The morning of April 20, 1999, the majority of the population in Littleton, Colorado, believed the day would be like any other day; the normal commute to school or work, being at said school or work, then coming home to finish work, eat, and then sleep. For two teenage boys, this was not the case. These two boys, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, both had a plan to commit mass murder. But where did it come from, and why? Perhaps it is best to delve into their lives before the massacre. Eric Harris was born on April 4, 1981, to Wayne and Kathy Harris. Wayne Harris was a retired Air Force pilot who moved between 6 different bases. Kathy Harris was a caterer. As a result of his father’s career, Eric was moved from state to state. …show more content…
At the same time, teacher Patricia Nielson spotted a male student carrying what she believed was a toy gun and she headed to him to inform him about how she did not approve of the joke and that he should “knock it off.” Eric spotted Nielson and quickly fired at her through a barrier of glass doors and injuring her shoulder. Nielson quickly understood the intensity of the situation and began to run to the library. Dylan and Eric entered the school shortly after. The two shooters made their rounds of the first floor, which was also the floor that held the cafeteria, which is where Coach Sanders was frantically trying to evacuate students. Eventually, he believed he had done his job and began to head out of the cafeteria and to the rest of the school to help more children. When Sanders reached the hallway, he spotted Eric and Dylan; he quickly turned around to retreat but was shot in the neck by Eric before he could move to cover. After patrolling the hallways, the duo decided to stop by the library, where the majority of the murders would take place. In the library, the deaths of the following students occurred, in order: Kyle Velasquez, Steve Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Matt Ketcher, Lauren Townsend, Kelly Fleming, Daniel Mauser, and Corey DePooter. The gunmen left the library at 11:36. In just 7 minutes, 10 people had been killed, 12 had been wounded. 34 had escaped, free …show more content…
Theories range from mental illness to bullying, which are always the usual suspects. But perhaps there was a deeper meaning. The world will never know, but what the world will know is their own opinion on the massacre. Personally, I find it a shame the boys felt like they had to go out and murder people who had done nothing to them directly. They had 17 days left until they would never have to see that school again. Dylan had spoken about what college he was going to; Eric had plans to join the Marines. Aside from the fact that they were almost finished with that chapter of their life, it is still shocking to me the evolution America has had from Columbine. This attack shook the nation; attacks like this were never heard of. After the shooting in Vegas last October, Columbine is no longer in the top 10 deadliest mass shootings on American soil. America has grown used to this type of thing, and it is nothing short of a disappointment. No person should see a shooting headline their newspaper and think, “Okay, nothing new to see here.” Not only is the desensitization of the nation an issue that stemmed from Columbine, but so is the new “no bullying policies” implemented in schools. Maryville has an environment very similar to Columbine: jocks are easy to recognize, tons of bullying and harassment happens every day, and there will always be the outsiders. I am in
It has been made clear through police investigations, that this killing spree was premeditated and carefully planned out by Marc Lepine long before it was carried out. He had purchased a lightweight rifle from a store and claimed that it was for hunting purposes (Maser, 1987). It was the last day of the fall semester and most students were looking forward to the Christmas break, unsuspecting of what was about to transpire. Marc walked into the school and sat near the registry office for a while before moving on to a classroom on the second floor. He walked in and divided the students according to their gender, then ordered the men to leave the room. Most students thought it was a prank initially, until he fired his gun and repeated his order in a more authoritative manner. He proceeded to shoot the women left behind as he declared his hatred for feminists, despite protests from the students (Maser,...
This book was written by Dave Cullen published on April 6th, 2009. This story is a stated form of literature due to Dave Cullen directly stating in this story his reason for writing this book. Cullen was one of the first reporters to arrive to the site of this crime committed by Dylan and Eric, and since the day of this massacre Cullen had then spent ten years to publicize this very informative and crucial information for those who wanted the truth and nothing but the truth. I chose to read this book due to wanting to learn more information, and learn the hard facts and truth of this horrid massacre. I myself was in a similar situation, a school I had gone to had threats of being bombed and shot at, as well as students including myself being threatened to be harmed if they did specific actions or did nothing at all, and I was extremely adamant on learning more about what happened when things, such as the Columbine Highschool Massacre, do
Derrick Wallace, an ambitious handsome straight A student at Monroe College, has his entire life set out. He has recently won his basketball championship game and received exciting news from his girlfriend, Julia, about her moving back to the city from upstate university.
The lives of everyone in the town of Springfield Oregon changed on May 21st of 1998. A quiet boy named Kip Kinkel became known as “The Killer at Thurston High” after killing both of his parents, murdering two classmates, and severely injuring 24 others. There are many factors in the 15 year old boy’s life that led up to the horrific events that occurred on that day. The same factors that influenced the tragedy in occurring could have very easily insured that it never happened to begin with.
April 20th, 1999, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, experienced a mass shooting. Thirteen people were injured and more than twenty were injured. Twelve were students and one was a teacher. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their high school for forty one minutes before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. School shootings are notorious for making headline news but in 1999, school shooting were not as prevalent as they are in the present day. The media blew up on the catastrophe that was Columbine and many questions were raised, who were these kids and why did they do this? Speculation arose about why they did it. Maybe they were bullied for being goth and social outcasts or maybe they
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...
In the final count, sixteen kids lay dead along with their teacher, another twelve kids were wounded plus the two adults who met the shooter at the door. Only one boy in the gym made it through physically unharmed his name was Robbie Hurst, and he survived by hiding under the dead bodies of his best friend and another classmate (Pederson).
On December 14th 2012, just 11 days before Christmas, an awful tragedy happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This awful event left a lot of unanswered questions and rumors about that day. The reason for that is because the shooter killed himself after shooting twenty young children and six adults. This tragedy open the eyes of everyone; made you want to hug your loves one just a little tighter, appreciate what you still have and never take a day for granted. Even our president Barack Obama felt the pain of all those who lost their loved ones in this event. He insured everyone that he will do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this will not happen again. However, did you know that there have been over 44 school shootings since the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting? I know as a future teacher and mother I want to make sure my children are safe in this world and even at school. I want to be able to make a difference in this issue and have some knowledge to have I can do that. The society should understand what really happen during the Sandy Hook event, the reasons behind why school shootings/violence are rapidly increasing each year, and have some knowledge about what we, as a society, can do to help in order for us to start seeing a decrease of these events.
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?
In 2014, the death of Eric Garner in New York City raised controversial conversations and highlighted the issues of race, crime, and policing in neighborhoods that tend to be poor and racially isolated. Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed after being tackled and held in a “chokehold.” According to the AP Polls in December 2014, “Police killings of unarmed blacks were the most important news stories of 2014.” The problem is that young black men are targeted by police officers in which they have responded with the misuse of force and policy brutality. It is evident that this issue affects many people nationwide. The civilians do not trust the police department and the justice system because they hold the perceptions that police officers are immune from prosecution despite their actions. In particular, black individuals, specifically black males, do not feel safe in the presence of police officers because they are not held accountable for their mistakes.
The minds of these killers prove to be nothing short of fascinating to thousands of people. While many might read this book and see two cold-blooded teenagers that killed their peers for fun, there is definitely some gray area concerning whether or not the youngest killer, named Dylan Klebold, should
1966, Charles Joseph Whitman climbed to the top of the iconic clock tower in the center of Texas University in Austin and killed sixteen and seriously injured thirty of his fellow Texas Longhorns. 1991, George Hennard, thirty-five, opened fire on forty innocent patrons at a Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, killing twenty-three of his intended targets. 1999, citizens in a small Colorado County of Douglas were distraught when the infamous Columbine High School massacre rocked their town. More recently, campuses like Virginia Tech, Purdue, and even an elementary school in Connecticut have had students and teachers brutally murdered at the hands of young adults (CNN).
Settled in 1845 Rosewood Florida was mainly used for lumber where it got its town name from a red color cut of cedar wood. Rosewood had both African American and caucasian settlers. In 1890 the pencil mill closed down because of Rosewood losing its population of trees. Most of the caucasian settlers moved to Sumner where they farmed citrus and cotton. In 1900 almost all of Rosewoods population was African Americans. And almost all of Sumner’s population was caucasian. The two towns were ok they basically just kind of stayed out of each other's way.
No one can really give a definite answer for why school shootings actually occur. We look for clues and patterns to help to look inside the mind of those who do go into schools to kill others. First let us look at the Columbine shooting. The two reasons that were most believed in why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen students and their own were because they were bullied and wanted to get back at the guys who hurt them throughout high school. The other reason was we would never know. It was just a freak thing that could not be explained. The two killers wanted to be legends. They wanted to cause the most deaths in American History. They did wire the bomb properly so they were not able to kill as many people as they had planned. The bomb in the cafeteria would have killed at least six hundred people. The survivors were supposed...
According to Scott Anderson interview with Greg Ousley, the reason why young people commit crimes is because the environment that they live in. “I had been thinking about killing them every time I get mad,” he told his interrogator. “They don’t seem to understand me.” Indicative of either his youth or his mental state at that moment, Greg made a forlorn request of the detective: “Please don’t tell my family” (Anderson). Today teenagers are being abuse from their parents and are living in a negative homes and hanging out with misleading friends. The author of this article gives the main issue of the massacre which is his youth and mental anger issues. This states that the main problem is the lifestyle with his parents. Likewise in the article “Kids are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes” have a similarity about why their growth are not fully mature. It is a vexing question these days for under-eighteen crowd, the group we routinely write off as “only kids.” It’s why they can’t smoke, or drink, or go to R Movies without our OK. It’s is why they don’t vote. It’s why they have curfews. It’s why we fret over their Internet access and fuss about driving privileges” (Lunderstorm 45). Teenagers have restrictions about what they should not do every day in their lives. With this mindset, teenager have no other way, but to commit crimes to satisfy their needs and wants life. The reason why is since teenagers do not understand that they are committing crimes is because of their deficiency on thinking about the consequences and their actions. The reality is that juveniles are unintelligible on the decisions they