Echoes of Columbine

I am a mother of 3, from Colorado, USA. I am also a writer, researcher, and Colorado certified victim’s advocate. I began researching school shootings in 2007, just after the Virginia Tech Shooting. At first, I was just toying with the idea of writing a book about a school shooter. Seeking realism I spent what would become the next ten years digging into these massacres. Though I vowed to keep an open mind and put all preconceived notions about my research into school shootings aside, I was shocked to find my views on many things challenged with each new case I studied.  I had to change what the “typical” school shooter looked like in my head. I had to look at the role of parents, schools, courts, and even the media in a new way. Why were the shooters overwhelmingly male? Why were the shooters mostly American? How big of a role did guns really play? And most of all where there holes in the system that could be plugged?  What I learned in a nutshell, is that crea...

If you came to Echoes of Columbine in search of a way to 100% positively identify a school shooter before the fact, you've come to the wrong place. Any group or person who clams they have any single identifier is just plain wrong. Currently, the only way to find them is to wait for them to hurt someone and then try to intervene as quickly as possible. That method is costing America dearly. Everyone has their pet cause of course. Many have blamed bullying, while just as many say it is easy access to guns. Others blame it on mental health issues. Violence in movies, music, and video games are favorite targets as well. Some say it is the media fascination with blood and anti-heroes. The copycat effect. Lack of parenting and failure to disciple. Weak school structures. Overcrowded classrooms. A godless society. Latchkey kids. Nobody seems to agree where the blame should go, and all of this finger pointing is wasting valuable time. They not only keep happening, but have increas...

If a part of the fantasy was the sheer violence they fed on, another factor was the hero worship. They didn't want to just go out, they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. If they were nobodies who wanted to become somebodies, the fastest way to do so was to do something so shocking that the media could not ignore it. The media in their own way, turned them into heroes. When one reads these books, watches these movies, or listens to the music that inspired mass shooters, one strong theme runs through all of them. In each case the hero of the is the killer, students cheer them, crowds gather to spur them on, and the media worships them. While I was researching I was appalled at the sheer number of tributes there were not to the victims, but to the shooters. A quick tour of Youtube reveals that for many, these mass shooters kids were not perpetrators but victims. The media in most cases played right into it. While it was happening, and then for weeks after, the media hand f...

In every mass shooting case you will find what professionals refer to as "leakage". The perpetrators leaked plans before the attack. It was as if they boiled over, or perhaps were testing the reaction. These kids told at least one other personally, usually more than one ahead of time. In some cases dozens of students knew about the plot beforehand, they even gathered to watch that morning just to see if it would really happen. Almost a year before Columbine, local law enforcement officers were handed death threats, detailed bomb making instructions, and even details on the bomb tests. This information was all housed on a personal website run by one of the perpetrators. Law enforcement even went as far as obtaining a search warrant... but failed to execute it. After the criminal investigation began, that information disappeared for a time, only to be retrieved by a reporter. Up to that point law enforcement denied it existed at all. Many of the witnesses questioned after...

In almost all cases these boys felt as if they were separate from the rest of the world. They were misunderstood at home, they were teased at school. As a result they began to develop an "it's me against the world" mindset. They fail to understand that image isn't everything. They felt they had no friends. they felt they had no support, and they felt like things would never change for them. You notice that I say they "felt." In many cases it seems they were not as alone as they imagined themselves to be. After the fact many had friends or acquaintances come forward who had no idea the boy felt that isolated and alone in the world. Perception is 9/10th of our reality. They felt alienated, even when they weren't. This became their reality. Whether they were alone in life or not, these boys felt alone. In most cases, they had a severely damaged self-image. Many of them would have gone on to lead happy and successful lives. They would have gotten marri...