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...

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...