A decade is not long enough to put Columbine behind us

A decade is not long enough to put Columbine behind us

Ten years ago today, the nation was shocked by scenes of carnage from a high school in a prosperous Colorado suburb.

In the time it takes for news to travel, Columbine was no longer just a flower, it was a one-word description of a massacre perpetuated by two students, described variously as evil outsiders or as victims of bullying who were avenging their mistreatment by the more popular cliques. The “Trenchcoat Mafia” explanation was a convenient one, easy to report and easier to believe. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold became a combination of perpetrators and victims and their personalities and motivations became the focus of national attention. The 12 students and one teacher they murdered were victims with whom almost anyone could identify.

Quick assumptions

But while newspapers coast-to-coast (including this one) ran a yearbook picture of the Trenchcoat Mafia, noting that Harris and Klebold weren’t pictured — as if they were absent that day — we now know they weren’t members of that Goth group. They were far beyond adolescent nonconformity. Klebold and Harris didn’t wear trenchcoats on April 20, 1999, to display their disaffection. They did it to hide their guns.

The post-tragedy reporting focused on the victims, their stories and their funerals. More attention was given to the fact that two of the 15 crosses raised in Littleton, Colo. — those symbolizing Harris and Klebold — were toppled than was given to the fact that during the three hours it took for responding safety to clear the building, one of the victims bled to death. That was Dave Sanders, a teacher and coach.

What we’ve come to know about the signals that Harris and Klebold broadcast before their attack boggles the mind. It is difficult to imagine them flying beneath the radar in these days of zero tolerance for threats of violence. Just as it is difficult to imagine that parents today wouldn’t recognize the danger signs in their own children that Harris and Klebold openly exhibited. Or that police wouldn’t take more serious note of credible evidence about a young man who was building bombs and who was posting explicit threats on his own Web site.

Successes and failures

In the 10 years since Columbine, there have been far too many other school shootings. But there have been none as deadly. And there have been many that have been foiled.

Preventative action and better training for first responders are among the legacies from Columbine High School.

For some, milestones such as today’s are a signal to put the past behind and to move ahead. We would say, not so fast. Time has allowed headline coverage of Columbine to evolve into more serious literature and scholarship. There are still things to be learned about what motivated — and what didn’t motivate — Klebold and Harris. They weren’t one dimensional characters. And if we ignore or forget that, the likely result is another ugly day of violence and death, a day that could replace Columbine in the lexicon of things that went tragically wrong.