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Documents revisit the horror that was Columbine

By P.J. Standlee

With the recent release of evidence tabulated by the sheriff’s department and state investigators,  the memories of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, have been stirred again.

Now, almost five years later, it is difficult to measure the progress we have made, if any, as a society that must answer for events that were as horrific as they were inexplicable.

The process is especially difficult for me, having grown up in a community very near to Littleton and having observed for myself a culture that not only overlooked the warning signs but nourished the attitudes that produced a climate of hate, intolerance and, ultimately, the killers’ need for revenge.

For the many who were touched in one way or another by the tragedy of Columbine, the road to recovery has been a grueling and frustration-filled continuum.

Even in the days immediately following the tragedy, debate raged between the National Rifle Association and those irate over its refusal to move its convention from Denver. The pro- and anti-gun forces launched a philosophical battle, and an ongoing stream of discussion continues to point to what authorities didn’t know but should have.

Now, with this latest release of videotapes that showed the shooters ranting, the knowledge that both had been in contact with the law and had complaints against them long before April 20 have opened old wounds.

As a person who was born and reared in Colorado and who attended a high school similar in demographics and culture as that of Columbine, I can understand why these problems still haunt the people there.

Columbine was not the first nor will it be the last school shooting this country will have to endure.

During two different occasions, while attending school in Colorado, I rode the bus with two separate students who killed their parents—violently--over a 10-year span.

To me, their absorption into our small society was nothing more than another reality of attending school in an upscale and diverse community. We seemed to share a collective belief that knowledgeable adults had evaluated any potential risk caused by the presence of these young killers, and had deemed it minimal.

I wonder.

Given what we now know, when I talk to people about Columbine today, I say we were incredibly lucky that there were no more similar bloodbaths. Not because we teens weren’t aware of the problem but because politicians and school administrators at the time continued to suggest varying rationales: drugs, violence, parents, the media.

Despite all this public discussion, however, nothing much seems to have changed. The same kinds of kids I graduated with in 1996 are still getting picked on and harassed today.

What’s more, it isn’t just Colorado that is at risk. Other states, including Arizona, are trying, despite limited budgets, to better understand the phenomenon that was Columbine. New “no bully” laws are being drafted and political energy is being directed at preventing repeat tragedies.

So how far have we come? Not far enough.

My own opinion: It’s going to take nothing less then an all-out blitz by people in every community to pursue tolerance, respect and harmony at schools through their example in the streets, at work, in the grocery store, in the military, on the World Wrestling Entertainment shows, in our books and music, in our churches, in our police force and all the way up to the capitol.

Is this too idealistic and naïve?

I don’t think so. Especially when I consider my nephews having to live through another Columbine.

For those interested in more details about the Columbine tragedy, the whole saga is meticulously detailed by the Rocky Mountain News and can be reached by visiting www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/columbine/.

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