Month: February 2016

Just say NO to JOCKS

We also believed Dylan’s height would be intimidating, because he told us it was. Once, during sophomore year, Dylan said something to Tom about “hating the jocks.” Tom asked him if they were giving him a hard time, and Dylan answered with confidence: “They don’t bother me. I’m six four. But they sure give Eric hell.” – Sue Klebold

This was especially impressive since, as always, the jocks were still targeting him and Dylan. Soon after we’d made peace, I was smoking cigarettes with them when a bunch of football players drove by, yelled something, and threw a glass bottle that shattered near Dylan’s feet. I was pissed, but Eric and Dylan didn’t even flinch. “ Don’t worry about it, man,” Dylan said. “ It happens all the time.” – Brooks Brown

“Eric and Dylan had an attitude about the school,“ "Of course, a lot of people have an attitude about the school. I hate the school. There’s too many jocks and materialistic people that just judge and that’s all they do, so we hated those kind of people who sit in judgment. That was pretty much the whole school.”  “Dylan said, ‘Fuck the school’ a lot of times, and he said, ‘The people in it should just die,’” We all say stuff like that.”  – Sarah Slater

Says she was marked for speaking with Dylan: A jock would say, “Why are you talking to that faggot? Are you a dyke?” – Devon Adams

Recalled Anderson and Klebold joking around about how “the jocks think they owned the school.” –Tiffany Burke

“I couldn’t decide who, if anyone, I wanted to go with, so finally I convinced my friend Dylan, who hates dances, jocks and has never had a date let alone a girlfriend to go with me!  I am either really cute or just really persuasive! –Robyn Anderson

One student Sean Bigg remembers the Friday prior to 4/20, Dylan picking a fight with an unidentified jock.

Ali Boukhalfa said they had heard second hand that Brett Sullivan accidentally bumped into Klebold which turned into a pushing/shoving contest between the two.

Keith Parkinson  almost got into a physical fight with Dylan. Chris Walker  heard from someone that once Dylan was ‘very scary’, there was a fight and Dylan was ‘going crazy’. 

Sue Klebold…. 
When I told the math teacher Dylan had been accepted at the University of Arizona, he seemed impressed and slightly surprised. When we mentioned the other Arizona university, he laughed and said, “Oh yes. That’s where all the jocks go after they flunk out of UCLA.”

We later shared this comment with Dylan, who changed his mind about visiting the school.                   The upshot of our meeting was that Dylan wouldn’t fail the course if he went to class and turned in the overdue assignments.   

😉

Dylan had cockatiels?

The Klebold’s had them yes.  Might want to read the book? 😉

“Our cat Rocky was ill, and I fumbled about for his medicines, conscious of how ridiculous it seemed against the backdrop of the tragedy. Worried our two little cockatiels would not survive the cold night in our car, I grabbed our thickest beach towels to wrap around their cage.”

Pathetic how you don’t answer my comment that Sues Book was terrible, and it was Dave Cullen 2.0. Oh no the evil psychopath Eric got depressed Dylan to commit a shooting. PATHETIC. She fails to accept her son was homicidal 2 years before Columbine. Denial to the end Sue. Denial to the end.

Mmm..no?   It’s more like I get a lot of questions and can only address so many in a given day.  

Funny how personal perspective is because I don’t see the manner in which you are bitterly pigeonholing her book.    Sue interviewed many people, so-called psych experts, authors, friends and family for insights of which I believe she has openly considered various possibilities based off a myriad of different opinions but in my personal opinion, she has remained largely neutral and still open and in a state of perpetually seeking out answers. Additionally, she has given some of her own opinions based off the various perspectives given to her but is that not her right given that it’s her book and her opinion?  She is also Dylan’s mother and as his mother who has loved and cared for him since a baby it is not always easy for her to stay on the straight and narrow of objectivity one hundred percent of the time. That is an unrealistic expectation to hold over a mother’s head. We could hardly expect the same thing of Kathy Harris in her own memoirs about Eric..if she ever pushed to speak out the way Sue did even at the risk of ending her marriage to Tom in order to speak out.

 You know, it’s too bad the Harrises could not vouch for their own son so Sue could’ve had the opportunity to weigh and consider a more well-rounded perspective about Eric. Too bad his parents damn him further in their silence and are automatically deemed complicit with the majority psych expert opinion that deems him a psychopathic rep all because they refrain from speaking in his defense..

Oh well..It’s not Sue’s job to champion Eric for his own parents.  Sue spent time exploring her overall impressions of Eric based on personal, first hand experience with him.  That’s all anyone can expect of her, honestly.  When there is not enough detailed, intimate information to weigh and consider about Eric, people tend to rely on the psychiatric expert opinions. How could we fault her for looking to the expert opinion for help in her vulnerable desire for answers? That’s a given in America, anyway. 

Sue has been through hell and back and her bravery in coming forward to openly explore a variety of factors that had a hand in influencing her son in addition to admissions about how her own parenting style failed in retrospect, has been nothing but courageous and admirable. I do not agree with your stance to vilify her in cahoots with Cullen.  I do not see that Sue has arbitrarily decided that Eric is responsible for Dylan’s participation in the shooting either but rather a culmination of many factors that influenced Dylan to influence himself to murder and suicide. She even says on many occasions that she knows her son is fully responsible for what he did.  I’d even go so far as to do a post quoting her that demonstrates this is colored, distorted thinking on your part. 

“On at least four occasions at the school-always out of Eric’s earshot and line of sight- Dylan let people go. The physical evidence suggests two incidents during the rampage when Eric went to retrieve Dylan, perhaps to make sure he was still on board.” -Sue Klebold, A Mothers Reckoning Page 168 Do you happen to have the background knowledge of this bit? (What were the 4 occasions when Dylan spared people and when was Eric retrieving Dylan?)

The quote is:

“Dr. Langman believes Dylan’s ambivalence may have extended up to the massacre itself. On at least four occasions at the school—always out of Eric’s earshot and line of sight—Dylan let people go. The physical evidence suggests two incidents during the rampage when Eric went to retrieve Dylan, perhaps to make sure he was still on board. I take no comfort from this— Dylan committed atrocities, end of story. But learning about his ambivalence devastated me. In my notes after a conversation with Dr. Langman, I wrote: Crying too hard to take any more notes….I had made myself accept Dylan as a sadistic killer, but I had not yet come to grips with a Dylan who was trying to counteract his own “evil” with moments of goodness. I think I met this Dylan for the first time when Langman talked about it, so it gave me a different Dylan to grieve for. Dylan’s ambivalence also made me feel even more culpable than I did already.”

I’m going to assume that Langman is sticking to what Cullen mentioned in his book that coincide with this quote:  

“The physical evidence suggests two incidents during the rampage when Eric went to retrieve Dylan, perhaps to make sure he was still on board.”

1) When the boys arrived at the school, Dylan parked in the Senior parking lot and Eric, in the Junior parking lot.  The official record is that the two stood by their own cars waiting for the two bombs to explode in the Commons cafeteria.  Dylan did mention in his basic attack plans jotted out in Eric’s Day Planner that they would wait by their cars. However, I don’t know if this has ever been proven that the two actually did stand by their cars and waited but this is the official story by Jeffco.  After the bombs did not explode, Eric ‘abandoned his prime location to come to Dylan’s post.’ (paraphrasing Cullen here – I won’t quote him specifically but if you haven’t used his book yet for a fire log this winter, you can find the factionized account on the first page of C11 “Female Down”. 😉

2)  The second time is when Dylan walked down the south-west entrance steps, moving away from Eric and he stepped  into the side entrance of cafeteria momentarily. You could say this was a third time (or first if you’re going in order) if you literally relied on Dylan’s sketch of plans written out in the pages of his journal, that he’d be the one to actually walk in and set the bombs.  But it’s not really clear if he’s literally referring to himself specifically for that task or for both of them to set the bombs.

“On at least four occasions at the school—always out of Eric’s earshot and line of sight—Dylan let people go.”

Below, is what I personally count – with some additions that don’t really fit the criteria of Eric being out of earshot/line of sight.  I’m not sure exactly what they’re referring to but likely four within this bunch below.

 1) Sean Graves: When Dylan went down the stairs of the south west entrance he: stepped over Sean Graves who was lying in the threshold of the cafeteria side door.  

2)  Lance Kirklin:  I know no one is going to vouch for this one.. but I half count it 😉  because, let’s face it, at close range looking directly down at Kirklin laying prone on the ground, Dylan could’ve easily shot the kid in the brain and killed him instantly. Instead, he shoots his jaw. He maims him badly.

3) Multiple students Fleeing up the cafeteria stairs:  He walked into the cafeteria for a short time and people were fleeing upstairs yet he shot no one inside the Commons. (Cullen purports  that Dylan stepped inside and waved his Tec in a sweeping motion but did nothing.  I have no clue where/how he came to this conclusion. For this to be a fact, there should be 11K cafeteria witnesses saying they saw Dylan use a sweeping motion with his gun but I haven’t come across any that have reported this. It’s possible they did but I’ve never seen it.)   Personally, I feel as though Dylan stepped inside, paced nervous and excitedly and then left again.  Fact remains though, he did not shoot any fleeing or hiding student alone within the Commons.

4) Girls by the pay phones  When Dylan ran and shot up the main hallway moving towards the school offices near the main entrance, he progressed up to the pay phones near the front doors and scared two girls near the phones/water fountain area.. One girl was speaking to her mother on the phone, dropped the receiver and fled into the girl’s bathroom. The other girl had a visual exchange with Dylan who screeched to a halt and smiled at her. Yet, Dylan, gun in hand, did not pursue her. Instead, he regrouped back down the hallway with Eric.  See post here.

5)  John Savage:  Can’t really count him according to Sue’s specifications – nonetheless, Dylan reasons and decides to spare Savage (”We know each other, I like you, you can leave”) blatantly and within Eric’s sights. 

6)  Valeen Schnurr:  Dylan interacts verbally with her as she’s  crying hysterically on the floor having fallen out from under table yet he chooses to not kill her. 

7)   Evan Todd: can’t really count him since he was in earshot and line of Eric’s sight, but nonetheless, Dylan openly declines killing Todd.

8)  Tim Castle: When E &D  are back down in the Commons in the kitchen area.  Dylan goes into a bathroom or closet area and sees that the ceiling boards are out and he sticks his head up through the boards.  Up above is Dylan’s friend, Tim Castle, trying to flee by crawling through the ceiling area.  According to Tim, the two make eye contact and he recognizes the shooter as Dylan. I believe Dylan signals or gave Time the impression that he could leave. Tim tells all his friends about this in tears. He cannot believe it is his friend.

9) [new update April 2018] Kimberly Blair (Woodruff): Kim was standing on the outside near on the lawn near the south-west entrance with her friend, Anne Marie Hochhalter, and her boyfriend, Jayson Autenrieth. She observed the boys remove their guns from their dufflebags, nod at one another and begin shooting. Dylan looked at her and according to Kim, he purposefully pointed his gun away and shot and wounded the girl next to her (her friend Anne Marie).  She alludes that since she and her sister Patti are identical twins, that Dylan spared Patti in the library as he looked under the table and didn’t shoot her twin probably because he may not have been able to tell them apart.  Kim stated that she knew Dylan and had been kind to him in the interactions that they’d had in school.

Since finishing Susan’s book, the one question that’s been nagging away at me is about the fate of Rocky the cat. (I know!) She says that Rocky had been ill, and a few days after the shooting they took him to the vet to be cared for. And that’s the last we hear about him. So I wonder if he was actually taken to be put down, since he was so ill? Or to be nursed back to health since the Klebolds were in no state to do it? I wish I knew what happened to Rocky.

Ugh, yesss.  This is one of those tiny yet preciously important detail questions we’re left hanging with. I’m with you…Yes, I’d like to know what happened to Dyl’s sickly older cat Rocky. Who wouldn’t want to know this tidbit of information?  How heartbreaking if Rocky lost the will too live in his illiness not too long after Dylan died?    It’s an interesting parallel with how Eric’s dog Sparky was sickly with seizures and meanwhile, Dylan’s ill feline companion had barfed in the guest bedroom not long after Nate slept over and so Sue asked Dyl to pick up the room so that Eric could spend the night.. one last time. Sue obviously is a huge animal lover and if I had to subtitle this book it would be dubbed: Don’t forget to feed the cats, Dyl !  

Wished she tossed in some photos of Dylan with the kitties and

Cockatiels…

Do you think Devon was in love or at least liked Dylan in a romantic way? I know she said she wished she’d told him how much he meant to her but do you think it was in a romantic way?

This was answered quite a few times before.  I guess with the new mentioning in Sue’s book that Devon mentioned to Sue that Dylan placed a kiss on the top of her head after dancing at prom, people are confused again.  The answer is still the same: Dylan and Devon were always a platonic friendship. Dylan’s kiss on the top of her head was one of friendly affection, of gratitude for the dance they had together and also a bit of a wistful, secret goodbye to this girl who had been good to him as a friend.

This is going on the FAQ. 

Do you think that dylan like kmfdm only for erics sake?

No, I think Eric turned Dyl on to the band and he found he also dug KMFDM too. Hasn’t any of your friends introduced you to different kinds of bands or musical tastes of which you previously hadn’t discovered on your own? Friends influence one another’s tastes and that’s just par for the course. :). There are certain kinds of movies or music that you especially share together with a certain friend and that’s what KMFDM and Rammstein were for Eric and Dylan as a package deal.

everytime I’m on your blog vast – beautiful starts to play and it makes me cry so fucking hard. it’s so fucked up, how do you deal with the pain? we wouldn’t even know about dylan and eric if they weren’t dead, but on the other hand… I mean I’m at a point that I can’t deal with all of this. what am I going to do? I’m just so fucking sad.

Maybe stop listening to Beautiful by VAST ? ;). No, but in all seriousness: researching Columbine and exploring every aspects of these two boys can be both rewarding but also dangerous at times. We’re pulled towards them out of aspects of ourselves that are unresolved. The empathy for them can be overwhelming and sometimes you don’t know where you begin with their end. When the sadness becomes too great – and let’s face it, this subject is very sad and dark, it means that it’s time to just step back and take a bit of a break from this. It’s important to feel your feelings in response to the boys because it’s a processing that you’re doing for yourself but when you’ve become so emotionally entangled as you are at this point, (and believe me, I understand that’s it’s hard not to be), you need to redirect your energy and distract with other things in your life. Focus on what makes you happy. I’m sure Dylan himself wouldn’t want you to wallow on down his downward spiral right on his heels. He suffered many years ago but he’s free of that now and so he wouldn’t want any of us to bare that burden for him by echoing the despair he endured many years ago. See his tragedy, in all the suffering he endured, and his inability to cope in this life, as your opportunity to do better for/by him.

So..
Stay with us my darling, Tomorrow is a brighter day
Stay with us my darling, There are so many things to love…

You are so beautiful to me, you are so beautiful to everyone
There are so many things to see, You are so beautiful to me

Ah. Not an ask. Just wanted to thank you for your blog. You’re very insightful & I appreciate your perspective. In my search for info about Columbine and Eric and Dylan, your writing has been some of the most helpful and objective that I have encountered. Thank you, thank you! (Side note: I can’t submit an ask through my Columbine related account, but I see no reason to be anonymous either. It’s just kind of a bummer that tumblr works this way!)

Thank you for stopping by to say that you find E-C insightful/informative; it’s always a rare treat getting positive feedback off anon too. 🙂

Regarding DJ Spooky, do you think he dug tracks like Post Human Sophistry, Synchronic Disjecta, or the tracks with kool keith (Dr. Octagon, who they reportedly liked).

Totes. The DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid Riddim Warefare was a sticker on Dyl’s BMW.  So, you know he was down with those tunes enough to showcase the album on his VoDkA Mobile. See here   

Reminds me that I’ll have to do a Dyl’s jams DJ Spooky post. 🙂

lovernotfighter1982:

everlasting-contrast:

everlasting-contrast:

rainflesh:

“A day does not pass that I do not feel a sense of overwhelming guilt–both for the myriad of ways I failed Dylan and for the destruction that he left in his wake… I think often of watching [fourth-grade] Dylan do origami… I loved to make a cup of tea and sit quietly beside him, watching his hands moving as quickly as hummingbirds, delighted to see Dylan turn a square of paper into a frog or a bear or a lobster. I’d always marvel at how something as straightforward as a piece of paper can be completely transformed with only a few creases, to become suddenly replete with new significance. Then I’d marvel at the finished form, the complex folds hidden and unknowable to me. In many ways, that experience mirrors the one I would have after Columbine. I would have to turn what I thought I knew about myself, my son, and my family inside out and around, watching as a boy became a monster, and then a boy again.”

– Sue Klebold, A Mother’s Reckoning

Aww..Thanks for fulfilling my request @rainflesh  Wow, you did that super fast and I’d only asked you just yesterday evening. haha  It’s so perfect and lovely. ❤ Makes me teary eyed. So grateful you’re here on the tag to help bring these memories and anecdotes to life for all of us!   

I feel like somehow this needs to be sent to Sue…………  ❤

Seems so apropos that this delicate beautiful rendering of a memory recently posted on her website would be, sent along with all of our names in a show of support for her courageous move to open up to the public about her boy that became a monster and then a boy again…  

Does she have a website @everlasting-contrast?

Sue has a professional website for her book release:

 amothersreckoning.com

Reviews

Columbine shooter’s mother still cringes at idea of copycats

DENVER – Sue Klebold doesn’t break down in tears anymore when she learns about another mass shooting. The attacks have become too common in the 17 years since her own son killed 12 of his classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Now, she is analytical, wondering if the gunman hid weapons at home the way her son Dylan did. Whether there were warning signs like the ones she missed with him.

Most painfully, Klebold wonders if the shooter used images of her son and details of his crime, still widely available online, as a model to gain fame through the slaughter of innocent people.

“Every time I see a photograph of Dylan on the (Columbine) surveillance tapes, I cringe,” Klebold said. “Because every time that occurs somewhere there is a disenfranchised individual that is using that as a blueprint.”

Klebold spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday, a week after the release of her memoir, “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy,” exploring the causes of her son’s violence and ways to prevent future attacks through mental health awareness.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire at the suburban Denver school on April 20, 1999, killing 13 people before taking their own lives. Another 24 people were injured in the attack.

Sue Klebold knew her son had some problems but wrote in her book that she dismissed them as teenage angst while he quietly plotted the killings and detailed the depths of his pain in journals she only discovered after his death.

“I wish I had learned how to communicate differently with him and how to listen better,” Klebold said. “I wish I had realized that things can seem perfectly fine when they are not, and the other lesson I wish I had learned is to shut up and listen.”

With the book, Klebold said she tried to commemorate his life without glamorizing his troubled final years in a way that would inspire copy cats.

In the years after the Columbine attack, she and her ex-husband Tom Klebold vigorously fought the release of videos that her son and Harris filmed in her basement that offered glimpses of their methods and motives. The parents worried that the details would offer a roadmap for future violence.

Other mass killers have been obsessed with the Columbine attack, drawing on a wealth of information in books and movies, fan websites dedicated the shooters, and even a Broadway show. Klebold said she still receives mail from young women across the country professing their love for her son.

To Klebold, conversations in the media and elsewhere that followed other mass shootings have been frustrating. They seemed to dwell on the gory, voyeuristic details of a shooter’s life while avoiding the larger problems that made the person want to kill and allowed it to happen.

She said she published her book after finally mustering the courage at a time when the public seemed eager to talk about violence and mental health.

“People who engage in acts such as this are not well, they are having significant malfunction going on,” she said. “This is the result of a mental or brain health condition that escalated to a stage-four lethal condition.”

She is donating any profits from the book to mental health charities and research, hoping for solutions that will help parents and professionals spot and thwart signs of trouble. That could be as simple as doctors’ offices requiring mental health screenings during routine checkups or having school officials undergo suicide-awareness training, she said.

Speaking out has been cathartic, she said. And some victims found it helpful to hear from her, too.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave Sanders, a Columbine teacher, was killed in the attack, said it’s a relief to hear a less sensational conversation about the shooting.

“We seek answers, and she doesn’t have a magic answer for what happened, and people needed to know that,” Sanders said. “There is no magic answer. These are important issues that we need to continue to look at.” [Source]