Lies about Columbine?

[Proteas]

I was reading the news today, and found this article on AOL news.

Columbine Shooters Had History With Authorities
Evidence From 1999 School Massacre Opened to Public
By ROBERT WELLER, AP

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (Feb. 26) -- Authorities had at least 15 contacts with the Columbine High School killers dating back two years before their murderous attack, the state attorney general said Thursday in a report that angered families of the victims.

Brian Rohrbough and Dawn Anna embrace before viewing evidence from the Columbine High School massacre. Each lost a child in the shooting.

Ken Salazar also said he is investigating whether authorities tried to cover up what they knew about the rampage. However, he did not blame the Jefferson County sheriff's office for missing warning signs about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and said he found no evidence of negligence.

But the attorney general said his investigation is not complete and has grown since he was asked to look into contacts between the killers and investigators beginning in 1997, two years before the attack.

Salazar said his staff interviewed two former sheriff's officials just this week. He also said authorities are still trying to find a file detailing a search warrant affidavit for Harris' home after a pipe bomb was found along a bike path in 1998 - a search that never took place.

''We are still looking for that file,'' Salazar said.

Asked if he thought there was a cover-up, he said: ''I do not know today.'' Speaking in a room with somber families of the dead staring at him from the back wall, Salazar promised to issue a supplemental report.

Harris, 18, and Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives at the school near Littleton on April 20, 1999. It remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

''In the end, none of the many efforts to open up the Columbine records, including today's activity, will mean much beyond passing curiosity if we cannot learn from this tragedy,'' Salazar said at a news conference.

Salazar said his investigators looked at how sheriff's officials reacted to 1997 complaints about Harris, from a thrown snowball that cracked a car window to a prank telephone call.

There were more ominous signs, too: Authorities have said an anonymous tip that year led a deputy to a Web site run by Harris that said the two teens had built pipe bombs and concluded: ''Now our only problem is to find the place that will be 'ground zero.'''

Family members said Salazar's report failed to give them the answers they crave.

''This raises more questions than it answers,'' said Dawn Anna, whose daughter, Lauren Townsend, died at Columbine. ''I would disagree that there was no negligence.''

Nearby, more than 150 people lined up to view a vast and chilling display of evidence - the murder weapons, bullet fragments, the chairs and tables where the victims were gunned down.

A message board put up in a school window that day still says in blue Magic Marker: ''1 bleeding to death.''

Authorities also released two videos, one of the anxious scene in a park across the street from the school that day, and another, 90-minute compilation of videos made by Harris and Klebold.

Much of the material is headed for the state archives. Relatives of the dead and survivors of the horrific attack saw much of it for the first time in a private viewing Wednesday.

''When you read about the number of bullets that were shot and you read about the number of guns, it's one thing,'' Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel was killed, said on NBC's ''Today.'' ''But when you walk into a room and see the overwhelming numbers of spent shells and bullets and pipe bombs and knives, it was just an overwhelming sight.''

He said it was ''the first time my wife and I had seen the gun that actually killed Rachel.''

A key part of Salazar's investigation looked at work done by former sheriff's deputy John Hicks. Sheriff Ted Mink asked Salazar to investigate why a 1997 report by Hicks - found in a folder last October - was never reviewed as part of the probe into the shootings.

Hicks also looked into a 1998 complaint that Harris posted a death threat against a fellow student on the Web site, along with descriptions of pipe bombs he and Klebold built.

Randy and Judy Brown, whose son was named in the threat, reported the information to the sheriff's office. A warrant was drafted to search Harris' home, but it was never executed.

Hicks left the department in 2000 and now lives in South Carolina.

Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed at the school, said he wanted more details about why the search never took place.

''If we're going to learn lessons, that's a key part of it,'' he said. ''Why did law enforcement stop where it did?''

02/26/04 14:07 EST

Am I the only one here who's smells something fishy about this?

[Dagodevas]

Another issue of negligence from local authorities. Those kids should have been expelled long before that incident took place.

[bumcheekcity]

At 2/26/04 06:24 PM, Proteas wrote: Am I the only one here who's smells something fishy about this?

Not in the slightest. If the authorities did take action, then we might not have had the shooting.

[JoS]

Three words for you; Monday Morning Quaterback. Ya looking now we see theyd id this this and this. Why didnt the police do something before? Because much of the stuff is normal. OK I will grant that pipe bombs are somewhat abnormal. Lets haul them in and throw away the key cause they cracked a windshield with a snowball and they made a crank call. How many people can honestly say they never threw a snowball at a moving vehicle (bus, car, truck, bicycle, wheelchair) or never made a single prank phone call in their life. Now many youth build some kind of explosive, maybe not pipe bombs but hey I use to try and build my own fireworks and I would make fires using white gas (similar to gas only purer and used in things like camping stoves, I can so I have alot of it). Now looking back on this we see hmm why wasnt anything done, but in reality you never know what going to happen. Its much easier to say what should have been done then to say what should we do. They get days at the most to decided what to do. We have had 5 years to decide what they should have done. Does anybody remember the times when kids were expelled left right and center for anything that could remotely mean they could shoot up the school. Like dying your hair blue was apparently a warning sign. Then we tolerated it, but now we think why did they do that. Same goes with flying after 9/11 you couldnt take a nail file on a plane, and people didnt mind spending hours waiting to go through security, when just days before you wait more than 10 minutes and you launch a complaint. And we thought why wasnt more done about airport security before 9/11. ITs the same reason, monday morning quaterback syndrom.

[Phoenix-Guitarist]

Rugby, If you haven't already seen it. You should rent "Bowling for Columbine". Its a Michael Moore flick(He had a Tv show awhile ago, i cant remember the name of it).
But yeah, its a very interesting movie.

[lapslf]

At 2/27/04 03:00 PM, Phoenix_Guitarist wrote: He had a Tv show awhile ago, i cant remember the name of it.

The awful truth?

[Proteas]

At 2/27/04 03:00 PM, Phoenix_Guitarist wrote: Rugby, If you haven't already seen it. You should rent "Bowling for Columbine". Its a Michael Moore flick(He had a Tv show awhile ago, i cant remember the name of it).
But yeah, its a very interesting movie.

That movie get's discussed (mentioned rather) quite a bit on these forums. Though I'll agree with you, it was a good movie, as biased as it was.

The creepiest part of that movie (for me at least) was the security camera footage from the cafeteria during the shooting.

[JoS]

I actually own the movie. His show was called the awful truth (it was funny too). Ya the first two or so times when I watched Bowling for Columbine when it played the 911 calls and security tapes I cried. It was soo sad all these pointless deaths, and then hearing the people screaming on the phones, and the fact it was real, not a Hollywood script. That father who called in to say his son might be the shooter, my god that must be the hardest phone call he will ever make in his life. About a year after the shootings I had a chance to speak with a survivor of Columbine when she came to speak at a confrence I went too. It was soo sad and emotional her tellign us exactly what happend to her at the school , moment by moment.

[Dagodevas]

At 2/27/04 03:00 PM, Phoenix_Guitarist wrote: Rugby, If you haven't already seen it. You should rent "Bowling for Columbine". Its a Michael Moore flick(He had a Tv show awhile ago, i cant remember the name of it).

I like how Moore supports hard-working blue-collar workers and people who live in poverty. However, I didn't like how he handled some things. For one, I kind of felt as if he exploited some of those kids so he could get his message across. Plus, I think it was unfair of him to demonize Charlton Heston like that.

Other than that, I do believe "Bowling for Columbine" is a film everyone should see once, regardless if you agree or not. And if you leave it feeling as if you still disagree with Moore, that's fine too.