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.
Two boys by the names of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into Columbine High School around 11:19 A.M. with 99 home-made explosives, a 9mm carbine, a pump shotgun, and a double barrel shotgun. As well as being accompanied by four knives. Both managed to murder thirteen innocent people in total, twelve students and one teacher.
Harris was “the callously brutal mastermind” while Klebold was the “quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire” (Columbine High School, History). On an article published by Cullen on Slate.com, it reveals the true motivation and meaning behind the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
At 11:19 in the morning of April 19, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stood at the west entrance of Columbine High School preparing for the deadliest shooting in American school history. One of them yelled, "Go! Go!," and then the two pulled out their shotguns and began firing, killing two students almost immediately (Jefferson County 3). Harris and Klebold began moving through the school randomly shooting students, detonating pipe bombs, and yelling about how much fun they were having. While this was happening, Coach Dave Sanders and other heroes were frantically trying to get students out of harm's way. At 11:26, while running past the library warning students of the killers, Sanders was shot by one of the shooters. He made it into a science room where first aid was administered by students. He died several hours later in that same room. The worst killing took place in the library during a span of about eight minutes starting at 11:29. Ten students were killed and twelve others were wounded. After leaving the library, Harris and Klebold wandered around the school in movements that appeared to be "extremely random" (Jefferson County 18). They eventually returned to the library at about 12:08 and killed themselves. In 49 minutes, 14 students were left dead, one teacher was left dying, 23 people were injured, and an entire community's sense of safety and security was shattered.
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...
On the morning of April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold approach Columbine High School, in Jefferson County, Colorado. Armed with one 10-shot Hi-Point model 995 carbine rifle, one Intratec AB-10 (TEC-9) pistol, two Savage 12-gauge shotguns, and as many as ninety-five explosive devices, Harris and Klebold enter the school near the cafeteria. Upon doing so, they are met with the words that God commanded unto Moses on Mount Sinai: Thou Shall Not Kill. Harris and Klebold tremble in fear and shame for what they have come to accomplish. Dropping their weapons, the boys fall to their knees, bow their heads in penance, and pray to God for forgiveness.
...e can finally put some of the missing puzzle pieces together. Such as the motives Adam Lanza had for the shootings, and why he targeted children. Also with a little knowledge about how school shootings/violence is increasing every day. We can see how most of these shootings are always relating about the same motives, bulling. Understanding the characteristics of the shooters and the causes of most school violence/shootings can help us look for signs and hopefully stop the tragedy before it happens. As a future teacher, I know what kind of signs to look for in my students or people in general to help them before an event like the Sandy Hook happens again. Hopefully the government will come to a complete choice about gun laws and we can start to see some kind of different on their end. However, this issue needs to be focused more on for us to start seeing a decrease.
We all remember the day of the Littleton high school shooting also referred as the Columbine High School Massacre. When the flashing new lines of CNN News. 1999) stated that 25 people were killed at the High School by two heavily armed male students that also took their own lives; it was shocking and very disturbing. news to learn that something so horrible caused these students to kill their own peers. What was the reason that drove these students to kill? Was the students bullying?
The history of school shootings has shown an increase in mass school shooting. The very first known school shooting in the United States occurred on July 26, 1764 in present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania. As part of the Pontiac's Rebellion, four Lenape Native Americans entered the school house and started shooting, killing the schoolmaster Enoch Brown and about nine students. Only two students survived the massacre (“History”). Since the 1700s the United States society has changed in many ways. Schools have become more than just one room school houses and each grade has its own teacher. Furthermore, the problem of school shootings has not decreased but rather increased over the years. On the one hand, reports from the Centers for Disease Control showed that in general school violence decreased from 1992 to 200...
As the world recovers from recent school shootings, people wondered why these events have occurred. They are focused on drug use, violent society, video games, bullying, and mental issues to try and explain an unexplainable event. The idea that a person would shoot others for little or no reason gave little relief to the survivors.
It is a sad time in American history when one can easily recount recent school shootings in their own area. This ease stems from a sharp increase in the number of firearms brought into elementary and middle schools across the country, with an intense focus on the issue beginning after the shooting of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most school shooters are male, white, and often upper middle class. They are also more, often than not, under some type of mental stress that is causing them to create this type of violence in our communities. In fact, many school shooters are never suspected of doing any harm to their peers and teachers until it is much too late.
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.
The Columbine Shootings were one of the greatest tragedies that the nineties faced; and changed the world that was once known. The fault for this tragedy falls on popular culture, moral climate, and the parents of the shooters; not the shooters themselves. Society has greatly affected the minds of the youth, and viewing violence on television, video games, and on the internet, has planted a negative seed of thought in their minds.
Lamb, Gina. “Columbine High School.” The New York Times. The New York Times U.S, 17 Apr. 2008. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Harris and Dylan B. Klebold were partners in crime and their motive was to kill. Eric D. Harris was the psychopath and mastermind and leader of the plan he was driven to kill and might have caused a bigger destruction if he would have waited years later to have caused destruction; he would have done something worse than the Columbine High School Massacre. Dylan B. Klebold was depressed, suicidal, and weak minded; he felt like an outcast compared to the rest of the students. Dylan B. Klebold might not have gone through with the shooting alone if he wouldn’t have been driven with the motive to kill by following Eric D. Harris and trying to be like him
On April 20 1999, in a small town of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris dressed in trench coats began shooting outside of columbine high school. The two boys then moved inside the school and gunned down many students in the library. Upon investigation it was found that the two boys arrived in two separate cars. At first they went into the school with two duffle bags filled with bombs set to the time 11:17, placed these bags in the cafeteria aiming to kill hundreds of students and faculty. They set these bags in the cafeteria without anyone noticing and came out to their cars to watch. When the bombs failed to detonate Dylan and Harris went on a shooting spree.