Columbine by Dave Cullen

by the minute. But the cops had no means to stop it. This was the first major hostage standoff of the cell phone age, and they had never seen anything like it. At the moment, they were more concerned with information passing to the shooters. Sometimes the kids' revelations scared reporters. On live TV, a boy described sounds he took to be the gunmen: "I hear stuff being thrown around," he said. "I am staying underneath this desk. I don't know if they know I'm up here. I am just staying upstairs for right now, and I just hope they don't know--"
    The anchorwoman interrupted: "Don't tell us where you are!"
    The boy described more commotion. "There's a little bunch of people crying outside. I can hear them downstairs." Something crashed. "Whoa!"
    The anchor gasped. "What was that?!"
    "I don't know."
    The anchors had enough. Her partner told him to hang up, keep quiet, and try to reach 911. "Keep trying to call them, OK?"
    The cops pleaded with the TV stations to stop. Please ask the hostages to quit calling the media, they said. Tell them to turn off the televisions.
    The stations aired the requests and continued broadcasting the calls. "If you're watching, kids, turn the TV off," one anchor implored. "Or down, at least."
    ____
    Much of the country was watching the standoff unfold. None of the earlier school shootings had been televised; few American tragedies had. The Columbine situation played out slowly, with the cameras rolling. Or at least it appeared that way: the cameras offered the illusion we were witnessing the event. But the cameras had arrived too late. Eric and Dylan had retreated inside after five minutes. The cameras missed the outside murders and could not follow Eric and Dylan inside. The fundamental experience for most of America was almost witnessing mass murder. It was the panic and frustration of not knowing, the mounting terror of horror withheld, just out of view. We would learn the truth about Columbine, but we would not learn it today.
    We saw fragments. What the cameras showed us was misleading. An army of police held at bay suggested an equivalent force inside. Hysterical witnesses corroborated that image, describing wildly different assaults. Killers seemed to be everywhere. Cell phone callers confirmed the killers remained active. They provided unimpeachable evidence of gunfire from inside the attack zone. The data was correct; the conclusions were wrong. SWAT teams were on the move.
    The narrative unfolding on television looked nothing like the killers' plan. It looked only moderately like what was actually occurring. It would take months for investigators to piece together what had gone on inside. Motive would take longer to unravel. It would be years before the detective team would explain why.
    The public couldn't wait that long. The media was not about to. They speculated.

15. First Assumption

    A n investigative team had assembled before noon. Kate Battan (rhymes with Latin) was named lead investigator. Battan already knew who her primary suspects were. Most of the students were perplexed about who was attacking them, but quite a few had recognized the gunmen. Two names had been repeated over and over. Battan quickly compiled dossiers on Eric and Dylan in the command post trailer in Clement Park. She dispatched teams to secure their homes. Detectives arrived at the Harris place at 1:15, just as the third SWAT team burst into the Columbine teachers' lounge. Eric's parents had gotten word and were already home. The cops found them uncooperative. They tried to refuse entrance. The cops insisted. Kathy Harris got scared when they headed for the basement. "I don't want you going down there!" she said. They said they were securing the residence and removing everyone. Wayne said he doubted Eric was involved, but would help if there was an active situation. Kathy's twin sister was with her. Wayne and Kathy were concerned about the repercussions, she explained; parents of the victims might