APBnews.com, as part of its continuing coverage of the Columbine High
School massacre and its aftermath, has posted online the entire 700-page
report released Monday by Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff John Stone.
The interactive report, which APBnews.com transferred from CD-ROM to the
Internet, allows users to review the complete time line of the killings;
crime scene photos; maps of the school; audio recordings of 911 calls;
clips of local television coverage; the cafeteria surveillance tape; and
many other facets of the case.
The report can be accessed at:
<http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/05/15/columbine_report0
515pm_01.html>
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<http://maps.apbnews.com/columbine/Columbine%20REPORT/Pages/FORWARD.htm>
Jefferson County Sheriff, Colorado
April 20, 1999
Foreword
On a sunny spring day in April 1999, a suburban high school in Jefferson
County, Colorado, found itself under attack by two of its own. In less
than fifteen minutes of the first-lunch period on that Tuesday, two student
gunmen killed 13 and wounded 21 before they turned the guns on themselves -
the most devastating school shooting in U.S. history.
Columbine High School is one of three in the unincorporated southeast
portion of Jefferson County.
The county itself lies on the west side of the Denver metropolitan area and
is the most populated county in the state. The large unincorporated region
along the county's southern plains and foothills has a population of nearly
100,000 residents - 1,945 of who attended Columbine High School.
The two student gunmen were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Their plans for
attacking the school, recovered by investigators after the tragedy had
taken place, evolved over one year's time. In those plans, Klebold and
Harris outlined a mission to kill as many students and faculty as possible.
They would set off destructive bombs inside the school and then shoot any
survivors trying to run out. Bombs inside their cars would explode later,
killing law enforcement, fire or medical personnel responding to the scene.
There are indications that their initial plan was for the Columbine High
School attack to occur on Monday, April 19. While there was no specific
reference made in their writings to this date being an important
anniversary, it must be noted that April 19, 1999 was the fourth
anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and the sixth anniversary of the Branch Davidian
standoff in Waco, Texas.
However, the Columbine tragedy occurred on April 20, perhaps due to
unfinished preparations on the part of the killers. Or perhaps there is a
connection with the history of this date. To begin with, 4/20 carries the
same numerals as 420, the California criminal code for possession of
marijuana. Due to the significance of these numbers in popular drug
culture, some students were absent from school that day in recognition of
what they termed "national marijuana day." April 20, 1999, also marked the
110th anniversary of Adolph Hitler's birth.
It is also critical to note that when many of the Columbine students heard
what sounded like pop guns coming from outside the cafeteria during the
first lunch period, they thought that senior prank day had come.
School-wide pranks initiated by graduating seniors are a tradition
throughout the United States, and up to that point Columbine's seniors,
ready to graduate in just four weeks, had not participated in any such
activity. It seemed right to students who heard the first few shots that,
as it was toward the end of the school year, prank day was finally upon
them.
But it wasn't a prank. Not when two hate-filled students, heavily armed
with firearms and bombs, chose April 20, 1999, as the day to attack and
kill students and faculty at their school.
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