Category: Columbine High School

Powerless.

Eric wanted to be powerful. That’s a sign of powerlessness.

“The next reason is that Zeus and I both like to be powerful and have some control over what is happening.”
-Eric Harris (p.26770)

He felt powerless and out of control of his own life.

The irony is none of us have control, yet we spend countless hours desperately trying to control our lives… some of us recognize this and check out fast.

However, most of us just live with the resulting frustration and depression, many put whipped cream on the situation and “keep trying.” Some of us become life coaches to feel better about our powerlessness by encouraging others to achieve their dreams…

It’s all a distraction from the fact that we aren’t in control.

 

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0

What happened to Eric’s pants?

If you’ve read through the documents, you’ve probably noticed that Eric’s body was received by the coroner’s office without pants. Some speculate that this was a “Jeffco blunder,” but it wasn’t.

The most challenging aspect of researching the Columbine case is assuming that perceived discrepancies indicate a screw-up. It’s frequently stated that “Jeffco botched the investigation,” but that’s not actually true. A botched investigation is one that is carried out badly or carelessly. Jefferson County covered up many things, but the investigation was not careless.

Yes, they covered up interactions with Eric, destroyed their initial timeline, and have not released key pieces of evidence, including the full ballistics reports that show where police casings and bullets landed. However, that’s not a “botched” investigation.  A “botched” investigation and an investigation with cover-ups/lies are two separate things.

This statement was endlessly repeated for years until it became “common knowledge. When you “know” the entire investigation was botched, you’ll see  malice in honest mistakes like typos and transposing of numbers.

It’s certainly important to look into the details, but the coroner didn’t “screw up” and forget to document Eric’s pants.

Someone cut Eric’s pants off his body at the scene

Investigators cut Eric’s pants from his body at the scene. Although there’s no documentation stating why, the most logical explanation is to preserve the evidence on his left leg in the form of blood and tissue.

How do we know they cut Eric’s pants off?

First, we have the autopsy report stating his body was clothed in boxer shorts.

Second, early on, a man named Phil Tkacz – a firefighter from Kentucky – told people he saw photos of Eric’s body without pants, along with photos of .223 casings on the roof of the school. He was taking a course titled “Firefighter Safety in Police Situations” and the photos were part of the presentation.

Phil asked too many questions about Eric’s pants and the .223 casings on the roof and was promptly arrested for allegedly threatening to shoot up a local high school. I was in contact with Phil back in the day and we became pretty good friends online. He was a professional firefighter and was not even interested in the case outside of the questions he had about the photos he was shown.

Eric’s pants were misattributed to Dylan in the evidence logs, but are properly attributed to Eric according to the diagram.

JCSO evidence #1065 are “black pants” listed as items recovered from Eric’s body in the crime scene diagram, but in the computerized evidence log, they are noted as Dylan’s.

However, we know these pants are Eric’s because the crime scene diagram lists them as Eric’s and the handwritten evidence log says they came from body #12, which is Eric’s body.

When the handwritten evidence log was typed, the typist probably misattributed body #12 as Dylan’s. While they should have written body #12, it appears they decided to translate the body number to a name.

Evidence Volume I (p.11291)

Evidence Volume I (p.11594)

Dylan’s pants were assigned JCSO #8684 (assigned by the coroner) and Eric’s pants are JCSO #1065 (assigned at the scene).

 

Why is there no documentation stating who cut Eric’s pants off of his body?

Now we’re getting into territory that could indicate a potential cover-up. In the Library reports, everything is documented, including what was removed during the two bomb sweeps, what was not moved, and when the TEC-9 was removed from Dylan’s body.

However, it’s not documented when/how/why two out of four firearms were moved from their original positions (Hi-Point & Double barrel shotgun), including when/why the action on the double barrel shotgun was closed, nor was it documented when/how/why Eric’s pants were cut off.

I have a theory about this, but I’ll save that for a future edit to this post.

Notes (for my own purposes for when I come back to expand this with the remaining points I have yet to make):

900-1199 library evidence
8700-8714 Eric’s autopsy
8679-8696 Dylan’s autopsy

962 skull fragments
991 skull pieces
1010 hair and tissue
1025 skull pieces
1029 spent 9mm casing right by Eric’s knee
969 also spent 9mm casing between Eric’s legs
970 shot wad under Eric’s right leg
1105 spent 9mm casing outside of Eric’s right leg
1094 and 1095 were shot shells found in Eric’s shotgun
1065 black pants Klebold – misattributed, these are Eric’s pants

8680 bullet in Dylans body bag
8684 black pants with belt
8688 black suspenders

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0

Did Eric and Dylan write about being bullied?

Many people talk about Eric and Dylan’s journals, but they didn’t have journals. They wrote mostly on loose pieces of paper and it wasn’t technically a journal. That’s not too important save for the fact that calling their writings “journals” implies they had a daily/nightly routine where they documented their lives. They didn’t. It was sporadic and random, whenever they felt like it.

When Dave Cullen, author of Columbine and Parkland speaks or writes, he tells people that bullying didn’t cause Eric and Dylan to become violent and claims while they may have been bullied a little, it wasn’t that bad. His reasoning? They didn’t write about it in their journals.

None saw it coming? Joe Stair told me personally, in his car, while we were talking, that he wasn’t at all surprised that they did it. He said a lot of people saw it coming. They didn’t think they would go through with it because of how big of a jump it is from fantasizing about it, but they knew it was on their mind. Dylan even mentioned wanting to shoot kids on the soccer field.

Disclaimer: Please do not throw shade or hate at Dave Cullen. It doesn’t matter how much you disagree with him, he has a different view and there is a reason he has a different view. Everyone deserves respect. Attack/dissect ideas – not people.

Since Cullen is the center of controversy and hate, I need to emphasize that this post is not intended to be the catalyst for a spear-throwing riot. I have avoided discussing Cullen’s book for years because I don’t want people to go attack him, but I need to discuss his opinions for this post.

This post isn’t about Cullen, his opinion happens to be the best example for the point of this post.

Moving on…

Not only did Eric and Dylan mention being bullied (and jocks) in their writings, but I ran a poll on Facebook and found that most bullied kids never write about being bullied in their journals. I have run many polls over the years, and here’s what I found from the last poll I ran (and the only one I have a screen shot for):

45 females and 12 males said they never documented the details of being bullied.
14 females and 6 males said they documented the details of being bullies.

A total of 74% of respondents said they never documented any details of being bullied.

Females usually write down their experiences more than males, and in this poll, 58% of all respondents were females who never documented the details of being bullied.

Interesting, right? Not surprising. I was bullied from 2nd grade through 12th grade and I never wrote about any of the incidents in my journals or notebooks. I expressed my pain and upset, but never documented incidents, names, or anything.

However, the absence of evidence is not, itself, evidence. The absence of gory details, names, and dates in their “journals” does not mean they weren’t bullied.

You can ask anyone who went to Columbine from their group of friends – they got bullied and abused hard, constantly, every single day. In fact, Brooks Brown wrote about the abuse in his book No Easy Answers and discussed it in interviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvquFYMMOrg

Brooks: “They were the bottom two kids in the entire school, not just out of the senior class, the entire school, they were the two uncoolest kids. So they were the losers of the losers.”
:45

Like many other people, Cullen decided that the absence of documented incidents in their writing meant that Brooks was lying about what he witnessed first hand happening at his own high school. Cullen declared Brooks’ first-hand experience a “theory.”

So, did Eric and Dylan mention being bullied in their writings? Did they mention hating and being jealous of the jocks? Yes, absolutely. Many times and on Eric’s website, too.

“Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit, well I will get you all back: ultimate fucking revenge here. You people could have shown more respect, treated me better, asked for my knowledge or guidance more, treated me more like a senior, and maybe I wouldn’t have been so ready to tear your fucking heads off. Then again, I have always hated how I looked, I make fun of people who look like me sometimes without even thinking sometimes just because I want to rip on myself. That’s where a lot of my hate grows from. The fact that I have practically no self-esteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such. Therefore people make fun of me… constantly… therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED.”

-Eric Harris (p.026014)

“If people would give me more compliments all of this might still be avoidable… but probably not. Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face. I’ll get revenge son enough. Fuckers shouldn’t have ripped on me so much huh! HA! Then again it’s human nature to do what you did… so I guess I am also attacking the human race.”

-Eric Harris (p.026015)

“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t fucking say “well that’s your fault” because it isn’t, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no, no no no don’t let the weird looking Eric KID come along, oh fucking nooo.”

-Eric Harris (p.026018)

“Fag jocks have to get their doc martins wet. DIEEE.”

-Eric Harris (p.026235)

And there are other references in the numerous “You know what I hate” rants from Eric’s website… and where he talks about how moving around a lot had a negative impact on him, having to start at the bottom of the ladder at every new school…

Now for Dylan’s writing… spelling errors are from being unable to read his writing. Corrections are always welcome!

“…thinking… about the asshole (redacted) in gym class, how he os me.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026388)

“as I see the people at school – some good, some bad – I see how different I am. I see jocks having fun, friends, women, LIVES or rather shallow existences compared to mine”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026389)

“I didn’t want to be a jock. I hated the happiness that they have & I will have something infinitely better.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026405)

“I am God & the zombies will pay for their arrogance, hate, fear, abandoned & distrust.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026405)

“The zombies will pay for their being, their nature.” “I understand that I can never ever be a zombie, even if I wanted to.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026412)

“I’m not a trendy asshole don’t give a fuck if it’s good enough for you.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026436)

“I swear im like an outcast & everyone is conspiring against me…”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026392)

I have always been hated, by everyone & everything.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026396)

“wanna die & be free with my love… if she even exists. She probably hates me… finding a noldee (?) or a jock who treats her like shit.”

-Dylan Klebold (page needed)

“In 26.4 hours, I’ll be dead & in happiness. The little zombie human fags will know their errors & be forever suffering & mourning.”

-Dylan Klebold (p.026486)

Cullen dismisses all of their mentions of being bullied and losers compared to the jocks as simply “depressed writings of killers.” He cannot see the forest for the trees. He’s staring right at reality, and yet, his vision is clouded by a haze of the new narrative that was intentionally implanted into the world, and Cullen was the ‘spore’ that was inoculated with this new narrative.

He used to see the truth. He wrote about it frequently. Then, something changed. He did an about-face. Did he really discover a deeper truth, or did someone use him to implant a “don’t-look-this-way” narrative?

How can Cullen claim he has seen no evidence that Eric and Dylan were bullied when it’s literally in every video interview, audio interview, and all over the 11k, and even in his former articles?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rLkkGOmMqc

“Joseph Stair says none of the other Trench Coat Mafia knew of a specific plan to attack the school, but did expect some revenge on athletes at Columbine High after four years of battles.”

Joe: “We hated each other, we really did. The athletes would threaten us, leave notes in lockers, as they were driving by they’d throw glass bottles and rocks and things at us, and so their large hatred built up between the two groups.”

Reporter: “Stair said Harris and Klebold asked for no help. He says some members of the Trench Coat Mafia, including himself, did make pipe bombs frequently, as quote ‘something to do.’ But he says the two suspects knew enough about planning an attack and making bombs to pull it off alone.”

Joe: “They knew how to make just about every type of explosive that you can make using household products.”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr-2DG_J1wc

“They were known as the Trench Coat Mafia at our school and the jocks, you know, ridiculed them quite a bit and when they first walked in they said if there’s any jocks in here, they’re dead.”
14:38

Wisher’s friend: “They always wear black clothing or dark clothing, glasses, berets, they get made fun of a lot.”

Wisher: “Not a lot of kids like them.”

Reporter: “They get made fun of a lot?”

Both: “Yeah, by other students sometimes.”
17:26

Chris Wisher and friend

“We were just joking…”

“I’d always say that they’d do that but I was just joking, I never actually thought they’d really do it.”
27:51

Good Morning America Reporter: “One young girl I spoke to said during the shooting she heard the gunmen shouting at some of their victims as loud as they could, “this is what you get for the way you treated us.”
28:56

With Crystal Woodman, Joshua Lapp, Justin Woods

Justin: “They didn’t target jocks or athletes? They opened fire on the students playing soccer.”

Reporter to Lapp: “Some people said that they were shooting at athletes that had sports caps on.”

Lapp: “Yeah, when they first came in, they said, all the jocks please stand up, and no one stood up, and they said all the jocks in here are dead and if you have a hat on or a white shirt with any sports emblem on it, you’re dead.”
33:42

Lapp: “There was a little black kid that I’m pretty good friends with and excuse the language but they said, ‘there’s that little nigger,’ three shots, he paused, they go, ‘is he dead?’ the other one paused and the other one said, ‘yeah he’s dead’ and I mean you could say it’s a racial thing which it appeared to be because it was towards jocks and minorities.”
37:22

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvquFYMMOrg

Devon Adams: “I was pushed against a locker one day by a football player at the school because he saw me talking to Dylan and he asked me, “why are you talking to that faggot? You a dyke?”
1:14

Brooks: “Eric and Dylan did get this every day and we all knew it. And we all talked about it and we laughed about it because that’s all you can do.”

Cue the video of Eric wearing his KMFDM 97 tour shirt.

Brooks: “They’re walking through the halls and you can see a wall of jocks coming at them you get the hell out of their way. It’s their hall, their world. And Eric and Dylan didn’t get out of the way and you see the jocks lay their elbows right into Eric and almost knock the camera out of his hand [someone else was actually filming] and you don’t hear them bitching because they’re so used to it they don’t go ‘what the hell was that?’ they go ‘uh huh’ and they just move on because its so common place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxdf5oU5rAQ

Tad Boles: “Most of the group were considered outcasts to a point because we all hung out together, dressed the same way, everybody pretty much avoided us.”
1:21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D48OoBNsZQ8

Randy Brown: “Here were three felonies we had turned into them, making and detonating pipe bombs and threatening my son’s life and they didn’t pursue it. They didn’t do their job.”

Brooks: “I was utterly dumbfounded that they did nothing with the web pages. Eric was saying how he was going to blow people up, hey I’m making pipe bombs, I’ve got the designs for them on my website, I’m going to kill these people, here’s why. That’s a level beyond making a joke.”
4:03

Nate Dykeman, about Eric’s hit list: “It was a little piece of paper that he had kept in his wallet just a list of names that he would update every day if somebody shoved him or someone called him something he would write their name down on it.”
7:00

District Attorney Dave Thomas: “A lot of the kids said oh we knew, we knew what was going on. I’ll tell ya the adults didn’t know.”
1:00

Michelle Hartsough: “No one who could do something did something. I knew it, a lot of people knew it, but…”
14:44

Then we have Evan Todd’s statement to TIME admitting he bullied Eric and Dylan as if to brag about it:

“Evan Todd, the 255-lb. defensive lineman who was wounded in the library, describes the climate this way: “Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects,” Todd says of Klebold, Harris and their friends. “Most kids didn’t want them there. They were into witchcraft. They were into voodoo dolls. Sure, we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It’s not just jocks; the whole school’s disgusted with them. They’re a bunch of homos, grabbing each other’s private parts. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease’ em. So the whole school would call them homos, and when they did something sick, we’d tell them, ‘You’re sick and that’s wrong.’””

Time Magazine
December 20, 1999
pp.50-51

Then there are all the recollections from the 11k where witnesses discussed incidents of bullying as documented by SchoolShooters.info:

John Savage
: 566: DK taunted for clothes

Josh Chavez
: 736: DK made fun of in gym; called Stretch; uncoordinated, not good at sports

Danielle Danford
: 770: DK once spoke of jocks giving him trouble

Joseph Ragole
: 1,102: jocks picked on EH/DK in halls

Jordan Grimm
: 5,70102: he taunted DK about coat

Mr. Peter Horvath
(CHS dean): 5,708:34 weeks prior to attack, EH and DK said a student was mouthy to them

Susan DeWitt
: 6,196: EH mad at Mike Dinkle for making fun of him (apparently this was behind EHs back); (also
noted in Susans report on p. 18,390: EH upset/hurt that Mike Dinkle made fun of him)

Dustin Harrison
: 6,576: E &D harrassed about clothes; 6577: teachers did not intervene when EH/DK were harassed in class

Dustin Thurmon
: 7,261: made fun of EH/DK for trench coats in 90 degrees; taunted them in bowling class

Mollie Weksler
: 7,35758: teachers and a staff member picked on EH/DK

Frank Zirger
Chris Morris
: 9,823: EH picked on by jocks because he was small

Mr. Robert Kirgis
: 10,160/10,170: heard EH/DK mention they were picked on by jocks

[Blacked out]
: 10,264: relentless in his abuse of EH during gym; EH bad in sports; others teased him, too

[Blacked out]
: 10,265: had friends who taunted EH

[Blacked out]
: 10,273: made fun of EH in gym; had big head on skinny body; made fun of lots of people (not just EH)

Robert Kirgis
: 10,49092: EH and DK said they got picked on because they were nerds

Kristi Epling / Alyssa Sechler
: 10,71819: EH was teased by jocks for how he dressed and his size

Cory Friesen
: 10,726: he said EH/DK were picked on constantly at school

Chris Morris
: 10,83435: EH picked on more than DK; EH depressed about his size and getting picked on

Robert Perry
: 10,853: like a lot of other TCM members, he [EH] had been constantly picked on, taunted, and had food thrown at him

[Blacked out]
: 18,989: student had run-ins with Rocky Hoffschneider, who had also harassed EH/DK

[Blacked out]
: 19,648: DK made fun of because he didn’t fit in and was very odd

[Blacked out]
: 19,710: he and others teased EH relentlessly in gym because he was bad at sports

Other accounts:
In fact, a typical Columbine school day for Harris and Klebold was torture. Former student Devon Adams told the Governor’s Columbine Review Commission that the boys were regularly called homos, fags, losers, weirdoes, and freaks.’

Student Nathan Vanderau witnessed a cup of human feces being thrown at Eric and Dylan.

Harris got it worse than most, not just because he dressed weird or was one of the computer nerds, but also because he was short, he was a transplant from out-of-state (like Andy Williams) and, due to an embarrassing indent in his chest, he never took his shirt off during P.E., giving the jocks more ammo to attack him.

Former Columbine student Brooks Brown recounted one incident: ‘I was smoking cigarettes with [Klebold and Harris] when a bunch of football players drove by, yelled insults, and threw a glass bottle that shattered near Dylan’s feet. I was pissed, but Eric and Dylan didn’t even flinch. ‘Don’t worry about it, man,’ Dylan said. ‘It happens all the time.’“

Once, a student reported them to the administration for allegedly having brought drugs to school, just to humiliate them for a laugh. Harris and Klebold were dramatically removed from class and searched – as were their lockers and cars. No drugs were found, but the damage was done.

They were so marked for abuse that even talking to them was dangerous. One female student recounted how, when she was a Columbine freshman, some jocks spotted her talking to Dylan Klebold in the school hallway between classes. After she walked away from him, one of the bullies slammed her against the lockers and called her a “fag lover.” None of the students came to help her – and when asked later why she didn’t report the incident to the administration, she replied, “It wouldn’t do any good because they wouldn’t do anything about it.”

People surrounded them in the commons and threw ketchup covered tampons all over them, laughing at them, calling them pussies, Brown says. “That happened while teachers watched. They couldn’t fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it.”

“I know Dylan told his mother that it was the worst day of his life said Chad Laughlin”

Klebold may have been referencing this incident when he wrote in Harris’ yearbook of taking “our revenge in the commons.

Eric and Dylan, who usually wore black instead of the standard Columbine jacket and sweats, came in for similar harsh treatment. Jocks pushed them against lockers, yelled faggots and “loser” at them while they ate lunch in the cafeteria.

Eric and Dylan took the brunt of a lot of people’s aggression,“ says Brooks Brown.

“The stuff wasn’t always noticeable,” says Devon Adams. “There’s 2,000 kids in our school, all trying to go down one hallway in a certain period. Unless a full-on fight breaks out, you can’t really see what’s going on. Dylan would say it made him mad. He and Eric never asked for it. They never fought back, either.”

“Every day being teased and picked on, pushed up against lockers just the general feeling of fear in the school. And you either respond to a fear by having fear, or you take action and have hate. And defend yourself. And they chose a real disgusting way of doing that.Brooks Brown in Rolling Stone

Blackjack co workers Kim and Sara grew closer to Eric. He complained that some jocks were bullying him.

Sara never witnessed any taunting, but she did see classmates give Eric weird looks. She thought it was because of how he dressed. The boy who wore khaki when he started at Blackjack now draped himself in black cargo pants and black T-shirts.
Kim and Sara couldn’t understand why their classmates didn’t like Eric.

“No one ever gave him a chance,” Kim said.

Sara Schweitzberger, 15, had a gym class with Mr. Klebold, and said it was obvious he felt socially ostracized. “He really felt unloved,” she said. “He wasn’t so bad. He was lonely. I just wish I could give him a hug and tell him that I care.

Newsweek quotes a classmate saying that the two often walked the halls of Columbine “with their heads down, because if they looked up they’d get thrown into lockers and get called a fag

Time reports that they were routinely physically threatened and taunted as “dirt bags” and “inbreeds”

Finally, some of what E &D themselves left behind regarding them being bullied

Dylan:
I swear, like im an outcast, & everyone is conspiring against me”-May ’97

My god, I have always been hated, by everyone & everything, just now more-September ’97

Dylan: “If you could see all the anger I’ve stored over the past four fucking years…”

Dylan: “You made me what I am. You added to the rage.”

Dylan says that as far back as the Foothills Day Care center he hated the “stuck-up” kids who he felt hated him. “Being shy didn’t help. I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us shit for years.”-March’99

Why do people choose to close their eyes to the truth?

Why do so many people ignore the obvious and well-documented, well-reported bullying? They have collapsed “bullying made Eric and Dylan feel angry, depressed, and worthless” with “bullying is justification for murder.” These people, like Cullen, believe that to acknowledge bullying shaped them into killers is to say that bullying justified their murderous actions.

That’s the only reason people can’t see the truth. They can’t separate what is (bullying) from the ideology they think comes with that.

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0

Why did the cafeteria bombs fail?

Everyone has an opinion about why the cafeteria bombs failed to explode. Here’s some insight that will help make this particular issue a bit more clear.

First, the cafeteria bombs were not designed to explode with a detonator as in: detonator goes off, bomb goes boom. The tanks were wired for a BLEVE. They built their bombs so that the timers initiated a fire and that fire would, over time, create the BLEVE.

If you don’t understand a BLEVE, you’ll have to do your own research.

They used model rocket igniters, not detonators. This is documented in the recovered evidence. However, many people have said their bombs didn’t go off because of “faulty wiring.”

I decided to investigate to find the source of this claim and I believe I’ve found it.

I found an interview with Bruce Porter who said at 11am, Eric Harris walked into the cafeteria with a blue duffel bag containing two 20lb. propane tanks inside with a detonator. He said, “I spoke to one of the bomb squad experts from the CBI who told me that a single wire in the detonator of that propane tank bomb failed, it was loose.”

First, there were two bags, each containing one propane cylinder and wired separately.

Second, there were no detonators because that’s not how a BLEVE works. Maybe he used the word “detonator” to refer to a model rocket igniter. Okay, that’s possible, but it’s not possible that a single loose wire would cause both bombs to fail. It’s also not possible for a wire to have been loose.

There are no loose wires possible when creating a basic circuit with an alarm clock. Electronics 101 here. What’s more likely is that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the bags for the fire to fully ignite when the alarm went off.

Consider that police routinely lie to the public about bomb components and construction during an active investigation. They also don’t want people knowing how to make bombs.

All that’s interesting, but did anyone catch that Bruce Porter said a bomb squad expert from the CBI told him Eric walked into the cafeteria at 11am?

According to the official story, they placed the bombs in the cafeteria between 11:14 and 11:22. We know the official story is wrong because someone found the footage of Eric and Dylan each carrying one duffel bag into the cafeteria… at 11am, one right after the other.

How did Bruce Porter and his source, the CBI, know they put the bombs in the cafeteria at 11am?

People say, “oh my, I can’t believe the police didn’t catch Eric and Dylan placing the bombs in the cafeteria on the cafeteria tape! How could they be so sloppy?!”

Did they really miss it? Or did they just pretend not to see them, make up a story about the bombs suddenly appearing after the tape change, all as part of the “cover-up” to alter their official timeline?

Those cafeteria tapes have been doctored, as several video experts have shared over the years. When enlarged, there are pixels that appear around Eric and Dylan’s bodies that should not be there if they were really in the frame.

The cafeteria tapes were admittedly immediately sent out to be edited and the originals have never seen the light of day.

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0

“Were Eric and Dylan Murderers or Heroes?”

Many, many years ago when I was still on Facebook, someone posted a poll asking if Eric and Dylan are heroes. This is a common topic in Columbine-centered groups, and it’s a perfectly valid conversation.

Here’s a screen shot of this poll:

As you can see, my answer was “No” and you can see my profile picture with my dog in a pink sweater. Just stating the obvious in case someone decides to twist my words here.

A couple years ago, someone posted another poll in a Facebook group asking, “are Eric and Dylan murderers or heroes?”

This seems like a pointless, opinionated poll. Who cares how people respond? However, the question itself poses two significant problems. [Watch out – here comes a Long.Ass.Post!]

[Problem #1] Asking if they are “Murderers or Heroes” implies that killing people has the potential to be a heroic act, and when that’s so, it doesn’t count as murder.

Assessing murder as a heroic act (or not) is entirely subjective, and there are only two general groups of people who would consider Eric and Dylan heroes.

The first group consists of people who are misusing the word “hero” in order to make a controversial statement that pisses people off from the safety of their bedrooms. You know, shit disturbers.

The other group consists of people who honestly believe the victims deserved to die that day. This can include people who fully understand they didn’t target people they hated; this group of people agree with killing everyone and don’t believe anyone is truly innocent because they hate humanity.

Defining “Murderer” and “Hero” would eliminate the question all together and reveal it to be no question at all, but a thinly disguised attempt at garnering the agreement and support of people who do consider Eric and Dylan heroes.

Nobody who thinks otherwise would ever pose this question in this way, and certainly not in a poll. [By now, the OP has probably friended everyone who said “hero” or “martyr” or called Eric a “God.”]

[Problem #2] Asking if they are “Murderers or Heroes” causes people to choose one over the other on conscious and subconscious levels. Sometimes the choices won’t be the same. For example, someone who is wrestling with their ability to identify with the shooters might subconsciously choose “heroes” while consciously choosing “murderers” (because that’s what’s “right”) and this will create cognitive dissonance for them.

Neither choice will sit quite right with them on a conscious level. They’ll feel torn. Rolling this question around in their mind will also potentially drive them further into seeing them as heroes because in order to see them as murderers they will need to let go of their identification with them. If they aren’t ready to let that go, then they’re going to stick with “heroes” because it preserves their own self-image and identifying with Eric and Dylan is probably the center of their world.

The question “are they murderers or heroes?” is a loaded question that forces a person to choose between acknowledging an indisputable fact (they are murderers) and embracing an ideology (they were heroes). You can’t pit a fact against an ideology and have a fair question. It’s like saying, “would you like to eat your pasta with a fork or a zebra?” Or, “do you think Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer, or a hero?”

The biggest problem? Those who read this question and embrace the ideology (they were heroes) automatically become at odds with facing the fact that they were murderers. They can’t see both because it’s an either/or question. The question is deeply problematic. It’s a leading question that divides every single person who reads it, even if they don’t reply or take it seriously.

What makes it worse is people have existing associations with what a “murderer” is (lowlife, scumbag, freak, loser, degenerate, evil, etc. then add in all of the opinions they’ve formed while growing up) and because of that existing association, anyone who can identify with Eric and Dylan will be triggered (subconsciously) by the use of the word “murderer” in a negative way. They can’t admit that they are murderers because they equate murderers with (insert negative association here). They equate murderers with scumbags, people who are losers, idiots, etc.

This is why it takes so long for people to come out of the space where they view Eric and Dylan as heroes. The way we discuss the case keeps people in an either/or exclusionary world. That is a dangerous world to live in.

When someone can identify with Eric and Dylan, they can’t acknowledge that they are murderers (scumbags) because that would mean they, themselves, are scumbags.

Questions like this one drive people further into denying the terrible crimes of murder Eric and Dylan committed because it’s an either-or question that pits two options against each other that aren’t either-or options.

It seems like I’m picking apart the question for no good reason, but I’m not. The way people dialogue and converse about incidents like Columbine directly shapes how they continue to view the incident, their world, and shapes how they live their lives.

Our language creates our world and our life.

The question, “Murderers or Heroes?” would never cross the mind of someone who doesn’t admire their actions in some way. Someone who doesn’t consider them heroes would never think to ask people to choose between a fact (they killed people) and the ideology of heroism.

The way we view the world lives in the language we use to describe the world.

What we say shapes everything we experience. One tiny word can close us into a narrow, limited box and we won’t even have a clue that we’re trapped.

For instance, most live in an exclusionary “either-or” world, where they say things like, “I’d like to go to your party, BUT I have to study.” The word “but” leaves no option to do both. The person really believes they must choose between studying and going to the party because they use language that only allows for choosing one over the other.

You could say, “nonsense, they can do whatever they want!” but when you really look at how you speak, and the words you use, you’ll see that your actions follow your words, not theoretical possibilities. And declaring that BUT puts you in a position with zero options other than choosing the party over studying, or vice versa.

The word “but” creates stress when making your decision. It creates the need to weight the pros and cons. “Here are all the reasons I should go to the party instead of studying.” “Here are all the reasons I should stay home and study.”

There’s no room for any other decision-making method in an exclusionary universe where it’s this or that. That’s a serious loss of power.

Living in an inclusionary universe where it’s this and that removes the stress, limitations, and opens up possibility.

“I’d like to go to your party, AND I have to study, so let me figure out a plan.”

You couldn’t even think about figuring out a plan when you said “BUT I have to study.” The word BUT puts an end to all resolutions and possibilities.

And so it is with the way Columbine is discussed… language is everything. The words used, the way questions are formulated, everything, shapes what and how you see Columbine and yourself through that lens…

It’s simple, but not easy.

In an exclusionary, this or that universe, someone might say, “I want to acknowledge that they are murderers, but I understand why they killed, and I can’t reconcile the two.”

There’s no need to reconcile anything. They are murderers and some people understand why they killed. These two facts can co-exist. The original question (are they heroes or murderers) is unfair, leading, and loaded.

The original question is a setup. It’s a question that suggests it’s optional to believe in a fact (they are murderers).

A fair question for discussion or thought would be, “are they heroes or cowards?” Or, “were they justified in their murders?”

Discussing a dichotomy of ideologies (hero/coward) is purely subjective, but at least it’s a fair discussion.

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0

Heroes Always Wear the Morals of Villains

We love paying $12.50 to immerse ourselves in the story of a fearless hero who saves the world while wearing the morals of a villain. Sometimes heroes need to kill everyone in their path, commit theft, arson, treason, betray their friends and family, and desecrate an entire city in order to save innocent lives.

We celebrate Hollywood heroes regardless of their actions, so long as they’ve got sex appeal. And movies don’t do well unless the good guys win, so we know they’ll eventually get around to saving innocent people.

Destruction comes with the territory of being a hero. When you’re on a mission with the fate of the world at stake, it’s okay to demolish an entire city killing innocents including women and children. It’s an unfortunate “casualty of war,” as they like to say. And they’re right. The very thing that makes someone a hero is the destruction of oppression.

You can’t be a hero to a group of people without destroying their oppressors. You’ll never be seen as a hero if you try to have a conversation or “work things out.” Hero status is virtually guaranteed when you seek destructive revenge for perceived injustice relatable to others.

Kind of reminds me of Columbine.

Hundreds – perhaps thousands – of teenagers see Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as heroes.

In real life, we wouldn’t praise someone if they dropped a bomb on our house or executed our entire family in front of us. We wouldn’t give a damn who they were saving, and we certainly wouldn’t consider them a hero. But we’re willing to suspend those reactions in front of the big screen. Why?

Human beings are not-so-secretly fascinated with violence and destruction.

This sense of duty and mission is the reason military and spy movies are so captivating. It is in our nature to desire to feel important, to have a mission, break the rules and fly by the seat of our pants… to fail and then refine our tactics and up our game until we emerge as the victorious hero who saves the world.

But this isn’t just something kids do. This isn’t something mentally ill people do. This is something we all do.

Some of us do it by putting lives in actual danger, and some of us never take any risks at all, so we fork over $12.50 for a movie ticket every time we want to experience that adrenaline rush. We don’t want to get our hands dirty, so we let someone else do it for us; we live vicariously through characters on the big screen from the safety of our dilapidated, smelly theater seats.

Real risk is for other people. That’s why so many people see Eric and Dylan as heroes. They don’t have to get their hands dirty in order to feel like justice has been served.

Eric and Dylan took risks those people aren’t willing to take. They’re fulfilling their need to feel important by holding Eric and Dylan as heroes. They’re not willing to take the risk themselves. They’re not “there” yet. They aren’t entirely hopeless. They’re still hanging onto… something.

Risks are a requirement to play in this world.

By not taking any risks, you’re actually taking the biggest risk of all. The risk of living a mediocre life, never finding your joy and never truly living.

Dylan and Eric took the biggest risk of all. We call them cowards, but they were not cowards by any means. They faced death head-on, with no holds barred they planned and executed their own deaths. They saw it coming. They breathed it in with every inhalation. They counted down the number of meals they had left to eat on this planet. They were admittedly scared at times, but fear never stopped them.

Have you ever noticed that villains take more risks than heroes? And heroes only take risks when they wear the morals of a villain? Set aside good/bad, right/wrong and really look. It’s the villains who take the biggest risks with the biggest stakes.

I invite you to consider that perhaps we are the cowards, hiding behind our fear of death. And the reason we hate them so much is because we can’t face the way they unflinchingly embraced their own deaths.

They risked everything: their own lives, everyone else’s lives, their futures, their parents’ lives and reputation… they even risked the lives of their own friends in order to pursue their goal. Their mission mattered more than life itself.

We hate them because they gave their lives for their personal definition of freedom from oppression, yet we’re not willing to risk so much as being criticized to get what we want for our own lives.

I don’t think movies are to blame, I think movies show us what’s deeply hidden in our souls, fears, desires, and curiosities we’re too afraid to face. After all, who makes the movies? We make the movies. The big screen only shows what’s already in our hearts and minds.

Imagine if we pursued our positive dreams and goals with the same disregard for risk as Hollywood villains and school shooters have. Imagine if we were willing to die for the opportunity to pursue our big dream…

Instead, we hold back, sit on the couch, order a pizza and say, “eh, tomorrow’s another day…”

We all feel a drive to do something without anyone’s permission, to run freely through this world, without concern for anyone who may wish to stop us—and vanish through obstacles like a ghost walks through walls.

But something holds us back. Perhaps we’re not willing to risk being seen. Failure.

Maybe we’re all just winging it. Struggling and striving to keep up appearances, maintain an identity and survive.

Maybe we’re the cowards, hiding behind the fear of non-existence disguised as the fear of death. Maybe having the guts to do something with your life is a rare trait.

Maybe most people don’t feel any real urge to do anything at all until death is staring them in the face. Maybe most people only feel compelled to take action when nothing matters anymore… when suffering and death are an inevitable reality. At that point, there’s nothing left to lose. Why not put yourself out there?

Villains never wait to take inspired action.

Perhaps we can learn something from them.

Perhaps we can learn something from Eric and Dylan.

Regardless of their actions, they didn’t sit on the couch, gain 100 pounds eating potato chips while watching Netflix every night for twenty years, working the same boring job, complaining about the same boring people, posting the same boring shit on Facebook day in and day out.

What they did was wrong, but they’re no different than any Hollywood villain.

Think about that the next time you watch a movie and celebrate the destruction caused by the hero of the movie. Ask yourself, “why am I feeling excited to watch a virtual depiction of destruction and death, but real-life destruction and death is bothersome?”

This isn’t about Eric and Dylan.

This is about you.

What’s the difference between a destructive, yet celebrated Hollywood hero… and Eric and Dylan? Why is one celebrated while the other isn’t?

Why do we enjoy and celebrate the depiction of violence when it’s attributed to someone we’re told is a hero?

What happened to morality?

Anyone have a Cracker Jack box? Asking for a friend…

Posted on by Spiritual Heretic 0