The atmosphere was lively and full of laughter as students overcrowded the cafeteria. What seemed to have been the start of a normal school day turned into something much more extreme. Next thing they knew, they were huddled to the ground fearing for their lives. The sound of gun shots pierced their ears and the smoke from the bombs clouded their vision. Bullets flew past or into students who fled for their lives. The psychopath and the depressed had entered the building. Matt tells with his eyes wide as if his mind had been blown, “I just remember seeing it all over the news, it was wild”. He must wonder how it may have affected him if this incident would have happened at his school. Swift says that he knew nothing about the news as it was …show more content…
The friendship that the two shared seemed to enable Harris from acting like a normal psychopath. Psychologist, Dr. Ochberg in The Depressive and the Psychopath shares his view on the two’s friendship, “Cool, calculating Harris calmed down Klebold when he got hot-tempered. At the same time, Klebold 's fits of rage served as the stimulation Harris needed” (slate.com). Ochberg also talks about how Klebold wouldn 't have been able to pull of this mass murder without the help of Eric Harris. He believed that Klebold could’ve been caught doing a petty theft and counseling would’ve straightened him out. On the other hand, Harris was irretrievable. The death of Eric Harris may have stopped him from creating a bigger and worse event than what The Columbine Shooting turned out to …show more content…
One important myth that needs to be handled is that Harris and Klebold were not bullied by other classmates and did not target certain individuals. Wax says, “Eric Harris was a lady’s man, a charmer who had a number of good friends at school. Dylan Klebold went to the prom the weekend before the shooting” (thegospelcoalition.org). He goes on to say, “Although initial news reports claimed the Columbine killers had targeted minorities, jocks, and Christians, the killing was indiscriminate” (thegospelcoalition.org). The Columbine School Shooting was supposed to be a one-in-done. Their intentions were to bomb the school, killing almost all people inside the building. When the bombing did not go as planned, they took matters into their own hands and entered with their
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.
Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were bullied at Columbine. This, coupled with their unfettered acces...
In Richard E. Miller’s essay, The Dark Night of the Soul, he first focuses on two teenage boys, boys who murderously rampaged through Columbine High School in Santee, California. Then he further discusses who was to blame, but most importantly would this event not had transpired if education had a more adamant impact if these young men had read more. Simply, would Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold killed if there was a more proactive approach to the educational system or government to “reduce or eliminate altogether the threat of the unpredictable or unforeseen [the amalgamation of elements that would result in a mass shooting] (Miller 421).”Additionally, if McCandless, a young man who eulogized the idealisms of authors that he used to make sense
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
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
First, let’s examine Eric Harris. Eric was a shy young child who grew up in a military family which moved around constantly. This made it difficult to make and keep friends. His father was also a strict authoritarian parent who ruled over the family without compromise or discussion. His mother was a dedicated military wife and a stay at home parent. This is just a short synopsis of a military brat. I was a military brat, moving from town to town and had difficulties making and maintaining friendships. Unlike me, though, something happened to Eric to affect him in such a way, he would commit a mass murder and then kill himself.
One of the most obvious characteristic of a school shooter would be parental neglect. This neglect was evident in both the Columbine shooters as well as fictional character, Peter Houghton. If Dylan and Eric’s parents took interest in their sons, they would have recognized the boys’ obvious dysfunctional thinking. Written on the front of Harris’s journal was, “I hate the fucking world.” (Rosenburg). He continued to write that he hates racists, martial arts experts, and people who brag about their cars. Through out the following pages, he continued to state what else he hates, including Star Wars fans, people who mispronounce words, and other ridiculous things. If parents believed that their sons were normal, the boy’s yearbook should have definitely raised a red flag. In 1988, the boys wrote about killing and retaliation, and even drew a picture of a person holding a gun with dead bodies surrounding them. A caption stated, “The only reason you’re still alive is because someone has decided to let you live.” Videotapes as well as guns and bombs were also in the boys’ rooms. Harris also made a w...
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.
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...
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were average teenagers. They were very social, they worked, and they partied. Where Eric was outgoing and charismatic, he could get out of any situation, Dylan was shy and had a temper; he would easily get mad over someone or something. They became friends quickly and did most of their activities together. They were “math wizards and technology hounds,” Eric played soccer, Dylan was a huge fan of the Boston Red Sox, and they worked at Blackjack Pizza. These two were a team; Eric craved attention and approval when Dylan was unreliable. No one knew that they had one big secret that was about to get detonated.(Cullen 8-10)
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.
In Columbine High School there were two students who wanted to commit suicide "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had plotted the massacre for a year as retaliation for what they saw as bullying and harassment from classmates " ( Moore Bowling for Columbine Movie ). Erric Harris and Dyln Kleblod had been depreesed due to their classmates bad treatement so they decided to commit suicide, they killed their classmates and a teacher then after that they shot themselves ." They used two sawed-off shotguns, a rifle and a semiautomatic pistol in a rampage that extended over more than four hours before the shooting stopped — allowing police to enter the school and find the bodies of Harris and Klebold and their victims"(Jost Gun Violence Article). This means not only people with mental illness who commit suicide, "but also" means that people who have been bullied by other people 's aggressive behavior which leads them to commit this kind of
Klebold and Harris were both staunch Atheists, and went out of their way to target students who were openly Christian. The argument could be made that if religion was taught in school, Klebold and Harris would both be exposed to ideas of faith and perhaps would have a better understanding of their peers and what they believed. Instead, they carried resentment for the people of faith at Columbine High, most notably Cassie Bernall whom when Harris asked if she was a Christian and believed in God answered “Yes”. Harris killed her solely on the premise of her belief in Jesus. In Elliot Aronson’s article, How the Columbine High School Tragedy Could Have Been Prevented, he stated that “When we develop the ability to understand what another person is going through it increases the probability that our heart will open to that person” (360). Klebold and Harris did not understand others blind faith, and chose to hate it
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...
Dylan Klebold was undeniably sick, as his journal and other writings can prove. A very intelligent yet shy boy, Dylan felt isolated and unloved by both family and friends. Dylan’s best friend, Eric Harris, was equally sick--if not more so--than Dylan and incredibly persuasive. Above all, Dylan wanted to die. Although Dylan wanted to love and be loved, his mind was plagued with thoughts of death and suicide. Dylan Klebold’s actions were a direct result of his relationships with family and classmates, his friendship with Eric Harris, and the mental demons that howled in his mind.