Family, Entertainment, Peer Cliques, Racism or Claim to Fame?.
Which one was it for the Columbine Massacre?.
Teen violence runs rampant across our country. Sadly, it happens everywhere. Unfortunately it hit a town in Colorado. The town of Littleton was not ready for America's most deadly high school shooting. April 20, 1999 was a sunny day for the students at Columbine High School (Sampson 1a). Silence of a normal school day was broken at 11:30 am. Two boys stormed the school with guns blazing and bombs exploding, wearing long black trench coats. Witnesses said that they first targeted specific people especially jocks and ethnic minorities. The bloody rampaged spanned for four long, terrifying hours (Obmascik 1a).
"I saw a girl get shot because she was praying to God,"" said Evan Todd, 15, sophomore. "They shot a black kid. They called him a nigger. They said they didn't like niggers so, they shot him in the face- (Obmascik1 a). One student recounted the killers mocking Isaiah Shoels' (the African American boy who was shot) murder, saying that the brains that spilled out were awesome (Obmascik 2a).
These two sick individuals reeked havoc at this school for four hell-raising hours.
Not only did they shoot specific targets, but also they were just spraying anybody with bullets. The chaos finally stopped when the two boys committed suicide (Gibbs 24).
This blood bath killed 13 and wounded 23 people (Pooley 27). Eric Haris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, ironically conspired this massacre on the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth (Obmascik 1a). Both were part of the Trench Coat Mafia, a clique of out cast kids (Gibbs 43). .
What does it take for two seniors to become so filled with hate that they would design such a plot? In both of their lives, the two boys showed signs. Some signs were subtle, some signs were blatant. What drove these two boys to become killers? Was it family, entertainment, peer cliques, racism, or desire for a claim to fame? Each boy showed similar signs of hatred.
