A truly gripping read

I have just finished reading Columbine by Dave Cullen. It retells the story of the Columbine shootings 10 years after the fact, when more evidence and research has become available. To say this is a chilling book would be an understatement. Cullen thoroughly researched this book and tells the story of the lead-up to the shootings, the massacre itself, and the aftermath for the victims and their families. You get a vivid picture of what the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were like and it ain't pretty.

Klebold was pretty much a depressed, suicidal teen for years. He was shy beyond belief and dreamed of some day finding love and affection. Harris, on the other hand, appears to have been a stone-cold psychopath from the start. Reading his web site logs and his diaries is a chilling experience and a trip into the mind of someone that has no regard for anyone other than himself. He basically dehumanized the rest of the world and came to embrace Hitler's Final Solution.

It is somewhat doubtful that Klebold ever would have acted on his own. In fact, it appears as though he went along with Harris's plot as a fantasy, not thinking it was real until the date grew closer. As it did, he realized this would be another option for ending his own life. This does not excuse his actions; he willingly took part, fired shots and killed people. But Harris was definitely the one behind the plot.

It's a good thing that Harris, for all his base intelligence, was sort of a screw-up, because he and Klebold had much, much larger plans in mind for Columbine. They had multiple bombs strategically placed and planned to set them off inside the school and then shoot students as they fled the building. They even placed bombs in their cars where they figured the police, ambulances and media would set up their perimeter. Luckily, all of the big bombs failed to explode. Harris and Klebold wanted a death toll of 500 plus.

Each and every one of the victims' stories is heartbreaking. The students had their whole lives ahead of them and each was the most important person in somebody's life. Teacher Dave Sanders was shot while trying to save other students and slowly bled to death while the police and SWAT teams waited outside, trying to come up with a plan. The story of his wife and kids, along with those of the parents who lost children, sticks in your heart and makes you truly shudder. Some of the wounded kids were maimed horribly: some paralyzed, some disfigured, all of them shattered on the inside.

In the midst of the tragedy, the police department realized they made multiple mistakes, including a chance to stop Harris long before the attack. They then spent considerable time hiding and destroying damning evidence against them. Both Harris and Klebold managed to slip through the cracks multiple times. Perhaps the single most heartbreaking thing of the whole Columbine incident is that it could have been stopped if not for the negligence of local law enforcement.

That the Columbine community rallied and carried on is a remarkable story. It is not any sort of miracle; it has human greatness and human faults sprinkled in throughout. But it is also a great example of what a community can endure together and a testament of the human spirit.