The Incident As the smoke cleared and the bodies were counted, it appeared as if Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had turned their hatred of fellow classmates into a killing spree no one could explain. Twelve students and one teacher were murdered and twenty students injured at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 before these two boys took their own lives. Although their plan had been to kill hundreds of people with guns and homemade bombs, what happened still shocked the community and the nation. After their deaths, light was shed on these two vicious young men who wrote in journals and made videos of their rise to fame by attacking those who, they felt, wronged them. Family Background Both Klebold and Harris were raised by good families. Both were second sons with older brothers. Both played sports when younger and seemed to be bright minded students, Klebold being in the Gifted and Talented program in Elementary. Klebold grew up …show more content…
Although Klebold was thought of as a shy person, Harris was quite the opposite and would often show fits of rage or anger towards others. As their friendship grew, they related on feeling like social outcasts and being fed up with jocks and christians at their school. Harris made good grades but his school work was often dark and mysterious. Although Klebold was considered bright, he did care about making good grades and also wrote essays featuring blood, death, and war. They started dressing differently, wearing long coats, dark clothes and boots, calling themselves, “The Trenchcoat Mafia.” They also starting learning the German language and became obsessed with all things Adolf Hitler. Just one month prior to their killing spree, Klebold, with his parents, toured and visited college dorms at the University of Arizona where he had recently been accepted. Just weeks before, he also attended prom with a female
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.
The satanic cult panic in part contributed to the conviction of Misskelley, Echols and Baldwin. Baldwin himself describes this assumption; “I can see where they might think I was in a cult,” he said, in that 1993 interview, “because I wear Metallica T-shirts.” (Rich, 2013). The article goes on to explain that the crime happened at the end of the five-year satanic panic period that had plagued American popular culture. These boys did not dress like other teens; they did not listen to the same music. Metal music especially music from bands like Metallica were frowned upon because of their expletive lyrics. When the public established that the boys were different from them, they developed stories that would align with their beliefs. The article establishes that after several weeks of investigation and no clear leads, “rumors of satanic involvement assumed greater urgency” (Rich, 2013) By doi...
Shootings at Kent State University What happened at Kent State University? This is a question that many Americans were asking following the crisis on the Kent campus. In the days preceding May 4, 1970, protests, disruption, and violence erupted on the university grounds. These acts were the students’ reaction to President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia.
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...
One ubiquitous concern of parents is that of their child’s safety. Parents go through life making decisions that they hope will benefit the child. One of the decisions parents must make for their child is where he or she will attend school. School is meant to be a safe haven, a place in which a child is encouraged to grow and prosper. Tragedy strikes, however, when that safe place is twisted and morphed into a place of fear and anguish. This was the shocking reality for parents of high school students in Columbine, Colorado. Two shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Columbine High School seniors, entered the school and opened fire, killing thirteen, injuring twenty-four, and firing a total of 188 shots. Although Harris and Klebold committed suicide at the scene, their actions are a living reminder of the possible dangers schools are succumbed to and the necessary precautions that must be taken to prevent future events such as this from occurring. Evidence supporting the motive behind the shooting, a depiction of the event itself, and the aftermath are portrayed in the gripping manuscript, Columbine, written by Dave Cullen. With in-depth descriptions and an unbiased tone, Cullen reveals the mystery and calamity that stupefied many for years—the Columbine Massacre.
Crime manifests itself in various ways in society and oftentimes difficult to pinpoint what drives people to commit certain actions. The Columbine shooting was a particular incident that ended in tears and suffering which resulted in numerous research as to what was going through the minds of these young individuals at the time of the shooting. Therefore, this paper will analyze specifically the role of differential association- reinforcement as altered by Akers in propelling Dylan Klebold to commit such heinous act, while also giving credit to Edwin Sutherland for first formulating the framework of differential association.
Most people believe that everything happens for a reason, but on April 20, 1999 people began to question their beliefs. The crime that occurred on that horrific day was said to be the worst high school shooting in U.S history. 13 people were killed, one of them being a teacher, and more than 20 were injured. It wasn’t long before two more people were added to list of the deceased when the killers turned their guns and committed suicide.
While he was in grade school, Dylan had mediocre grades and was considered gifted (Fillion 2016). Although Klebold was known for being shy, he had a bad reputation for cursing and being disrespectful to teachers. During the time he was employed at Blackjack Pizza, Klebold had been written up for bringing a pipe bomb to work after an employee had seen him detonating it in the back of the store. In addition, Harris and himself had been in trouble with the law in 1998 when they were charged with theft, criminal mischief, and criminal trespassing after breaking into a van and stealing multiple items from it (Shepard 1999). Harris and Klebold were best friends, therefore, when one of them had done something, the other would have tagged along and done the
"Columbine High School Shootings." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2015. Eighteen year old Eric Harris and seventeen year old Dylan Klebold were two boys with a fascination of violent video games and music. These young men were known to be “goth” and were bullied all throughout their high school careers because of their different interest. In 1999, on April 20th these boys went into their high school with mixed emotions and a devious plan to get revenge. The two teens went into the high school with handguns and killed both students and faculty members, before they turned the guns around on themselves. This is a reliable source because it informed us of both previous emotion, and the aftermath of the tragedy with detail about the boys, the school and the lives affected. This source was relevant for me because of how thoroughly it described the shooting, and gave me background information as to why and how it happened.
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.
On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School Senior Dylan Klebold and his friend Eric Harris killed twelve students and one teacher before taking their own lives shortly after. They were armed, cruel, and just full of hatred that day. They decided to channel that hatred towards their classmates and teachers in the form of havoc, devastation, and death. Crimes such as this are sensitive subjects, especially when the youth are involved. The subject is even touchier when both the murderers and those murdered are children themselves.
Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were very intelligent; they each came from solid homes with a loving mother and father, and they had older brothers as well. In school, Klebold and Harris had each competed in sports like baseball and soccer. They also enjoyed operating computers for fun.
At the school they were involved in a club called the Trenchcoat Mafia and helped maintain the school's computer servers. They were bullied at school but were not actually considered outcasts. Online Harris openly expressed his hatred of his neighborhood and school in general. He even created a set of levels in Doom, a shooting game, that was modeled after the layout of Columbine School. Both of the perpetrators kept journals. In them they talked about how they were going to outdo past bombings and wanted to leave and impression on the world. In Klebold’s Journal he talked about how him and Harris were God-like. In Harris’ he discussed how he wanted to hijack a plane with Klebold and crash it into New York City. Since the attack it has been stated that both of the boys had extreme mental disorders that they were not treated for. Klebold was depressive and suicidal. He did not value his life at all. Harris was the mastermind of the event, he was a cold, calculated, psychopathic, killer. He had a superiority complex and felt that it was his duty to punish the world for it’s stupidness. The plan the two boys had created would have killed over 500 people however they were not good at making bombs, or were very good depending on how you look at it. Many of them never exploded or the blast was much smaller than
Klebold and Harris attacked the choir room, auditorium, and the library ( Benson, Sonia). When they arrived in the library, they demanded that all the jocks in the room stand up, and they shot them all. “ All jocks stand up! We’re going to kill you all!”, said one of the gunman ( The Columbine Tragedy). Most jocks in the library were wearing a white baseball cap which symbolized they were on the baseball team. Aaron Cohn, a “jock”, was saved by one girl who held onto his back covering his baseball jersey logo. “ They were laughing as they shot, it was like they were having the time of their life”, recalled Cohn ( The Columbine Tragedy). After Isaiah Shoels, an african american kid, was shot, one of the shooters said “ Oh my God, look at this niggers brain, awesome man!” ( The Columbine Tragedy). When the police, swat team, and bomb team arrive on campus at about 12:00pm, the ambulance did too, and begin to transport students to the hospital. When the shooting finally stops, it’s around 12:30 pm and twelve students and one teacher have been killed. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris have killed themselves as well. The bodies of the shooters are not found until 4:30 that afternoon ( Benson, Sonia). It took responders an extra long time to rescue everyone in the school because they did not have a map of the
and Dylan Klebold were two teenagers that walked into their high school and killed students while the students were in school. In all, thirteen people were killed by the murderers. The two boys were part of the Trench Coat Mafia that killed a dozen students and a teacher before turning the guns on themselves. Cassie Bernall and other students hid in the library of Co...