Classmates said they “were just normal kids.”
They were teenagers who were fans of Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, spoke German to each other and called themselves the Trenchcoat Mafia.
And they were anything but normal on April 20, 1999, when they went into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., with a deadly plan.
On April 20 – Hitler’s birthday — Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, randomly killed 13 people — 12 students and one teacher — and wounded 20 more before killing themselves shortly after noon.
Most of the students who died were in the library of the school. According to officials, Harris and Klebold had planned the attack for over a year and had written out the details in journals.
The Denver Rocky Mountain News published a story in the days after the killings that said Harris and Klebold were known at school “as the dorks, the loners, the outcasts. They called themselves the Trenchcoat Mafia. ‘Reb’ and ‘Vodka’ and ‘Grunt,’ smart kids with a taste for black dusters and heavy boots and makeup.”
Friends said the boys were “normal kids who did normal stuff.”
According to history.com, Harris and Klebold arrived at the school in separate vehicles. They entered the cafeteria where they left duffel bags containing bombs that were supposed to explode at 11:17 a.m.
They returned to their cars and waited for the bombs to explode but they did not detonate. Harris and Klebold returned to the school at 11:20 a.m., made their way to the library and started shooting students.
As they were returning to the school, Harris and Klebold shot two students sitting outside. Rachel Scott was killed instantly. Richard Castaldo was shot eight times and was left paralyzed from the chest down.
When they encountered three students on the staircase, they also shot them. One died.
In the library they killed 10 students and wounded 12 others. After leaving the library they wandered into other areas of the school. They exchanged gunfire with police several times, but no one was injured.
They returned to the cafeteria then went back to the library where they both killed themselves.
Throughout the 49-minute ordeal, Harris and Klebold shot 188 rounds of ammunition. They had 99 explosives, four guns and four knives. Harris fired his carbine 96 times and his shotgun 25 times. Klebold fired a shotgun 55 times and shot 12 rounds from a double-barreled shotgun.
Those who died at Columbine were:
· Cassie R. Bernall, 17
· Steven R. Curnow, 14
· Corey T. DePooter, 17
· Kelly A. Fleming, 16
· Matthew J. Kechter, 16
· Daniel C. Mauser, 15
· Daniel L. Rohrbough, 15
· Rachel J. Scott, 17
· Isaiah E. Shoels, 18
· John R. Tomlin, 16
· Lauren D. Townsend, 18
· Kyle A. Velasquez, 16
· Coach William “Dave” Sanders, 47
A memorial to honor the victims was dedicated in September 2007 in a meadow next to the high school. The library was removed and made into an atrium. The new library was opened in 2001.
The shooting heightened the call for more gun control.
Some of the school shootings since Columbine include:
· Red Lake Senior High School, Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, March 21, 2005 - 7 killed
· West Nickel Mines, Bart Twp., Pa. Oct. 2, 2006 – 5 killed
· Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va., April 16, 2007 - 32 killed
· Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Ill., Feb. 14, 2008 – 5 killed
· Oikos University, Oakland, Calif., April 2, 2012 - 7 killed
· Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, Dec. 14, 2012 - 26 killed
· Marysville Pilchuck High School, Marysville, Wash., Oct. 24, 2014 – 4 killed
· Umpqua Community College, Roseburg, Oregon, Oct. 1, 2105 - 9 killed
· Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Fla., Feb. 14, 2018 - 17 killed
· Sante Fe High School, Santa Fe, Texas, May 18, 2018 - 10 killed
School district officials had considered razing Columbine High School in 2019 because of a concern with people trying to visit the school out of morbid curiosity and fascination. ABC News reported in 2019 that school officials said hundreds of people try to enter the school every year
In the end the district decided not to raze the school but instead bolster the perimeter security.
First Published: April 20, 2021, 12:27 p.m.
