The Columbine Tragedy The student sat at her desk on Monday morning in English class, discussing the details of the weekend with her best friend. The bell rang at 8:45 a.m. and her teacher started taking attendance. It was a new week with so many things to accomplish. The teacher finished the morning details by completing lunch count. She then asked her pupils to quit visiting, and to open their literature books and begin reading. All of a sudden a sound rings through the hall, but it is not an ordinary school bell. It is loud and short. It was followed by several more blasts. Echoes of yelling followed these blasts. High pitched shrieks could be heard throughout the classroom and possibly throughout the entire school. A look of terror was seen on the teacher’s face. She was trembling as she tried to make sense of the blasts the students had just heard. She instructed the class to find shelter in the cabinets and behind desks within the classroom. As the student headed to the cabinets, she glanced at the clock. It was 8:51 am. The blasts continued and could be heard coming closer to the classroom. She then went to the door to find… This scenario describes details that could occur at any school during a school shooting. Students began a normal school day, only to find it changed within minutes. This may be similar to what the students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado may have experienced. Although the Columbine Massacre of 1999 traumatized students, it changed the country forever. “The names Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold will be forever linked.”(Hasday 12). On April 20, 1999, the two teenagers altered the country permanently; the pair’s 49-minute suicidal attack in Littleton, Colorado at Columbin... ... middle of paper ... ...ional policies, America has made an attempt to prevent future school shootings and other violent attacks. Heartache is still present after more than a decade, but people have coped and supported each other to make an overall stronger nation. Works Cited Greg, Toppo. “10 years later, the real story behind Columbine.” USA Today Search Premier. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. Hasday, Judy L. Columbine High School Shooting: Student Violence. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2002. Print. Kass, Jeff, and Angie C. Marek. “What Happened After Columbine.” U.S. News & World Report 138.12 (2005): 28-29. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. Pollack, S, William..”The Columbine Syndrome.” National Forum. 01 Oct. 2000: 39. eLibrary. Web. 06 Mar. 2014. “School Shootings Take Toll.” Education Week 28.28 (2009): 12-13. Academic Search Premier.Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Columbine is a non-fiction story written and spoken by author Dave Cullen based on the true events of the horrifying Columbine shooting that occurred on April 20th, 1999.
Hysteria. Terror. Paranoia. All words used to describe feelings after a school disturbance. Reports of such emergencies from mainstream media outlets cause some to conclude extraordinary security breaches happen on an almost daily basis. However, schools are actually safeguarded; in recent years, protocols have been installed in schools across the United States to ensure safety. The catalyst: nationwide panic and suffering after an act of terror at a high school in Littleton, Colorado. Journalist and author Dave Cullen, in his book, Columbine, narrates the horror surrounding this shooting. Cullen’s purpose is to inform readers by captivating their attention utilizing emotional language. He establishes contrasting characters and alludes to significant
On a sunny spring day in April 1999, a suburban school named Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado found itself under attack by two of its own students. (http://www.knowgangs.com) In less than fifteen minutes of the first lunch period on that Tuesday, two armed students killed thirteen and wounded twenty-one fellow classmates before they turned the guns on themselves - the most devastating school shooting in U.S. history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only school shooting; about thirty-five students die every year from school shootings. This generation comes from violence, hatred, and ignorance- the three principal factors that cause school shootings.
Toppo, Greg. “10 Years Later, The Real Story Behind Columbine.” USA Today. Gannett Co. Inc. 13 April 2009. Web. 17 May 2014.
In its societal context, the Columbine school shootings are not an obvious part of a discernible sociological pattern. We know that approximately 4,500 youngsters are killed every year in intentional shootings, with thirty per cent of that number probable suicides. That's almost 13 a day, the same number as were killed in Littleton (The Washington Post, April 25, 1999). The data on school shootings, according to the Center for Communicable Diseases, indicate that only about 28 per cent actually occurred inside the school and that one-third of the victims were not...
I am sure all of us have been affected in some way by the horrific tragedy that occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado (April 1999). Certainly, our entire country grieves at the death of the many High School teens and faculty who were victims of meaningless violence. Sadly, the bullets of two Columbine students took the lives of thirteen people away.
James, Susan Donaldson. “Columbine Shootings 10 Years Later: Students, Teacher Still Haunted by Post-Traumatic Stress.” ABC news . abc news, 13 08 2009. Web. 22 Nov 2013.
Toppo, Greg (April 14, 2009). "10 years later, the real story behind Columbine". USA Today. Retrieved April 14, 2009.
On April 20, 1999 in a suburban town called Littleton, Colorado one high school was about to have one of the most tragic and deadly days in US history. Columbine High School was in the forefront of this tragedy. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire on their fellow classmates and teacher. These two students cut the lives short of thirteen students and one teacher. They then turned their guns onto themselves leaving the nation with no answers as to why? They did leave videotape. This videotape contained Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planning their attack on Columbine High School. This piece of evidence showed two students that were not part of the "in crowd". They were outsiders, losers, as some would consider them. They were taunted, humiliated, and disrespected by their classmates. But how can two intelligent students do something as deadly as they did. Was it because they had bad parents? Not at all, they even went out of their way to save their parents the blame by repeatedly saying that it was not their fault that they were about to do what they did. So what was the cause of all this tragedy and how can it be stopped so it can never happen again in our middle schools and high schools? Elliot Aronson a social psychologist wrote a book called Nobody Left to Hate, Teaching Compassion After Columbine. This book represents his ideas on how to use certain strategies to have a better school environment that teaches compassion, tolerance while putting education in a winning situation.
The Columbine High School Massacre happened on April 20, 1999. The Shooters were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two senior students who wanted to destroy the world they lived in. Their motives:
The columbine massacre the day where no one is safe in school or out of school. The columbine massacre is about two students named Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris both seniors 17 years old both two weeks before graduating they killed 12 students, one teacher, and 21 injured to their shooting on April 20, 1999. Both Dylan and Eric were some believe they were bullied by the sport teams in their school so they planned to kill the people who bullied them and other mostly anyone who gets in their way but that wasn’t really why the FBI he said that there target was everyone no one in pacify we will not get in to more details now. Dylan and Eric were both intelligent boys with solid parents and a good home and both had brothers younger than them. They played soccer, baseball, and both enjoyed to work on computers. Both boys were thinking on commit suicide on 1997 but instead started to plan a massacre in 1998 a year before it happened. Then the two boys had got into some trouble for breaking into a van on January 30, 1998 trying to steal some fuses and wires for bombs for them to make, but they got caught in trouble. So the court put them in a program called the juvenile diversion program, but even if they were there they were still planning the massacre and the court also put Eric in some angry management classes and people believe it worked but it didn’t he just did it to look like it work and both boys made it look like they were really sorry but they weren’t. Dylan and Eric both really hated everyone in their school and the court as well after they got caught breaking in to that van that’s when they really started to plan the massacre more and that’s when Harris started he’s journals no one really knows way but they didn’t hate a hand...
Lamb, Gina. “Columbine High School.” The New York Times. The New York Times U.S, 17 Apr. 2008. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. Since 1764, the number of school shootings rose exponentially. In the 1990’s, eighty-six school shootings occurred and between 2000 and 2014, 110 shootings transpired since 2000 (Killam,2008). The development of semiautomatic weapons lead to an increase in deaths. A study conducted in 1990 found through the years of 1986 to 1990; 71 people died, 201 wounded, and 242 people held hostage by school shooters(Galvin). While the area a school serves as one factor in the number of violent acts committed per year, school shootings have not been connected to this. The schools in Chicago dealt with more violent acts, but Sandy Hook Elementary, a small city school had relatively few violent acts committed by students.
This essay is going to talk about one of the deadliest school shootings that killed 13 students and injured several. On April 20, 1999 two teens went on a shooting spree killing 13 and wounded several more before turning the guns on to them killing themselves. The columbine shooting one of the worst shootings in U.S history raised a debate on the gun control and school safety. This essay is going to bring out the real cause of the shooters actions and apply two juvenile delinquency theories to them.
Kohn, David. "Columbine: Were There Warning Signs?" CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 17 Apr. 2001. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.