April 22, 1999



THE OVERVIEW

15 Bodies Found as Police Search Colorado School

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK

ITTLETON, Colo. -- After a long day of agony for victims' parents and anxiety for police officers searching for explosives, the authorities Wednesday evening removed the bodies of 15 people killed in a massacre at Columbine High School on Tuesday.

Among the dead were the two students who are believed to have unleashed the carnage before turning their guns on themselves. They were found shot in the head.

TERROR IN LITTLETON Interactive Guides The Scene of the Massacre Escaping the Horror Gunshots, Explosions, Then Chaos Assaults in U.S. Schools Video Columbine High School student describes the shooting Columbine High School student describes how she escaped the shooters Police detained some students President Clinton reacts to the shooting The community gathered a vigil following the shooting Audio Columbine High School student describes the shooting President Clinton talks with students about the shooting Text President Clinton's Remarks Forum Join a Discussion on Violence in Schools From Thursday's Times The Suspects: Portrait of Outcasts Seeking to Stand Out From Other Groups The Dead: Father of Victim Says Son Had Dispute With Suspect The Memories: Behind Every School Door, a Tale of Terror News Analysis / The Reasons: Violence by Youths: Looking for Answers The School: Good Grades, Good Teams and Some Bad Feelings The Influences: Goth Genres, Fringe Rock and Germany The Web: Pieces of School Massacre Put Together on the Internet Other Schools: Can It Happen Here? Across U.S., Schools Wonder The Town: Day of Violence Threatens Residents' Sense of Safety and Faith in the Future The Signs: Experts Urge Swift Action to Fight Depression and Aggression From Wednesday's Times 2 Gunmen at Colorado School Reportedly Kill Up to 23 Before Dying in a Siege Issue in Depth America Under the Gun

Twelve of the dead, including both suspected gunmen, were found in the school library, said the Jefferson County Sheriff, John Stone. Sheriff Stone said there were so many weapons and explosive devices -- including 30 bombs, a semi-automatic rifle and pistol and two shotguns -- that investigators were still unsure how the gunmen got it all inside the school.

They may have hidden it during several trips or they may have had help, Sheriff Stone said.

David J. Thomas, the district attorney, at a press conference at the school this afternoon, said that investigators were looking at 8 to 10 people who might have knowledge of the case through familiarity with a Web site connected to one of the presumed gunmen.

"I think there is evidence to suggest that other people were at least aware of what was going on," Thomas said. "There were a lot of devices. They took a long time to construct and a lot of people were familiar with the Web site.

Sheriff John P. Stone said a computer had been seized at a suspect's house, and E-mail messages sent from them were being traced.

An unfathomable set of questions surrounded the motivations of the two presumed gunmen, 18-year-old Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennett Klebold, 17. They were described by many students Wednesday as members of a self-styled group of loners and outcasts who called themselves the trench coat mafia after the long black coats they wore and shared a fascination with popular violent video games and an antipathy toward the more popular students whom they referred to as "jocks."

Both Harris and Klebold were arrested last year for breaking into a car, and parents of another student at the school said they had complained to the authorities last year about death threats made by Harris against their son. Nonetheless, school authorities and many students insisted today that they never seriously considered either young man to be inclined toward the horrific violence let loose here on Tuesday.

The incident set off a national bout of soul-searching and debates over whether the killings were spurred by easy access to guns or by the violent images on television and in video games to which American children are routinely exposed. President Clinton said in Washington that "all of us are struggling to understand exactly what happened and why."

The shootings had immediate political reverberations as well: in Colorado and at least two other states, sponsors of legislation expanding the rights to carry guns or insulating gunmakers from lawsuits withdrew those measures Wednesday.

The authorities were still so concerned about the possibility of more danger that most of the bodies were removed from the school only this evening. They were taken to the county coroner's office. Some were so unrecognizable that parents were asked to supply dental records of their missing children.

It is unclear whether the death toll, which represents the largest school massacre by students in the country's history but was also a downward revision from the possible 25 deaths that the authorities had considered possible on Tuesday, will rise again as the search inside the school continues. Eleven of the dead are male, including at least one teacher and one black student whom the killers shot in the head.

Sixteen people are still hospitalized, 11 of them in serious or critical condition, a spokesman for the sheriff's office said. About two dozen people were injured.



RECENT SCHOOL SHOOTINGS



Other recent shootings involving U.S. schools: April 16, 1999 -- A high school sophomore fired two shotgun blasts in a school hallway in Notus, Idaho. No one injured. Go to Article May 21, 1998 -- Two teen-agers are killed and more than 20 people hurt when a 15-year-old boy allegedly opens fire at high school in Springfield, Ore. His parents are killed at their home. He is awaiting trial. On a police videotape, he is asked why he opened fire. He responds: "I had no other choice." Go to Article May 19, 1998 -- Three days before his graduation, an 18-year-old honor student allegedly opens fire in parking lot at high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. He is awaiting trial. Go to Article April 24, 1998 -- A science teacher is shot to death in front of students at eighth-grade dance at a banquet hall in Edinboro, Pa. A 14-year-old student awaits trial. The motive is unclear.

Go to Article March 24, 1998 -- Four girls and a teacher are shot to death and 10 people wounded during false fire alarm at middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., when two boys, 11 and 13, open fire from the woods. Both are convicted in juvenile court of murder and can be held up to age 21.

Go to Article Dec. 1, 1997 -- Three students are killed and five others wounded in a hallway at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. One girl is left paralyzed. A 14-year-old student pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison. When asked why he did it, he said he didn't know.

Go to Article Oct. 1, 1997 -- A 16-year-old boy in Pearl, Miss., is accused of killing his mother, then going to his high school and shooting nine students, two fatally. He has been sentenced to life in prison. The alleged mastermind of the attack awaits trial. Authorities have said the teens were in a cult-like group.

Go to Article

All day long, under sunny skies that turned slate gray with an approaching storm, students gathered near the high school for any news about friends still officially listed as missing. Many were crying or clutching flowers that they had brought to a makeshift memorial.

"I can't even imagine walking into that school right now," said 17-year-old Dara Ferguson, a junior, who had three friends whom she feared were dead. "I don't think I ever want to set foot in there again."

Officials with the Jefferson County School District said the high school building, with hundreds of bullet holes and several inches of water that came from sprinklers that went off after the bombs did, would remain closed for the rest of the school year.

Here in Littleton, a Denver suburb where spiffy housing developments and shopping malls are rising out of farmland that backs up to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and where many parents say they moved to enroll their students in good and safe public schools, grief and shock were pervasive.

The names of the dead began to filter out this evening, though the authorities said they were not prepared to release an official list. The families of Rachel Scott, 15, and Isaiah Shoels, 18, said their children had died in the shooting, and a teacher, William David Sanders, was widely identified as the faculty member who had died.

Shoels, who was black, was apparently singled out for killing, said some of the students who survived the library rampage.

"They seemed to seek him out," said Joshua Lapp, a senior at the school who dove for cover with other students in the library. "They went past a row of desks and one of them said, 'Look, there's that little nigger.' Then there were three shots and one of them said, 'Is he dead?' and the other one said, 'Yes, he's dead all right.' "

Crystal Woodman, a junior who was also in the library at the time, told the ABC program "Good Morning America" that the two were laughing as they went about their killing binge.

"They were just, like, they thought it was funny," Miss Woodman said. "They were just, like, 'We've waited to do this our whole lives.' And every time they'd shoot someone, they'd holler, like it was, like, exciting."

In the killers' arsenal, found today at several places in the school, were 30 bombs, including several built from propane gas cylinders, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic rifle, two pistol-grip shotguns, one handgun and at least 100 rounds of ammunition, Sheriff Stone said. Two or three cars in the parking lot had bombs in them, the authorities said.

The repercussions were felt far beyond Colorado.

In Alabama and Florida, the school shooting led lawmakers to postpone consideration of bills that would prohibit cities and counties from suing gun makers for the cost of gun violence. The bills, similar to others passed around the country, were introduced at the behest of the National Rifle Association to protect the firearms industry from liability suits.

Also Wednesday, officials of the N.R.A. said they had decided to scale back their national membership meeting, scheduled for May 1 in Denver.

In a letter, the association's president, the actor Charlton Heston, said the group was canceling a gun show along with all other "festive ceremonies normally associated with our annual gathering." The group was nevertheless going to hold its annual members meeting at the city's convention center.

The event was modified "to show our profound sympathy and respect for the families and communities in the Denver area in their time of great loss," said a letter signed by Heston.

"Our spirits must endure this terrible suffering together, and so must the freedoms that bring us together," said the letter. "We must stand in somber but unshakeable unity, even in this time of anguish."

But Heston and some politicians said that the violence might have been averted if someone else had been armed at the school.

"Had there been someone who was armed, in this particular situation, in my opinion, it may have stabilized," said Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota, who supports loosening restrictions on concealed handguns. "I believe it supports conceal-and-carry because of the fact that what happens when a group of unarmed individuals are confronted with people with weapons like this, you have no defense."

And Heston said the incident showed that there should be armed guards in the nation's schools.

"If there had been even one armed guard in the school, he could have saved a lot of lives and perhaps ended the whole thing instantly," he said today in in Los Angeles.

There was, in fact, an armed guard at the school.

A sheriff's deputy assigned to the school, Neil Gardner of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, exchanged gunfire with one of the gunmen shortly after the rampage began at 11:30 A.M. Two other patrol officers fired some shots about a half-hour later, said Steve Davis, a sheriff's spokesman.

INTERACTIVE GUIDE

Assaults in U.S. Schools