No Easy Answers

by Merritt, Rob, Brown, Brooks

  “Bacon.”

  “No.”

  “Boyd.”

  “No.”

  “Jahn.”

  “No.”

  “Johnson.”

  “No.”

  “Madden.”

  “No.”

  “Snook.”

  “No.”

  “Stengel.”

  Stengel took a moment. “This is the hardest vote I ever gave. No.”

  The recorder turned to Representative Lee and called his name.

  “Yes,” Lee said, the defeat in his voice apparent.

  “Mr. Chairman.”

  “Yes.”

  Even as he offered the only other favorable vote, Chairman Shawn Mitchell knew it was already over. “That motion fails, 7 to 2,” he said. “There is a motion to postpone indefinitely the resolution, forwarded by Representative Madden and seconded by Representative Bacon. Please call the roll.”

  Again, the vote was 7 to 2.

  At the back of the room, my father stood up and looked down the row of the House Civil Justice and Judiciary Committee.

  “Shame on you,” he said quietly.

  We had no idea that the deck had been stacked against us from the start.

  The next day, the Rocky Mountain News ran a story entitled “Jeffco Pressured Lawmakers.” According to writer Kevin Vaughn, officials from Jefferson County had been actively lobbying against the investigation behind closed doors, even inviting the committee members to their offices to discuss the bill. The officials kept this information secret from Representative Lee, who was sponsoring the bill.

  We had no idea about this at the time. We had no idea that the police had already influenced the committee members before we even walked in the door. We believed that our words were going to make a difference.

  Now the hope we had been filled with when we walked into that room was gone. We exited in defeat, realizing that at last we had come to the end of the road. There would be no answers. The police had won.

  I gave my mother a hug, then went outside to smoke a cigarette with my friends, stunned by the injustice of it all. I helped Richard into the front seat, then loaded up his wheelchair and started the car. We drove quietly through the streets of downtown Denver, headed for home.

  “It makes you wonder what the system is there for,” Richard said after a moment.

  I looked over at him. I recognized the look of hopelessness in his face.

  21

  hollow victory

  IN THE SPRING OF 2002, THERE WERE OVER A DOZEN CANDIDATES lining up to take on John Stone for the role of Jefferson County Sheriff. Many of the victims' families braced for what was sure to be an ugly, drawn-out campaign that fall. However, Stone saved them the trouble.

  On April 5, Stone announced that he wouldn't be seeking re-election. He told the media that while his office had been a “dream job,” the Columbine massacre had turned it into a “nightmare” and a “living hell.”

  “We did the best we could under impossible circumstances and have been punished for it ever since,” he told the Denver Post.

  “You've got a tar baby that no matter who touched it, they are not going to walk away from it,” he told the Rocky Mountain News. “I still think we did everything we could do [at Columbine] under impossible circumstances and by the rules—as the rules were at that time.”

  My parents issued their own joint statement in response to Stone's announcement.

  “His arrogance has been unbelievable to us,” they said. “It is about time he admitted to himself that the people of Jeffco don't want a man who is so deceitful and lacking in character as John P. Stone.”

  On April 11, The El Paso County Sheriff's Office completed its four-month probe into Daniel Rohrbough's death. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office had asked El Paso to do its own independent review of how Daniel had been shot, to clear up questions brought forth by Daniel's father, Brian. Not only had Brian produced evidence arguing that Dylan Klebold could not have shot Daniel, but he had further suggested that a police officer might have been the shooter instead. Among the evidence Brian Rohrbough pointed to was the trajectory of the bullets that hit Daniel, the fact that police shells were found all around his body, and that two of the three bullets that hit him were never found.

  For over a week, the public wasn't told what El Paso had found. Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas said he wouldn't be releasing its contents until after the three-year anniversary of the shootings on April 20, “out of respect for the Columbine community.”

  In response, Brian Rohrbough called for the report's immediate release, as did the families of other Columbine victims. Thomas relented, and on April 17—three days before the anniversary—the public learned what El Paso had found.

  El Paso cleared the police of having shot Daniel Rohrbough, but they also found that things had happened differently than Jefferson County had claimed in its original report two years before. Ballistics determined that Eric Harris, not Dylan Klebold, had fired the deadly shots.

  “The murder of Daniel Rohrbough at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, was undeniably caused by Eric Harris beyond any reasonable doubt,” read the report summary.

  The week before the three-year anniversary of Columbine, my parents told me we were going to a screening of a new A&E documentary, Columbine: Understanding Why. The hour-long show, part of A&E's Investigative Reports series, centered on a group of forensic scientists who had spent months conducting a “psychiatric autopsy” of Eric and Dylan, in an attempt to determine why they'd done what they'd done. The team was made up of a psychiatrist, a violence prevention expert, a former FBI profiler, and a doctoral candidate.

  The documentary had attracted attention because it had been specifically requested by the district attorney back in 1999. Because of that, we were curious about what this team had been granted access to, and what they might have uncovered.

  My family watched the show alongside the families of Daniel Rohrbough, Kyle Velasquez, and Kelly Fleming. It was the first time I had seen Mrs. Fleming since that day at her house the summer after the shootings. It never stops feeling awkward to be in a room with the parents of a Columbine victim, no matter how many times I see them. The guilt I feel for having been friends with their children's killers never really leaves me.

  However, that night we were united in our disappointment over the investigative team's effort. After a long recapping of the shooting, complete with drum-heavy atmospheric music, the investigators talked about the lengthy research they were going to do.

  “As they conduct their psychiatric autopsy of the Columbine High School killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the threat assessment group needs to talk to as many people as possible who knew the boys throughout different stages and in different situations in their lives.”

  That's funny, I thought. I don't ever remember these people calling me.

  Not only that, but the documentary never mentioned the Web pages my family turned in. There were flaws throughout the piece, but this was a glaring omission. That and the pro-police slant of the documentary were what really bothered me.

  The victims' families mentioned to the Rocky Mountain News reporters that it seemed like the district attorney had been far more helpful to outside investigators than he had been to any of them. I sat there contemplating that, and realizing that what we'd just seen was going to be aired to the nation in just a few more days.

  If people don't already know what happened here, this is the version they will believe, I thought. People will believe that the police did everything they could. People will believe that there were no obvious warning signs. People will believe that this couldn't have been prevented.

  I thought back to a quote from Mark Twain.

  “Truth is stranger than fiction,” he said. “Because fiction has to make sense.”

  The truth was that the victims' families had reached the end of the road.

  After the defeat of the proposed legislative
commission to investigate Columbine, Representative Don Lee of Littleton made a second attempt. This time, instead of a sweeping probe of the Columbine incident, Lee narrowed the proposed investigation to three questions:

  What can be learned from the law enforcement response on April 20, 1999, in preparation for another attack?

  What can be learned from the response to the complaint filed with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office alleging that gunman Eric Harris was making death threats over the Internet?

  What can be learned in regard to destructive behavior exhibited in the school environment by the perpetrators in the time leading up to the attack?

  At first, the newly refined proposal met with success. The bill passed through the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on an 8-1 vote, and then on through the full House on a 39-24 vote. But the bill was defeated by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 4-3 vote. Even with a narrowed focus, lawmakers did not feel the need to investigate Columbine any further.

  “We fought a good fight,” Lee told the Denver Post on May 7. “I don't regret putting all of my efforts into doing the right thing.”

  In a study released on May 14, 2002 by the National School Board Association, seventy-seven percent of 837 school board members polled across the country considered school violence to be a “moderate” or “mild” concern. Only one in nine educators called it a “major concern.” The week before the survey came out, a student in Ehrfurt, Germany, opened fire at his high school, killing seventeen before turning the gun on himself.

  On April 18,2002—two days before the three-year anniversary of the Columbine shootings—two Columbine High School students were suspended after they left a hit list written on a wooden pillar in Clement Park. The list named eleven students and two staff members. The students face criminal charges.

  While many were turning their backs on the events of Columbine, one investigative team remained. A records review task force, made up of both law enforcement officials and members of the community, was going through the remaining Columbine evidence that had not yet been released by the courts.

  On April 17, in a moment that shocked many observers, the panel named its newest member: Randy Brown. Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar appointed him in the belief that Brown would ask the right questions.

  “This gives the committee credibility in the eyes of the victims' families,” Brian Rohrbough told Kevin Simpson of the Denver Post. “Very few people have studied the volumes of records like he has—and nobody who's not involved in litigation or a member of the media. Putting Randy on lets us know that the committee will have to consider everything.”

  Randy Brown said later that Salazar's decision was a positive step forward.

  “I really couldn't believe it when they asked me,” he said. “My wife and I had met with Salazar only a few days beforehand, and he didn't give any indication that he was thinking about doing this. But I think he wants to get to the truth of what happened, so it was very encouraging.”

  As soon as he was asked to join, Brown started talking to people to find out what evidence they still believed hadn't been released. He already had a list of fifty-nine items that he had presented at a previous meeting.

  “What they've promised is that we will get to see everything the police have,” he said. “And then we'll offer our opinions on which of those files should be made public.”

  Brown made it clear that he supported releasing Eric and Dylan's basement tapes, to help the public understand why they did what they did. To allay fears that the tapes could lead to copycat violence, Brown said the photos of Eric and Dylan lying dead in the library should be released as well.

  “If there are people who think that Eric and Dylan were heroes, those photos will take away that ‘hero’ status right away,” he said. “No matter how messed up someone is, I don't see how they could think that Eric and Dylan did anything glorious after seeing how they ended up.”

  However, Brown was interested in more than just releasing what the public already knew existed. Soon after his appointment, Brown showed the rest of the committee a page from the recently released El Paso report. The page looked like a duplicate of evidence provided by Jefferson County in its public report, but it had a different index number from the one in the files released to the public.

  Brown pointed to that discrepancy as evidence that Jefferson County had been withholding information, and wanted to ask investigator Kate Battan about it.

  Battan didn't attend the meeting. Her spokeswoman said she had fallen ill.

  Finding out that my father would be on the task force was incredible news. It was like one small victory after years of defeat.

  As of this writing, the task force's work is still not finished. I don't know whether Eric and Dylan's videotapes will ever be released to the public or not, or whether new evidence will be uncovered that none of us have ever seen before. Like everything else in Jefferson County's handling of the Columbine case, it's a mystery.

  However, one new piece of evidence concerning my family did see the light of day. By court order, the Jefferson County police were forced to release copies of all search warrants from the day of the shooting, including the warrants for both the Harris and Klebold residences, and lists of all items seized from those locations.

  In the search warrant for Dylan Klebold's home, among the items investigators said they wanted to find were “any information on Eric Harris's Web page, Web site or in his e-mail file, namely http://members.aol.com/rebdomine.pissed.htm.”

  On April 21, 1999, another search warrant noted:

  Your affiant discovered a report made to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on March 18, 1998, 98-5504, by Randy Brown. Randy Brown stated that Eric Harris was making death threats toward his son, Brooks Brown. Randy Brown provided ten pages of material copied from Eric Harris's Web page to Deputy Mark Miller. One of the printouts reads, “Wie gehts. Well all you people out there can just kiss my ass and die. From now on I don't give a fuck what almost any of you mutha fuckas have to say, unless I respect you which is highly unlikely, but for those of you who know me and know that I respect you may peace be with you and don't be in my line of fire. For the rest of you, you all better fucking hide in your houses because im comin [sic] for EVERYONE soon, and I WILL be armed to the fuckin teeth and I WILL shoot to kill and I will fucking KILL EVERYTHING!” (Jefferson County Search Warrant, Investigator Cheryl Zimmerman, 4/21/99)

  I wasn't expecting this at all.

  As I read it, the anger built up within me. A year ago, 60 Minutes II had uncovered the draft for a search warrant in 1998 that never was served; that was hard enough to learn about. But now, here was written proof that within a day of the shooting, they'd used the information my family had provided to search the homes of Eric and Dylan. They'd had all the variations of a Web address that they'd claimed they weren't able to access. They'd had specific quotes from the Web pages, including the death threats. They'd had everything. And while they were using this information to obtain search warrants, they'd called my family liars for claiming that we'd warned them. They'd pointed fingers at me as a possible suspect. They'd turned everyone against me.

  And they knew. The whole time.

  This was vindication, even more than the search warrant a year ago had been. But it didn't make me feel any better. I didn't want to see this information handed down now, when it wouldn't do any good anymore.

  I wanted it used in 1998. I wanted Eric Harris caught.

  I wanted Columbine never to have happened.

  No matter what we learn about the police behavior that day, or what they did to me, or to my family—no matter how much vindication I might find—it will always be a hollow victory. Search warrants won't bring Danny Rohrbough back to life, or Rachel, or Kyle, or any of them. They won't give back Richard's ability to walk. They won't save Eric and Dylan from becoming what they became.

  It's important to know the truth. It's important to keep going, and no
t to lose hope in the face of the police.

  But it won't ever give us back what we lost that day.

  22

  little brother

  EACH DAY ANOTHER MIND IN OUR WORLD IS CRIPPLED. ANOTHER child gives up. Another kid kills his friends, or himself. Many people say that this happens because the child loses hope.

  People ask all the time why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did what they did on April 20, 1999. I believe it was hopelessness. They saw no real future for themselves, and no acceptance from those around them. They became self-hating. Then they started to hate those around them. Then they became angry, and then they became violent. Finally, in one insane, twisted moment, they believed they had power over a world that had kept them down.

  Eric and Dylan came at Columbine from different places. Eric was mentally imbalanced. He had clear bipolar tendencies and was being treated with medication. He had a fascination with death, with firearms, and with rising above his tormenters, and his mental instability fueled that.

  Dylan was angry with society, with the hand he had been dealt, and with a world where he couldn't go a day without being spat at, mocked, or told he wasn't good enough. He was made to believe that his dreams could never happen, and that the world would never get better.

  This is the hopelessness that many kids in high school share.

  What was unusual about Eric and Dylan was the way they withdrew from everyone else and fed each other's delusions. They kept their beliefs to themselves, figuring the rest of the world would never understand them. They developed God complexes. What shreds of ethics they may have had left were destroyed as they retreated more and more into their own world.

  Eric was probably the one who formulated the plan for attacking Columbine. Yet he and Dylan had become so close that it was easy for him to convince his friend. “We don't have to take this shit lying down,” I imagine them thinking. “These fucks don't deserve to live. They aren't even on our level. We understand what the world is about. They don't. Just think what kind of an impact we could have—what kind of a statement we could make—if we did this.”