about what happened to their children at Columbine?

Young people see adults lying and getting away with it on a regular basis. That's the example being set for us.

That's why people in our country must pay attention to what's happening in the world around them. I don't see how anyone who reads up on Columbine would come away believing the police did nothing wrong. Yet for many, when it comes to difficult issues, it's easier to just look the other way.

UNHAPPY WITH THE LACK OF INFORMATION IN THE SHERIFF'S REPORT, families of Columbine victims continued to push for the release of all information related to the investigation. In November of 2000, that wish was granted.

Judge Brooke Jackson ordered the release of over 11,000 pages of investigative files on November 21. Jackson outlined specific exceptions to that instruction: crime scene photos, autopsy reports, and material seized from Eric and Dylan's homes were not to be released. Neither were details about the bombs, or Eric's “hit list” of people he wanted dead. However, all other material was to be handed over.

The Jeffco Sheriff's Office charged $602 for each copy of the materials, claiming that the charge would cover printing costs. My parents obtained one of the sets and immediately pored over it, hunting for new information.

There were some surprises among the pages. We learned that while the Klebold family had given an extensive interview to police, there was no report of an interview with the Harrises. The police said that they hadn't gleaned enough information from their sole interview to write up a report.

In addition, we read that the Harrises had resisted the arrival of police at their home on April 20, 1999. At first, they barred officers from their home. Then they tried to stop them from going down into the basement, where Eric's bedroom was.

“Mr. and Mrs. Harris were afraid of retaliation from the parents [whose] children were killed at [the] high school,” read part of the report.

There were reports of more warning signs from Eric and Dylan before the attack. According to the report, Dylan was fired from his job at Blackjack Pizza for bringing a pipe bomb to work. Yet store owner Bob Kirgis told police that Eric brought a pipe bomb to work in April of 1997 and talked about detonating it; Kirgis took no action against him.

The report contained a short story written by Dylan in our creative writing class. I had never seen it before. In the story, Dylan described a man dressed in a black overcoat who “looked ready for a small war with whoever came across his way.” The man confronted a group of “college-preps,” one of whom he described as a “power-hungry prick.” The man then drew weapons on the group and began shooting. “The shining of the streetlights caused a visible reflection off the droplets of blood as they flew away from the skull,” Dylan wrote.

The final portion gave a glimpse of what was going on in Dylan's mind:

The man then pulled out of the duffel bag what looked to be some type of electronic device. I saw him tweak the dials, and press a button. I heard a faint, yet powerful explosion, I would have to guess about six miles away. Then another one occurred closer. After recalling the night many times, I finally understood that these were diversions, to attract the cops.

The last prep was bawling and trying to crawl away. The man walked up behind him. I remember the sound of the impact well. The man came down with his left hand right on the prep's head. The metal piece did its work, as I saw his hand buried about 2 inches into the guy's skull. The man pulled his arm out and
stood, unmoving, for about a minute. The town was utterly still, except for the faint wail of police sirens.

The man picked up the bag and his clips, and proceeded to walk back the way he came. I was still as he came my way again. He stopped, and gave me a look I will never forget. If I could face an emotion of god, it would have looked like this man. I not only saw in his face, but also felt eminating [sic] from him power, complacence, closure and godliness. The man smiled, and in that instant, through no endeavor of my own, I understood his actions.

The thousands of new pages of evidence would prove to be an invaluable resource in researching what happened at Columbine. However, there was little new information on my family, or Eric's Web pages, in that massive report. Despite the 11,000 pages of material, we suspected that the police were still withholding information from the public.

On the morning of Columbine's two-year anniversary, I was driving through Clement Park with a friend on our way to the memorial ceremony. My friend noticed a camera operator unloading equipment from the back of his truck.