Over at CNN, we find out that the diaries of the cowards responsible for the Columbine attack have been released to the public. We can learn a little about the jack-holes responsible for the attack from these, and maybe a little about their families, as well.
On a calendar entry dated the day of the attack, April 20, the time 11:10 is written across the top — an approximate reference to when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold pulled out their weapons inside the suburban high school and started firing.
The two killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives in what remains one of the deadliest school attacks in U.S. history.
Elsewhere in the calendar are notations including “get nails” and “get propanes, fill my clips” and “finish fuses.”
Well, I’m already forming an opinion based on that last paragraph. Those of you that know me can guess what it is. Those of you that don’t know me will have to deduce it from what I have to say about the event and the diaries.
The newly released documents include a tirade by Eric Harris in which he wrote that he and Klebold hoped to carry out an even bigger attack. He said that they wanted to torture and kill the family of a former friend and hoped learn enough about bombs to be able to set off hundreds around houses, roads, bridges and gas stations.
“It’ll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. … I want to leave a lasting impression on the world,” he wrote
And he did. The impression I get is that he was a selfish, cowardly ass-hat who thought his pathetic life would somehow be viewed as more important than it really was after he killed people and then shot himself. Does anyone else think I’m right on this?
In one school paper, Harris writes about Nazism. Another document is an essay he wrote for a court-ordered anger management class he attended after he and Klebold were convicted of breaking into a van in 1998.
“I believe the most valuable part of this class was thinking up ideas for ways to control anger and for ways to release stress in a non-violent manner,” he wrote.
I’ve known a few folks who have had to do these anger management classes. The impression I get from them is that as long as you write something along the lines of what the instructors want to hear, you’ll be viewed as making progress. None of the people I’ve known who have done this have actually felt the classes helped in managing anger. Certainly, that looks to be what Harris was doing. I could be wrong.
Entries in a journal kept by Harris’ father, Wayne Harris, were also released Thursday. Some addressed threats made by his son against a classmate more than a year before the attack. Brooks Brown reported that Harris had threatened him sometime in early 1998.
“We feel victimized,” Wayne Harris writes in the journal. “We don’t want to be accused everytime something happens. Eric is not of fault. Brooks Brown is out to get Eric. Brooks had problems. … manipulative con artist.”
Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel was among those slain, said he had not yet read the documents. He was struck by the fact that Wayne Harris had kept a diary tracking his son’s problems.
‘It tells you this kid was dangerous’
“It tells you this kid was dangerous,” Rohrbough said. “The premise that these are families that didn’t know what was going on in their homes is completely refuted by this journal. They used all the influence they could muster to keep their kids out of trouble.”
I have no real comment here. I’ve not read enough to know if this is correct or not. Rohrbough’s observation may be spot on. But I do see that Wayne Harris also knew how to write to win friends – “Brooks had problems. … manipulative con artist.” Yeah, that’s a way to make a good impression, should your writings ever get out.
Remarking on the possibility that he and Klebold would survive the Columbine attack, Harris wrote the two would try to escape to a foreign country where they couldn’t be extradited.
“If there isnt such place then we will hijack a hell of a lot of bombs and crash a plane into NYC with us inside (f)iring away as we go down. just something to cause more devistation.”
Now how could people say his family should have known about his problems? Clearly, he was a loving individual…
Thus endeth the useless writings I offer for this.
[tags]Columbine, Cowards, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold[/tags]