when eric and dylan were arrested for the van break did they get booked with mugshots and everything and have to wait in cells until their parents came to get them

Yes, I’d definitely think it’s a good possibility the two had mugshots taken which begs the question: why did those never get released along with the officers statement, diversion files, etc?  I don’t believe they had to wait in a cell for their parents but they were definitely handcuffed and anxiously waiting at the station office for their parents to come get them with those sad puppy dog eyes. 

The first time I read Dylan’s entry about him and Zach doing “EVERYTHING together” I thought Dylan was including gay or bisexual experimentation.

I can see how you might think that. Dylan would be mortified knowing that people went there – then again, he hadn’t planned on those pesky, nosy ‘common people’ prodding and picking apart his journal. 

Dylan uses the word “everything” quite a few times in his writings. He uses the word 44 times, actually.  It’s his catch-all word for groups of memories, ideas, concepts, fantasies he’s visualizing in his head but has no plan to go into detail writing about it.  

 Like the unsent love letter to The Girl:

“oh … the thoughts of us … doing everything together,
not necessarily anything, just to be together would have been pure heaven. I guess it’s time
to tell you who I am.”

“the everything dwellers”

“the everything frame of mind”

“Everything – no everything!”

How’s that for a segue?  😉 

Is there any way to read the full diary of both dylan and eric anywhere? Like is their full journals released or is it only the bits and pieces that we see on here. If there is any way please link it, id love to read each entry in chronological order

Scroll down to JCSO Columbine documents and the file entitled 936 pages (25,923–26,859) contains the journals of Eric and Dylan, school papers, and other documents.  This is considered by JeffCo to be the complete versions of the boys’ journals but I wouldn’t necessarily take their word for it.. 😉

To add, Dylan also mentions it was the first time him and Zack ever drank, etc. Notice how he never mentions Eric in this. I think at first it started with Dylan and Zack screwing around for the sake of screwing around and vandalizing, but then when Eric joined in he “took over” because Dylan and Zack probably don’t care, and Eric decided to use the missions to get back at people he didn’t like.

That’s what I figured you’d be refering to. But I don’t think you can sweepingly make a broad assumption that Zack and Dylan invented and carried out Rebel Missions before Eric out of this one single entry.

This journal entry is solely written about Dylan’s acute stinging loss over the most closest best friend he’d ever had, quite possibly the only kindred friend he’d ever had in his entire life. He doesnt mention Eric or Brooks or Nate or Chris – nobody else is referenced other than Devon as the instigator in taking Zack away from Dylan in this entry. His entry is entitled “The Zack Situation” so it’s rather specific as to the only person that is on Dylan’s mind in recounting his experiences with said friend. Eric is rarely even referenced in all of Dylan’s journal and so he’d hardly remember to drop Eric’s name in reference to their  ‘team’ drinking, smoking and sabotaging houses. Dylan simply omits others involved from the entry. He is thinking only of the how happy he felt in the past experiencing these things for the very first time with Zack.

Dylan says “Ever since 7th grade, I’ve felt lonely..” – and Dylan had met Eric by around 7th thru 8th grad – and yet Dylan still felt a void of unhappiness in his life.

“When Zack came around (Freshman year at Columbine HS), I finally felt happiness (sometimes) we did cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses, EVERYTHING for the first time together & now he’s “moved on” I feel so lonely, without a friend.“

Just because Dylan omits Eric from the entry, doesn’t mean we can automatically assume that Eric was not involved in the ‘cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses’, etc. When Dylan refers to ‘the TEAM’, we shouldn’t take him literally that he’s only exclusively referring to himself and Zack and no one else. The thing to keep in mind with this particular entry is that it is not coherent literally with any amount of detail. The sentences flow and run-on from one timeline into another depending on Dylan’s despondent emotional stream of consciousness. It could easily mean that Dylan is simply mono-focused and fixated on how much fun he used to have in the past with his best friend ever and is now feeling a large void in his life now – even though Eric was still there, and yes, was even there when they did these antics. Dylan still felt bereft even though Eric and he were still good friends – the fact of the matter is, it just isn’t the same depth of feeling for him as was in his relationship with Zack.

Zack, who he saw a mirrored reflection of himself with the same deep sadness. Zack who understood him the most out of anyone he ever hung out with.

Anyone can relate to being part of a group of friends but feeling especially connected to one particular friend and to the point of omitting their participation of the others from certain doings in their journal. It’s because the focus is on that one friend in which you felt an intense bond and connection with in your experiences together. For Dylan, experiencing all of these things he mentions – and for the very first time with his kindred spirit best friend, is a very fond memory of that bond he had and now feels he’s lost..forever. He experienced the drinking and smoking and house sabotaging easily with Zack, but also just as easily with Eric, and other friends possibly, in their Sophomore if not their Freshman years. Eric was already creating pipe bombs in ‘96 so it’s more than probable he wasn’t just sitting at home twiddling his thumbs like a good boy while Zack and Dylan were piloting the first house sabotaging. Eric was already itching to do damage and so this is why he had to have been in on the sabotaging of homes and the one who coined the term ‘Rebel Missions’ and the other two close friends of “The Team” participated along with him – for the first time ever doing mischievous, naughty things.

Brooks Brown mentions in “No Easy Answers”:

“As freshman and sophomore, we were already into drinking and smoking and would get trashed at each other’s houses, or even in the light booth during plays. Dylan, in fact, earned a nickname based on his favorite drink: VoDkA. The name would stick for years.” Page 56

Devon Adams on The Three Amigos or Unholy Trinity. 😉
 “Apparently, Eric blamed me for really taking my boyfriend away from him and Dylan. He blamed me that suddenly their group of three friends was torn assunder by this woman.”    

At any rate, this is the only source – this entry of Dylan’s journal – where it seems ambiguous as to who originated the first ‘Rebel Mission’ house sabotages but then again, not really, if you look at the complete context of Dylan’s state of mind in this entry.

Awesome information. I agree with some, but I respectfully disagree on a few points . Dylan didnt ask Eric about suicide because it was said Dylan asked that question before the library massacre happened upon entering the library . I doubt at this point they’d know that theyd go back to the library to suicide. I think Eric was upset and Dylan upon entering the library asked Eric this before the library shooting. Also the Rebel Missions started with Dylan and Zach first. Eric came later.

Do you have a certain witness that supports your claim that “it was said that Dylan asked that question?” Or, is this is just your extrapolation?

To my knowledge, it had never been concretely determined by any witness/es as to which point in time one of the boys was heard asking that question. Again, please see the link I reference in the last post regarding Lisa Kruetz who was an ideal witness since she was there in the library on both the occasions the boys had entered.

And, I’d be curious to know why you have it in mind that Zack and Dylan started Rebel Missions before Eric? Dylan and Eric met in 7/8th grade in Junior High School and Zack and Dylan became friends when both were freshmen at Columbine. The official “Rebel Mission” accounts as recorded by Eric on his website, indicate that he basically defined the missions/where they’d take place while Zach and Dylan participated in the prank-making. Zach and Dylan were more the intellectual masterminds of the computer hacking pranks whereas Eric’s fortay was heading their military-like recon late-night clan missions.

what was he bowling alley called that eric and dylan played at?

AMF Belleview Lanes in Englewood, CO

“The AMF bowling alley dimmed the lights and brought in a DJ from midnight to 2 a.m. Eric loved the disco lights and rowdy music and camaraderie he found at Rock N’ Bowl. He was there most Friday nights. Only this night, many of his pals had early-morning Saturday plans. Only two made it to the bowling alley, Dylan and Robyn. Dylan wouldn’t let Eric down, wouldn’t let him be all alone.” – Eric’s last birthday – The Rockey Mountain News – August 22nd, 1999

the song you have on your blog: A Warm Place – NIN, did dylan listen to it and/or like it? thanks.

Dylan would’ve listened to ‘A Warm Place’ because it was one of many tracks on his favorite NIN album “The Downwards Spiral”. I’m sure that he let that cd replay continually while in his bedroom until it replayed in his mind constantly. There is nothing written that says he liked that particular track but I’d like to think he did? Then again, he might not have recognized his own theme song if it hit him on that lovely large schnoz of his. 😏

I think Dylan asked Eric if he was still going to do the shooting with him when they were entering the library, and not the other way around. I think Dylan really wanted to die that day, and I don’t think he cared as much as Eric that the bombs failed. The bombs were more of Eric’s anyway, and when they failed to blow up I think Eric was rattled. Do you agree with me? I think Dylan had a bigger impact on Eric than Eric did on Dylan. Eric was the third wheel in the Rebel Missions.

I entertained which of the two said “Are you still with me? We’re still going to do this, right?” here.
And I tend towards Dylan asking Eric the question. However, not that Dylan was asking for Eric’s reassurance that they’d continue on with the shooting, despite the bombs failing, but instead, Dylan was trying to suss out his quietly peeved friend as to whether he would still be willing to suicide with him once they’d entered back into the library the second time. It doesn’t make too much sense for me that Dylan asked Eric the question (in regards to continuing the shooting) since Eric was quite trigger happy on the school grounds from the start of it, and he was more than ready to kill by the time they’d reach the library doors the first time they met up there. In lieu of the bombs failing thus far, Eric was so chomping at the bit to continue the shooting as he took a pot shot from outside the library at Evan Todd who was hiding inside the library behind the circulation desk pillar.

As for who had more of an impact, I’d say that both boys had a fairly equal, influential, impact on one another but that they joined forces to plan and execute the massacre for differing personal motivations. Dylan was just more private about his actual goal – the ‘end game’ of the mission – which wasn’t exactly aligned with Eric’s goal of having the bombs explode and to kill as many as possible. Dylan liked the idea of blowing up the school because it’d seem purely fun and cool to take revenge on the entire school before fucking himself into oblivion. In his journal, Dylan entertains the fantasy of a ordinary garden variety shooting spree with a gun and that would’ve pretty much been enough for him. But Eric had grand designs and so Dylan was up for helping his friend realize the vision and goal. It’s just that the bombs were not the central focal point, that pièce de résistance for Dylan, like they were for Eric. And when the bombs failed, it was like a glaring failure for Eric. Here was his last act, his so-called ‘lasting impression on the world’ and it ended up being nothing more than a massive flop which mocked him perpetually, along with that broken nose, throughout the massacre. Eric just could not get over it. Dylan knew Eric’s moods and he could tell he was despondent, fixated and stewing about those bombs, but for him, it really didn’t matter all that much because they still just fucked the school over big time. Dylan did his best to try and help REB make the bombs go off but everything they’d tried just wasn’t happening. When they walked up the steps of the commons one last time and rounded to the library double doors, Dylan asked the question that was relevant for him – he wanted to be sure that Eric was on the same page with wanting the same thing he did, to die.

Hmm..as for the Rebel Missions, Eric was more like the front wheel drive and Zach and Dylan the two wheels in tandem. 😉 Eric called the shots on the victims homes they’d hit and Zach and Dylan went along on his ride of late night mischievous havoc making. Saying that Eric was the third wheel is like saying he was the odd man out of the three which just wasn’t the case. They were ‘the clan’ to Eric and ‘the team’ as Dylan wistfully recalls after Zach had fallen for Devon and had moved on. The Three Musketeers of Doom were no more.

do you have the journal entry by dylan where he first talks about an attack? I think from 97 or sometime early like that

this
11-3-97
Fuck all


“Some god i am… All people i ever might have loved have abandoned me, my parents piss me off & hate me… want me to have fuckin ambition!! How can i when i get screwed & destroyed By everything??!!!! I have no money, no happiness, no friends… Eric will be getting farther away soon… I’ll have less than nothing… how normal. I wanted to love… i wanted to be happy and ambitious and free & nice & good & ignorant…. everyone abandoned me…. i have small stupid pleasures,… my so called hobbies & doings…. those are all thats left for me. clinging onto the smallest rocks… many people climbing up a never-ending vertical cliff…. [redacted] & [redacted] (likely Zach & Devon) found a plateau to exist on….they walked up me to get to it. Nobody will help me… only exist w. me if it suits them. i helped, why cant they? [redacted ] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want.  more crazy…deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([redacted (probably Zack)] & [edited] getting drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die.”

If on the 19th of April, the day before the massacre, the girl Dylan loved came up to him and confessed her love. Do you think the shooting would still have happen?

“However, if it was true that you loved me as I do you… I would find a way to survive. Anything to be with you. I would enjoy life knowing that you loved me.”

Seems pretty clear what his specific criteria was for stopping the massacre..

REB would be pissed, of course, but SO what?  He mattered to Her. Reason enough to exist.