Yes, the Ever-lasting contrast. Since existence has known, the 'fight' between good & evil has continued. Obviously, this fight can never end. Good things turn bad, bad things become good. My fav. contrasting symbol, because it is so true & means so much – the battle between good & bad never ends… Here we ponder on the tragedy of Dylan Klebold.
Decent Jeff Kass (author of Columbine: A True Crime Story) interview… in which he very satisfyingly flat-out disputes Cullen’s narrative.
I’ll just post this for everyone as a fyi. Thanks for sharing the info. 🙂
Westword
By Michael Roberts
May 7, 2009
Local author Dave Cullen’s book Columbine has received an enormous amount of media attention – far more than another recently published tome, Columbine: A True Crime Story. And Jeff Kass, the ex-Rocky Mountain News reporter who penned the latter, has definitely noticed the discrepancy. He’s not surprised that the national press gravitated toward Cullen’s offering, which was issued by Twelve Books, a growing publishing powerhouse. (In contrast, Kass’ effort comes courtesy of Ghost Road Press, a modest, Denver-based outfit.) But he’s more bothered by inattention from local outlets. For instance, although Colorado Public Radio aired an enormous number of Columbine-related reports around April 20, the tenth anniversary of the attack on the high school, he notes that “they never interviewed me, and as far as I know, never mentioned by book.”
Adding to his frustration is the willingness of so many reviewers and observers to accept Cullen’s conclusions as definitive. In Kass’ view, “Columbine is a major social issues, and it deserves a lot of books to be written about it – a lot of serious books.” Moreover, he says, “I have issues with some of the things he says in his book. I just don’t find the attribution for a lot of it. There’s room for contradictory and conflicting opinions as long as they’re backed up by facts – and I feel I’m able to back up everything in my book.”
Of course, the authors agree on plenty of things, including the relative unimportance of bullying as a motivator for the killing spree launched by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold – a major bone onetime Columbine parent and activist Randy Brown has to pick with Cullen. Kass bases his beliefs in this area on diaries kept by the murderers. “They write about everything from losing their Zippo lighter to not being able to get a date,” he points out. “But they barely talk about bullying, period, and they never talk about being bullied themselves. And you’d think they would have if it had been such a factor for them.”
Likewise, Kass concurs with Cullen about Klebold’s depressive tendencies. But he’s not as willing to suggest that Klebold merely followed Harris’ orders. “Dylan’s writings show him to be pretty entranced by the plan. And their code word for the shootings – NBK, which stood for Natural Born Killers, one of their favorite movies – came from him. He was the first to mention doing an NBK, going NBK. That says to me that he wasn’t such a secondary participant.”
Kass and Cullen also have slightly different takes on Harris. Both argue that he was probably a psychopath – although Kass acknowledges some evidence to the contrary. “The trademark of a psychopath is that you have no emotion, no feelings. And in Eric’s diaries, he does have emotion. For one thing, he worries about what’s going to happen to his parents, and he feels bad about not being able to bond with his father more. And he feels devastated that he has no friends and that people ignore him and he can’t get dates.”
This last point is a key one from Kass’ perspective. “He says Eric Harris was this wildly popular student, especially with the girls – that he’s dating or having sex with all these girls at school. And I totally disagree with that. I don’t find any attribution in his book or in the end notes for that. I don’t know where it comes from. I’d like to know. And he says similar things about Dylan. He says Dylan had all these friends, and that he was well-connected at school and at least was more popular than we thought he was. And I don’t know where he comes up with that, either.”
"Now, maybe you can find a study showing that if you have five close friends, you’re a normal high school student in America,” he goes on. “But even if you could prove that Dylan had five close friends, that doesn’t mean he was a normal high school student, because Dylan didn’t believe that himself. Dylan was blinded to friends by his depression, and Eric was blinded to any friends he had by his rage. So I think you’re in this academic situation. You could say, ‘Gee, Eric and Dylan, you had a lot of friends, and you lived these great middle-class lives.’ But that didn’t get through to them. They thought their lives were miserable. So it’s a classic case of perception versus reality.”
As for Kass’ perceptions, he says, “I think both Eric and Dylan died virgins. And even though it’s sort of a weird topic to get into – their sex lives – I really think it’s illustrative of how well-connected, or not connected, they were to the school community. I feel they were outcasts. I feel they were among the most unpopular kids in the school – and my evidence is their diaries. Pick up almost any page and all they talk about is how much they are outcasts, how they don’t feel part of the school or any community.”
More distinctions between the books crop up in terms of the topics the authors tackle. Cullen focuses almost entirely on the crime itself, whereas Kass devotes his epilogue to what he describes as “the cover-up” conducted by Jefferson County law-enforcement officials. He also attempts to find links between Columbine and other school shootings around the country, and his research leads him to conclude that the vast majority take place in suburban communities in the southern and western parts of the United States. He’s also come up with a theory to explain the regional nature of the phenomenon.
“I found studies done before Columbine and with, from what I could tell, no notion of school shootings in mind that talked about the culture of honor,” he says. “It’s a well-known concept in the South, but also in the West, where, if you feel your honor has been violated, you feel the need to retaliate to defend it – and you feel that it’s okay to do that with violence. That’s seen as an acceptable means of avenging your lost honor.”
For Kass, getting this information out to the broader public remains important – and even though Columbine’s tenth anniversary has passed (with Cullen grabbing the vast majority of spotlight time), he hasn’t given up on reaching readers. He’s hoping to arrange a book tour to other places that have suffered through mass shootings at schools, such as Jonesboro, Arkansas, Blacksburg, Virginia and West Paducah, Kentucky.
“I think there’s still a window of opportunity to promote the book, and really, it’s always going to have relevance,” he says. “Even if all of this was to stop tomorrow, people would still want to know about what happened and why.”
[Source]
by randybrown on March 22nd, 2009, 12:00 pm #722168
Article Discussion: Greene: Backward, forward on Columbine
[Article is under the cut]
To a Columbine insider this book is full of errors and speculation. It is as if a complete outsider decided to do a book on Columbine, with a few notes and very little research. I was very upset at the number of glaring errors and the total lack of research. But, it is the pure speculation and the imagined responses and emotions he ascribes to Eric Harris that I find so disturbing. They are absurd.
Unknowing people will read this book and accept it as fact, and they will be sorely mistaken. The psychological profile reached in the book is based on so little information it should be an embarrassment to the investigator.
This book is a joke to anyone who knows many of the truths about Columbine. A joke. A sad, full of misinformation, joke.
The final verdict, according to the book, is that Eric and Dylan were not bullied. I guess the writer has never heard of the Regina Huerter Report, or read the many accounts of bullying from students.
Oh well, let’s just rewrite history. It is much easier than telling the truth, and much less painful. If Eric was crazy, as the book contends, no more questions need to be asked. If he was not crazy, and his reactions were a response to the bullying and resulting hyper-vigilance, then we need to change ourselves. Crazy as an analysis is so much easier.
I hate this book. If you read it,remember that it is a fictional account of Columbine. Learn your lessons accordingly.
Randy Brown
A Columbine Parent.
Article Discussion: Greene: Backward, forward on Columbine
Postby randybrown on March 26th, 2009, 2:39 pm #729873
The author has a responsibility.
I have just read the book by Dave Cullen on Columbine. I was angry at first, and then just disappointed.
I read it knowing that this was not a novel, not fictional, but a story about a real tragedy, with real people involved. I read it knowing that the story is so complicated that some errors are expected. I read it with the expectation of imperfection, but with the assumption that the author would research his story, and try to get as close to the truth as possible.
What I have found is just the opposite. The author relied on two main sources for his book, a police officer from Jefferson County and the lead FBI Agent for the investigation. Both are not reliable sources without some corresponding research into the other facts that exist, and they both certainly have a biased agenda.
The police officer and the FBI Investigator both have slanted agendas, biased by the Law Officers point of view, and both should have been kept out of any objective story about Columbine. At the very least they should have been interviewed, and their interviews weighted with the real facts as they were revealed years later. I am not saying they are dishonest, just that they have such specific agendas that the story shouldn’t rely on their input for its soul.
Unfortunately, it does.
The bullying, which is such a large part of Columbine, is dismissed by the FBI agent and the author, and that glaring omission changes the story of Columbine to a work of fiction. So many students from the school have told us about the bullying, and so many interviews by the police during the tragedy mention the bullying that it is inconceivable to me that this was left out of the book and dismissed in its entirety. There is actually a report made during the Governor’s investigation with Chief Justice Erickson that mentions and explains the bullying, from the constant fear to the persecution of a Jewish student by the school athletes. Perhaps the author should have read the Regina Huerter Report. To leave this major part of the tragedy out of the story is to rewrite history.
That is what this book is, a revisionist version of the Columbine Tragedy, which leads the reader to believe so many falsehoods that, upon completion of the book, I even questioned all of the things I know to be facts. I even questioned my knowledge of Columbine, and I lived it. In fact, I not only lived it, I researched it for years. This book, and the stories in it, will change the way people look at Columbine, and it will forever confuse researchers and lead them down false paths that are not the real truth.
Yes, I know that some truths can be perceptions, and can be discussed by experts for many years. I understand that some theories are going to vary about the two killers, and about the way Columbine is perceived.
As an example, the failure of the police to go into the school for hours is seen by many as cowardice. It is the glaring example of the failure of the police to protect children and citizens, and the failures at Columbine led to drastic and serious changes to first responder methods. That is basically a truth. But, the book makes light of this failure and doesn’t clearly show the terror and the abandonment of the children left alive in the library that were rescued many hours later. The name Lisa Kreutz is barely a footnote, and she is the best example of the failure of the Sheriff’s department. Ignored are the wounded children who may have died while waiting for the police. Ignored is the complete absolvement of the SWAT team by the D.A. before the ballistics report was returned from the CBI, a most questionable and suspicious situation.
In addition to the failure to police mistakes, is the absurd way he gives the two killers emotional responses and feelings of regret when no evidence exists to support this. It is akin to a WW2 reporter saying that the Nazis were sorry and that they didn’t really mean it. Really?
As a Columbine parent, I find this book repulsive, for the main reason that it rewrites the Columbine tragedy. The author doesn’t owe me anything, even though I was interviewed for the book. The author owes the public an attempt to tell the true story about Columbine, not an agenda influenced version based on the stories of two policemen and some incomplete research. I am disgusted, discouraged, and disappointed, and sorry that this book fails the people of Columbine in so many ways. I am mostly sad that some reader will read it in 3 years or 25 years, and think that this is the truth. They will be very wrong.
The people who lived through Columbine know parts of the truth. Everyone knows a different story, and every story is painful and sad. It is better not to tell the story of Columbine if the truth about bullying, the environment at the school, and the causes for the murders are diminished by pseudo-experts who use the tragedy to further their own career or to rewrite history to make the police look good.
Anyone who watched the police response at Columbine for hours, and saw staging but no activity, knows the truth about the police response. It is described in one word: Failure. In fact, the police failed us before, during and after Columbine. In their defense, the new first-responder policies are a direct result of brave policemen watching the failure at Columbine and correcting the problem with new policies designed for a quick, direct and effective response to a school shooter situation.
But, the biggest problem I have with the book is the easy summary that the author and his expert arrive at: There was no bullying, Eric was just crazy. That is so easy it is banal. That is so easy and so convenient.
If one of the killers was crazy, then we can all relax. It is beyond our power to change it. It is an act of God, and craziness stands as the panacea for all of the worried parents.
“Crazy” means that we do not need to acknowledge our part in this tragedy. We do not need to acknowledge our violent world, the environment of bullying and humiliation in the school, the alienation, the loneliness, the depression, the failures of the psychologists and counselors before Columbine and the pain. We do not have to change. We do not have to try to stop the next school shooting, because you can’t stop “crazy.”
Crazy is easy. Self-analysis and acknowledging our failures is very difficult and very painful. How will we ever learn from this, and stop the next school shooter, if crazy is the final analysis? That is the source of my disgust. This is a revisionist story about Columbine that does not acknowledge the many truths about the Columbine tragedy, which actually dismisses the real cause of the tragedy, in print for the parents, principals, psychologists, counselors, and others to read. This Columbine story, told by an outsider without the complicated and multiple causative factors explained, leaves the reader with a misconception that will last forever.
It was a real tragedy. If the author can"t tell the truth, he should have written a fictional novel.
Randy Brown
A Columbine Parent
By the way… The latest on Randy Brown’s book is that he is self-publishing and will make it available online. No date yet as to the title or release date. Probably will be a self-publish sold on Amazon. Since I am in complete agreement with Randy on the bullying factor to Columbine, I personally cannot wait to read it! 🙂
—
Here is the entire Denver Post forum discussion.
Another Columbine Parent that goes by AVSgirl (unknown who their identity is) also adds their disgusted reaction to Dave Cullen’s book too. The publisher of Jeff Kass’ book also expounds on the reasons why “Columbine: A True Crime Story is the better read. ( Jeff Kass’ and Cullen’s book both came out in 2009).
The article referenced by the Denver Post forum which Randy responded about is under the cut :
The Denver PostMarch 21, 2009 at 1:35 pm
You can forget a lot in 10 years.
Like most reporters who covered Columbine, I was content to let much about the massacre slip from memory.
Such as bickering over the crosses at Clement Park. The human chain shielding students from journalists. And the debate over whether victim Cassie Bernall really died for God.
So it was with some hesitation that I picked up “Columbine” by Denver author Dave Cullen, touted as “the first complete account of an American tragedy.” And it was with some surprise that he managed to hook me in his first pages.
The book took 10 years of research, financial struggles and self-doubt for Cullen, a former Arthur Andersen consultant who as a closeted high- schooler was the target of homeroom spitballs. I’m happy to report that he hit it out of the ballpark.
In April 1999, he writes, “Littleton was observed beyond all recognition.”
Jefferson County instantly became a symbol of godlessness, bullying and all that’s wrong with Goth culture, video games, school safety, suburbia and the demise of families in general. Not to mention Abercrombie & Fitch.
“Columbine came to embody everything noxious about adolescence in America,” he writes.
Cullen goes on to set the record straight by chronicling the lives of victims, educators and law enforcers through years of investigations, legal maneuvering, and recovery.
He takes us to college and even the wedding of Patrick Ireland, the junior who saved himself by flopping out the library window live on national TV.
He walks us through years of depression haunting outwardly peppy principal Frank DeAngelis, including the demise of his marriage.
Cullen takes to task local evangelicals for exploiting the massacre with the folk tale that Bernall was shot for her Christianity. In one of the trickiest tightrope walks I’ve seen by a writer, he debunks the martyr myth while still dignifying the need for Bernall’s religious family to find meaning in her death.
Cullen shows the failure to protect the public from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both long known by Jefferson County to be violent and criminal. Then he shows, step by tax-funded step, how officials lied about that knowledge. If you lacked respect for Sheriff John Stone before reading the book, you’ll now want an indictment.
Cullen’s finest work is his portrayal of two killers he came to understand as well as if he had carpooled with them to bowling class or tossed pizzas with them at Blackjack’s.
He explains Harris not through the lens of normal teenage mental illness but as a psychopath consumed with contempt for everything from the WB Network to all of us idiots sucking up air on a planet he considered fit only for himself.
“For Eric, Columbine was performance. Homicidal art,” he writes.
Cullen’s read on Klebold in some ways is simpler — as a kid who was deeply lonely and pining for love. But it grew complicated when, over years studying his journals and videotapes, Cullen told me he “absorbed a lot of Dylan and his pain.”
“There were times I got depressed and found myself sympathizing with him,” he admits.
Before you conclude that Cullen’s a nutcase, do read his book. For empathizing with a killer isn’t the same as defending him. Rather, it’s such insight and sensitivity that make his work powerful.
If Columbine was analyzed beyond all recognition in 1999, it has taken a decade finally to hold a mirror to the wounds that still fester there. It turns out that some scabs in fact do need to be picked, but only with Cullen’s brand of honesty, meticulousness and care.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.greene@denverpost.com.
Because Jeff Kass did some seriously aggressive research and reporting and ultimately offended the Klebolds for all his snooping around. They felt he crossed the line and was far too intrusive. Kass went back to Ohio and interviewed a few of Tom and Sue’s relatives as well got their next door neighbors’s opinions about them. He also deeply dug into their historical family records and school year books.
If you listen to Sue in her recent Philadelphia presentation [35:23] she mentions “there was one individual in the media who was ruthless” as well as a few instances which dovetails with what Kass spoke of in his book “Columbine: A True Crime Story”
Kass discovered that Sue had been interviewed for a book on mental health as a teenager in 1969 under a pseudonym. (The story of this is interesting because it mentions a certain obsessive phobia Sue was plagued with as a teenager which connects in a contrasting manner with Dylan’s depressive and suicidal preoccupations. I will go into detail about it in a separate post.
Excerpts from Kass under the cut
”And proud, possibly, because she successfully solved the problem that
had taken her to Missildine. Although Susan does not seem to have felt
proud—or at least open to talking about it publicly—post-Columbine. In a
quick phone conversation, her only one with me, I told her, “I came
across your profile in the Hugh Missildine book.”
“What?” she said.
“Yeah,” I reply, “in the, it was a few, quite a few years ago, the profile
you had as Sandra.”
“I think you are way out of base here, I’m going to hang up now,”
Susan says.
She does just that.
Her lawyer, criminal defense attorney Gary Lozow, quickly called an
intermediary. Lozow called it a matter that occurred when Susan Klebold
was nineteen. But no further communication on the issue came my way.”
—
“Sam Klebold (the brother who raised Tom Klebold) walks out to his car. “We don’t want to talk to you,” he yells. “And that goes for my sons.” He continues, “We talked to the media once. They double-crossed us. We got two thousand calls.” ”
—
“In June 2001, I wrote a story in the Rocky Mountain News using
confidential settlement documents disclosing details of gun supplier Robyn
Anderson’s lawsuit settlement with victim families. Despite the bad blood, I
called Lozow later that month.
“Jeff ‘Chutzpah’ Kass,” is how he answered the phone.
I told him I would take “chutzpah” as a sort of compliment.
I asked once again if the Klebolds would be talking to anyone about
Columbine.
“The answer is no,” Lozow said, “Particularly not to you.”
He added that my story mentioning a copy of Anderson’s $285,000
settlement check (probably from her mother’s homeowners insurance)
was “absolutely abhorrent.” He added, “And it may have set back very
delicate settlement discussions in the case.”
“I appreciate you talking to me about it,” I said. “I appreciate you
sharing it with me.”
Then he said of the canceled check: “And whoever you got it from
should have his hands cut off. So that’s what I think, and we’re not
talking to you, ever. So thank you, Mr. Kass. Bye bye.”
Lozow then hung up. But he and the other Klebold attorneys did not
stop.”
—
In a September 6, 2001 letter, Lozow admonished me for my open records
requests, most of which were granted and approved by various attorneys representing governmental institutions in different states.
“I am unalterably committed to the protection of First Amendment
rights, as are my clients. Likewise, my clients and I also cherish the right to
privacy,” he wrote.
“You, unlike any other member of the print media, have repeatedly
attempted to impinge upon my clients’ right to privacy,” Lozow
maintained in the one and one-quarter page correspondence cc’d to Tom
and Susan Klebold. “By exploiting open records laws, in Colorado,
Arizona, and Wisconsin, you have accessed personal information
concerning Tom and Susan Klebold.”
Lozow wrote that the use of such information was “egregious.” He
added, without providing any examples: “Your efforts have served to
disrupt Ms. Klebold’s employment setting and the family’s emotional wellbeing.
“For the time being, my clients’ legal energy is substantially directed at
trying to settle the remaining Columbine lawsuits,” Lozow continued, then
added the somewhat vague admonition: “My information is that your
‘journalistic efforts’ have succeeded in making that effort even more
difficult than it should be.”
The letter proceeded, without naming names, “Likewise, we have
reports from people in Susan Klebold’s past that you have contacted. My
clients have been told that you have been intrusive and abrasive. You
should know that my clients will utilize their legal options to remedy
excesses perpetuated against them on the heels of the Columbine
tragedy.”
The next paragraph was the last: “The Klebolds are committed to
maintaining some semblance of privacy and dignity in the aftermath of
Columbine. Notwithstanding your efforts, we will continue to maintain
that purpose throughout.”
I wrote back to Lozow on September 18, and cc’d the Klebolds. “The
Klebolds can play an important role in furthering the world’s
understanding of what has happened at Columbine, and across the
country,” I noted. I said I would be happy to clear up any misunderstandings with people I had tried to speak with. Neither Lozow nor the Klebolds wrote back.
In October 2002 I worked with two other reporters to break the story
on the sealed diversion files of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for the News.
The Klebold attorneys responded by sending a subpoena to me and my
colleague, Kevin Vaughan. We went to court, where the judge indicated
that the Klebolds had issued the subpoena under the wrong Columbine
case, and would have to re-file. It does not appear they ever did.”
—
“Just before 9:00 a.m. on August 9, 2002, Wayne Harris shows up at
federal district court in Denver for his deposition in the Luvox case. I do,
but don’t, recognize him at first. His face is longer and thinner than the
official military photo used as a default “mug shot” of him after the
shootings. His build also seems thinner than his military photo would let
on. He is an iteration of his former self.
His hair and mustache are white. He is dressed in a dark slacks with a
cell phone attached to his belt. A dark and light striped polo shirt hangs
on him loosely, and he looks more like a pro-golfer than a man about to
enter a deposition. This also throws me off.
Once inside the courthouse, I find myself sharing the row of urinals
with him in the men’s bathroom.
“Are you Wayne Harris?” I ask.
“What makes you think that?” he says and chuckles.
I say he looks like Wayne Harris. There is a pause, and I ask if he is
here for depositions. He says he is there for a lot of things. A very
lawyerly response. I suppose he should know by now.
Yet his demeanor is almost cheery, as if he enjoys the verbal jousting. I
ask if he thinks Luvox caused the Columbine shooting. “I think it will all
come out,” he says.
I ask if there’s anything else he wants to say. No, he says. I ask if he
thinks he’ll ever talk. “Oh no,” he adds, although the possibility still seems
open.
The Solvay depositions are closed to the public, but a photographer
and I wait outside the courthouse. When the depositions are done,
Wayne Harris and one of his attorneys come barreling out of the
courthouse a little after 1:30 p.m. as if to avoid us. The photographer
snaps some pictures. The attorney and Harris, wearing his sunglasses,
storm across the courthouse patio, hit the crosswalk, and luckily have a
walk sign. The photographer gets in front of them, snaps a few more
pictures, and moves out of the way. Harris and the attorney never say a
word.”
“How he knew the law” – Diversion Program, yes/yes? 😉
In my personal opinion, Columbine: A True Crime Story is the best of the bunch other than ‘No Easy Answers’ by Brooks Brown. Kass’ book has a lot of good factual information plus, unlike Cullen, he interviewed witnesses to support his book. It has excellent background on Dylan’s family origins and parents. A very decent, informative read!
Assuming Susan filled out the questionnaire, she had a notable way of addressing some of Dylan’s behavior, often crossing out phrases or words that seemed to make him more culpable.
Of Dylan’s suspension at school, she explained: “He and two friends gained access to school’s computer figured out how to find old locker combination.” She then crossed out “gained access” and wrote: He and two friends who had access to school’s computer figured out how to find old locker combination. She said Dylan “opened a locker or two” to see if the combinations were “current,” as if he was only trying to help the school. Dylan himself explained the situation situation as, “Hacking and possessing important documents.”
Susan also noted another suspension Dylan had for scratching a school locker, and when it came to Dylan’s ticket for running a red light, Susan first wrote that he slowed down then kept going “when he thought no one was around.” She then wrote that he had actually come to a full stop before going through the light. Dylan himself said it was “running a red light when no one was around.”
Susan said the van “allegedly had a parking ticket on it and which made the boys think it was abandoned.” She did not quite finish writing the word “parking,” then crossed it out altogether. Eric and Dylan never mentioned any ticket. Nor did any police report.
Gotta love how blatantly honest Dyl is. His mom, bless her heart, is beating around the bush, minimizing, and doing the damage control and he’s all like ‘nope, this here sums up exactly what I did’ in one succinct lil’ sentence. Nice contrast. lol
The Everlasting Contrast 