Columbine

by Jeff Kass

  Nielson holds the phone line open, but doesn’t talk. She stays on the floor and whispers the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come. Harris enters the library, then Klebold. It is 11:29 a.m. A moment of doubt. “Are you still with me?” one of them says. “We’re still gonna do this, right?”

  They are presented with a sea of tabletops since their quarry are crouching underneath. Nielson’s phone line remains electric for twenty-two more minutes, and it picks up gunfire and random words as Harris and Klebold begin a real game of hide and seek. At one point, they walk right in front of Nielson.

  “Get up!” one of the gunmen yells. “Everyone with a white cap or baseball cap, stand up.” They want the “jocks.”

  They banter some more:

  “So this is a library.”

  “We’re going to burn this place up.”

  “This is for all these years of shit we’ve had to go through.”

  “Everyone’s afraid. Look at the scared people under the tables.”

  “Who wants to be killed next?”

  Byron Kirkland believes Harris and Klebold want students to flee, maybe so they can more easily open fire. But it doesn’t work. So Harris and Klebold themselves begin ducking under tables.

  The first shots appear to come from Harris, who blasts two rounds of shotgun pellets down the front counter. Evan Todd, hiding behind a copier, is injured by “flying wood splinters” according to the sheriff’s official report.

  Harris and Klebold then approach the first person they will kill in the library: Special needs student Kyle Velasquez. The sixteen-year-old sophomore is six feet tall and has been dubbed a “gentle giant.” He wears glasses and loves cats and homemade tortillas. The official report says he is the only student not hiding under a desk or table. Others, including Kyle’s parents, say he is hidden. Two shots. Ten shotgun pellets pepper Velasquez’s head and shoulder.

  “Harris and Klebold set down their backpacks, filled with ammunition and Molotov cocktails, on one of the computer tables,” according to the sheriff’s official report. Harris gets down on one knee and shoots through the west library windows toward police and fleeing students. Klebold gets next to him, takes off his trench coat, and joins him in firing out the window.

  “The pigs are here,” they say. “OK, let’s go kill some cops now.”

  There will be destruction all around. Shrapnel from an explosive sizzles on the carpet. Eric shakes a bookshelf but cannot knock it over and kicks some books. Klebold shoots out the display cabinet near the front door of the library.

  Columbine freshman Steven Curnow, fourteen, is a Star Wars fan. Soccer and becoming a Navy pilot, maybe on an F-14, are among his other passions. Curnow is hiding under a computer table when Harris kills him with a shotgun slug that goes through his right shoulder and neck.

  Harris then turns to Kacey Ruegsegger. She is covering her ears with her hands when Harris sends a shotgun slug through her right shoulder. Her arm floats up in the air and comes back down. She thinks it is shot off.

  “Oh,” she says.

  “Stop your bitching,” one of the gunmen tells her.

  Klebold shoots Patrick Ireland. Still, Ireland’s head rises above a desk as he tries to administer first aid. He is hit a second time with shotgun pellets. His injuries are to the head and right foot. He will not die.

  Harris walks to another table. He slaps the table top twice with his left hand and says, “Peek-a-boo.”

  He bends down and sees Cassie Bernall. She is a seventeen-year-old junior with blonde hair who traded her fascination with witchcraft for religion. Holding the shotgun in his right hand, Harris kills her with pellets that pass through her right middle finger—possibly because she is covering her face—and into the right side of her head. The wound is smoking.

  After he shoots Bernall, the shotgun recoil throws the gun rearward into his face, breaking his nose and giving him a bloody mustache.

  “Oh man, I shot my nose,” Harris says.

  “Why’d you do that?” Klebold replies.

  Harris makes his way to Bree Pasquale, who is sitting on the floor because there was not enough room under a nearby table. He stares her in the face and repeatedly asks if she wants to die. She repeatedly says no. Harris laughs. “Everyone’s going to die,” he says.

  Klebold tells Harris to shoot her. “No, we’re gonna blow up the school anyway,” Harris says, still pointing his shotgun at her.

  Aaron Cohn says he is lying face down on the floor with Bree on top of him. Klebold says, “How about you, big boy? You want to get shot today?”

  Cohn looks left and sees a shotgun barrel twelve inches from his face. “Why don’t you get up?” Klebold says.

  Cohn doesn’t move. Klebold walks on.

  Harris and Klebold are hooting, hollering, and laughing. Their joy floats through the room.

  “This is so much fun.”

  “Isn’t this the best time of your life?”

  “It was like the gunmen thought what they were doing was [a] game and they had scored a touchdown,” Joshua Lapp told police. “They would shoot someone and then tell them to stop screaming. They seemed to be shooting people until they stopped screaming or making noises.”

  Next to die is Isaiah Shoels. A few minutes earlier, he had been telling jokes to a group of people in the library. The eighteen-year-old senior is only 4'11", but quick to lift weights, play football, and joke around. Harris and Klebold get on opposite sides of the table with Isaiah underneath. Klebold unsuccessfully tries to pull Isaiah out by his arm.

  “Get up, nigger,” Klebold says.

  “Nah, nah,” says Isaiah.

  Enough talk. A slug from Harris’ shotgun travels through Isaiah’s left arm, chest, and out his right armpit. It shreds part of his heart.

  Who’s next?

  It is sixteen-year-old sophomore Matt Kechter, a junior varsity lineman on the football team who has a chubby face and wavy brown hair. He lifts weights, gets straight A’s, and hopes to join the varsity line up in the fall. Klebold launches a shotgun slug through Kechter’s chest. As with Bernall, student Craig Scott recalls smoke coming out of Kechter’s wound. Shoels and Kechter are now leaning against each other, moaning. Soon they will die together.

  Dan Steepleton’s left knee is warm and he realizes Klebold has shot him. Harris tosses a CO2 cartridge under the table and it lands on Steepleton’s right thigh. The fuse is burning but Steepleton doesn’t want to move it for fear he will get shot again. Makai Hall throws it out of the way, and it explodes in mid-air, about four feet away. The explosion shakes the floor.

  Valeen Schnurr is crouching under the table with Lauren Townsend, both with their knees to their chests. Townsend tells her everything will be OK and puts her right arm around Schnurr. Klebold sprays Schnurr with a round of shotgun pellets that hit her chest, abdomen, and left arm. She crawls out from under the table.

  “Oh my God, help,” Schnurr says.

  “Do you believe in God?” Klebold asks.

  Valeen says no, then yes. She is searching for the answer the gunman wants. She doesn’t want to be shot again.

  A second question: Why does she believe in God?

  “My parents taught me and I believe,” she responds.

  “God is gay,” says one of the gunmen.

  Eighteen-year-old senior Lauren Townsend is a slim, long-haired brunette who can deftly spike a volleyball and hopes to become a wildlife biologist. Klebold rapid-fires six TEC-DC9 shots into her. Townsend is gasping and another girl holds her before she dies.

  Harris walks to a table, bends down, and sees two girls. “Pathetic,” he says, and walks on.

  John Tomlin, a sixteen-year-old sophomore, is the all-American type. He pines after Chevy trucks and four-wheeling through the mud, along with baseball caps and Bible study. He wa
nts to join the U.S. Army.

  Tomlin spends his last minutes with Nicole Nowlen. She has ducked under one table, but thinks it too vulnerable. She asks Tomlin if she can come over to his table. He waves her over. They pull chairs around themselves, and she tells John she is worried. He motions for her to be quiet and holds her hand. She starts talking again. He motions again for her to stay silent.

  Harris points a gun under their table. He fires two rounds of pellets. Nowlen is injured, and a shotgun pellet grazes Tomlin’s chest. Nowlen thinks Tomlin jumps out from under the table to avoid being hit by a second gunshot. He lands on his stomach. Klebold stands over him and finishes off his life with four shots from the TEC-DC9. Nowlen’s legs are now touching Tomlin’s. His legs shake, then stop a moment later.

  Quiet Kelly Fleming has pale skin and long brown hair. She is a sixteen-year-old sophomore already working on her autobiography. She also writes poetry and short stories. Harris kills her with a shotgun blast to her lower back. He sprays pellets under another table. Lauren Townsend is hit again.

  Harris sticks his head under a table and points a gun, maybe the carbine rifle, at John Savage. Savage scoots away. Harris points the gun again. Savage scoots. Harris stands up.

  “Who is under the table?” Harris asks. “Identify yourself.”

  “It’s me, John,” says Savage, who knows Harris and Klebold from classes, but considers them more acquaintances than friends.

  “John Savage?” Klebold says.

  “Yes,” Savage replies.

  “Hi,” Klebold says.

  “Hi Dylan,” says Savage. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, killing people,” Klebold says, shrugging.

  “Are you going to kill me?” Savage asks.

  Klebold looks at him a second. “No dude, just run,” he says. “Just get out of here.”

  He runs outside, sprinting at top speed.

  But fifteen-year-old Daniel Mauser will die. The sophomore runs cross country and aces his classes. Shortly before the shootings, he asks his parents about gun control. Harris shoots him with the carbine rifle. Daniel pushes a chair toward him. Harris stops that with a second shot.

  “Did he try to jump you?” Klebold asks.

  “Yeah,” Harris replies.

  Seventeen-year-old Corey DePooter, saving to buy his first car, is the library’s last murder victim. The junior enjoys fishing, and wants to join the Marines—they will make him an honorary Marine over a year after the shooting. At 11:35 a.m., a 9mm bullet from Klebold’s TEC-9 chops through him. Three more bullets from Harris’ carbine are next. DePooter is moaning, with bullet wounds in his neck, chest, back, and arm. Before fleeing the library, DePooter’s best friend, Stephen “Austin” Eubanks, will take his pulse. It has stopped.

  Evan Todd watches Klebold walk by the main library counter and check the door to the magazine room, where teacher Peggy Dodd is hiding. He turns the knob, but it is locked. Klebold checks the door to an adjacent room, which is open. He sweeps the room with his TEC-9, turns around, and walks toward Todd. Klebold holds the gun in his left hand and points it at Todd’s face.

  “Oh, look what we have here,” Klebold says.

  “What?” asks Harris. He is dizzy and wobbly, and his nose is pushed to the side of his face.

  “Just some fat fuck,” Klebold replies, still pointing the TEC-9. “Are you a jock?”

  “No,” says Todd.

  “Well, that’s good,” Klebold says, “we don’t like jocks.”

  There is a pause. “Let me see your face,” Klebold asks.

  Todd removes his hat and tilts his face upward. Klebold looks him in the eye and says, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

  “I don’t want to get in trouble,” Todd responds.

  “Trouble?” says Klebold, who seems to get angry and leans in closer. “You don’t even know what fucking trouble is.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean, I don’t have a problem with you guys, I never will and I never did,” Todd says.

  Klebold stares at him for a moment then looks away. “I’m gonna let this fat fuck live, you can have at him if you want to.”

  They walk away and Klebold shoots a 9mm round into a television.

  Harris isn’t paying attention. “Let’s go to the commons,” he says.

  Klebold picks up a chair and slams it onto a computer. He walks backward, sweeping with his gun. Harris does the same. Klebold follows him out.

  The moaning in the library continues. But the shots and bombs stop. The students sense it is safe to flee. Lindsay Elmore hears someone say, “Let’s get out.” She runs out the library’s back door.

  Injured students are saying, “Help me.” But Patricia Blair says, “Those who could, ran.”

  Heidi Johnson remembers running outside and seeing two officers. “Come on, kids!” they yell. They are behind a patrol car with their guns drawn.

  Art teacher Patti Nielson moves into the library break room and curls into a cupboard. She will stay there until SWAT evacuates her about four hours later.

  The library rampage has lasted seven and a half minutes, but life and death will dart through the room for a few more hours.

  Patrick Ireland, shot in the head and blacked out, regains consciousness. He looks at the library windows and thinks, “That’s my way out.” He pushes himself through a broken, second-story window on live television and falls into the arms of officers waiting atop an armored car at 2:38 p.m.

  SWAT will not enter the library until 3:22 p.m., four hours and three minutes after the shooting began.

  ∞

  Dave Sanders is still dying.

  After being shot, he had stumbled in a hallway and fell. An explosion went off nearby.

  “Dave, you’ve got to get up,” yells teacher Richard Long.

  Long shoulders Sanders to the open doorway of Science Room Three. Sanders is bleeding profusely from his mouth onto Long’s arm and pants.

  “Rich, I think they shot me through the mouth,” Sanders says. “Rich, I’m losing a lot of blood. I think I’m going to pass out.”

  Students and teachers hiding in Science Room Three cover Sanders with wool blankets. Eagle Scout Kevin Hancey and classmate Kevin Starkey put pressure on the bullet holes to stanch the bleeding. They pull out a photo from Sanders’ wallet and ask about his wife. They are on the phone with 911. Dispatchers indicate the doorknob may be marked with a blue and white shirt. Famously, a white plastic board is placed in the window. It reads: “1 bleeding to death.”

  Hours pass. Although the number is open to question.

  “I’m not going to make it,” Sanders says. “Tell my girls I love them.”

  SWAT arrives: “We are here for the living and the walking.”

  Sanders is in a science room storage area, bare-chested and laying on his back. He is alive.

  The sheriff says it is 2:42 p.m., and SWAT calls for medical help. A lawsuit filed by Sanders’ daughter says it is “nearly 4 p.m.”

  At 4:45 p.m. the sheriff says Sanders is pronounced dead. He is still in the school.

  ∞

  While students and teachers are tending to Sanders, Harris and Klebold enter the science area. They shoot into empty rooms and tape a Molotov cocktail on the door of the chemical storage room. They look through the windows of locked classroom doors. They make eye contact with students inside, but do not shoot and move on.

  Twenty-five minutes into Columbine, at 11:44 a.m., Harris walks into the cafeteria. It is a disaster area, with overturned chairs, and food and drink left on the tables. Harris fires a few shots, maybe trying to explode one of the 20-pound propane bombs that would at this point send him skyward too. But it doesn’t work.

  Klebold walks across the cafeteria floor and takes a gander at a propane bomb. Harris, thirsty, drinks from a cup left on
a lunch table. Klebold tosses something, maybe a CO2 cartridge or pipe bomb. But the big bang still eludes them.

  They walk up the stairs to the main office area and fire some shots, then back down to the cafeteria, where the floor is on fire in spots. They return up the stairs to the library—their comfortable killing field—and take more shots through the windows at police and paramedics. It is just after noon.

  Their final count for the day will be 188 shots; Harris 124 and Klebold 64. But they save the last two for themselves. Harris and Klebold place a Molotov cocktail on a table and light it. A tiny blaze triggers a library fire alarm above their bodies at 12:08 p.m. Harris and Klebold are already dead.

  ∞

  The sheriff’s department has withheld some ten thousand Columbine crime scene photos from the public, but images of Harris and Klebold as they lay dead in the library are among those that have leaked out. In one, Klebold lies on the floor on his back, his legs crossed one over the other. Klebold’s shotgun is at his feet, and his Boston Red Sox baseball cap is nearby. His left arm rests diagonally across his stomach. His TEC-9, attached to his body with a strap, is barely visible under his right knee. Klebold was left-handed, but one scenario is that the gun swung across his body after he shot himself through the left temple and he fell on it. Eight “explosive devices,” including a pipe bomb wrapped in gray duct tape, are removed from his left pants pocket. The blood from his skull has now seeped into the carpet and surrounds his head. Red rivulets run across his face. A coroner believes Klebold may have been capable of some “involuntary movement” after he shot himself.

  Clam-digging amidst this muck is Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy Mike Guerra, who had unsuccessfully sought a search warrant for Harris’ home the year before. Harris’ name has been ringing in Guerra’s ear since earlier in the day when he staged at the Columbine parking lot. He says he was asked by lead Columbine investigator Kate Battan, “Weren’t you working on a warrant for this guy?”