The Columbine shooting that took place on April 20, 1999, deemed the worst during its time, reached its 25th anniversary this year. The shooting resulted in the tragic loss of 13 victims and more than 20 others wounded.
Infamous teens Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were the perpetrators of the mass shooting. They were known to be “outcasts” in their high school, and it was later found through diaries of the boys that they had been planning violence for a long time.
Their initial plan of bombing the school cafeteria did not work. In school security camera footage, the boys are seen dropping duffel bags in the middle of the cafeteria and walking out to the parking lot to wait for them to go off. In their diaries, plans and ways to make pipe bombs were detailed, but on the day of the shooting they did not go off.
Due to the malfunction of the bombs, Klebold and Harris decided to go on a shooting spree in the school instead. Although being underaged, they retrieved their guns from a friend of theirs that was of age to buy guns. The guns purchased were two shotguns and a rifle. According to Colorado law during that time, giving an underaged person a rifle or shotgun is not illegal; it is only illegal if the minor is given a handgun.
The boys were seen in footage at the school in trench coats, reenacting the fantasies they had acted out in videos they created for fun. By the end of the mass shooting, Klebold and Harris committed suicide inside the school.
The victims that lost their life due to the shooting were Cassie Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William “Dave” Sanders, 47; Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Townsend, 18 and Kyle Velasquez, 16.
The Columbine Memorial provides a “Ring of Remembrance” that “each family of the victims were asked to provide a unique and personal reflection in text that would honor their loved one. These remembrances were engraved in stone and stand as a tribute to the victims at Columbine High School,” the Columbine Memorial Foundation states. The memorial opened on Sept. 21, 2007.
Townsend had a diary that was found after the shooting. One of her excerpts was etched in the Columbine Memorial in Colorado in her section of the “Ring of Remembrance.” The excerpt reads, “I feel so peaceful, calm and joyful; like I’m the verge of enlightenment … It usually takes a huge trauma to get people to realize what is important and I feel that it is what is going to happen to wake up everyone, to get in touch with their spiritual side.”
