Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (/ˈkliːboʊld/ KLEE-bohld; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) were American high school seniors and a mass murder duo who perpetrated the massacre at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, in Columbine, Colorado. Harris and Klebold killed 13 students and one teacher and wounded 23 others. After killing most of their victims in the school's library, they died by suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in United States history. The ensuing media frenzy and moral panic led to "Columbine" becoming a byword for school shootings, and becoming one of the most infamous mass shootings ever perpetrated.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold | |
|---|---|
Harris (left) and Klebold (right) in their 1999 senior year portraits | |
| Born | Eric David Harris April 9, 1981 Wichita, Kansas, U.S. Dylan Bennet Klebold September 11, 1981 Lakewood, Colorado, U.S. |
| Died | April 20, 1999 (Harris aged 18 and Klebold, 17) Columbine High School, Columbine, Colorado, U.S. (both) |
| Cause of death | Suicide by gunshot wound (both) |
| Education | Columbine High School (both) |
| Occupations | Harris: Shift leader at Blackjack Pizza Klebold: Cook at Blackjack Pizza |
| Parent(s) | Harris: Wayne Harris and Katherine Poole Klebold: Thomas Klebold and Susan Yassenoff |
| Details | |
| Date | April 20, 1999 11:19 a.m. – 12:08 p.m. MDT (UTC−6) |
| Location | Columbine High School |
| Targets | Students and staff at Columbine High School; first responders |
| Killed | 14 (total, including a victim who died in 2025)
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| Injured | 23 (3 indirectly; combined total)
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| Weapons | Harris: Hi-Point 995 carbine, Savage 67H pump shotgun, explosives and two knives Klebold: Intratec TEC-DC9, Stevens 311D double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, explosives and two knives |
Harris and Klebold met while they were in middle school and gradually became close. By the time their junior year of high school, they were described as inseparable. Early reports suggested that they were unpopular in school and frequent targets of bullying, though many peers say they were not at the bottom of the school's social hierarchy and each had numerous friends and active social lives. Columbine High School was alleged to have an intense "jock culture", in which popular students, mainly athletes, received from preferential treatment from faculty and other students. Harris and Klebold often wore black trench coats at school and in their everyday attire. As a result, it was widely believed that they were part of a clique in school called the "Trenchcoat Mafia", a group of misfits who supposedly rebelled against the popular students. This was later shown to be untrue, as Harris and Klebold little to no affiliation with the group.
According to their journal entries, Harris and Klebold appear to have begun planning the attack by May 1998, nearly a year beforehand, although they had previously made references to a shooting. Over the following eleven months, they meticulously built explosives and amassed an arsenal of weapons. Both left behind several writings and home videos, created individually and together, that foreshadowed the massacre and outlined their motives. They intended for this material to be widely viewed and to inspire followers, although much of it has never been released by authorities. Their writings and videos also provided insight into their rationale for the shooting. The FBI concluded that Harris exhibited psychopath traits, including narcissism, unconstrained aggression, and a lack of empathy, while Klebold was characterized as an angry depressive with a vengeful attitude toward individuals he believed had mistreated him. However, neither Harris nor Klebold had been formally diagnosed with any personality disorders prior to the attack, so these conclusions were criticized and are often debated. In the years following the massacre, media outlets attributed multiple potential motivating factors to the attack, including bullying, mental illness, racism, psychiatric medication, and exposure to violence in music, movies, and video games. Despite these analyses, the exact motive for the attack remains inconclusive.
Harris and Klebold have become figures in popular culture, often portrayed, referenced, and depicted in various media. Some perpetrators of subsequent attacks have cited the duo as an influence, a phenomenon referred to as the “Columbine effect”.
Early life
Eric Harris
Eric David Harris was born on April 9, 1981, in Wichita, Kansas. His mother, Katherine Ann Poole, was a homemaker. His father, Wayne Harris, served in the United States Air Force as a transport pilot. Both parents were born and raised in Colorado. He had an older brother named Kevin, born in 1978.
When Harris was two years old, the family moved to Dayton, Ohio. In 1989, they relocated to Oscoda, Michigan. While living in Oscoda, pastor William Stone recalled the family as "great neighbors" and said he often saw Wayne highly engaged with his sons. The Harris family then moved to Plattsburgh, New York, in 1991. During his time at Stafford Middle School, Harris played Little League Baseball, regularly attended birthday parties, and was described as "part of the crowd". Kyle Ross, a former classmate in Plattsburgh, remembered him as "just a typical kid." The Harris family then settled in Littleton, Colorado in 1993 following Wayne's retirement from the military. They lived in rented accommodations during their first three years in the area, until purchasing a home south of Columbine High School. Harris's father took a job with Flight Safety Services Corporation, and his mother became a part-time caterer. In a 1997 English class assignment, Harris recalled the difficulty of moving from New York to Colorado: "It was the hardest moving from Plattsburgh. I have the most memories from there. When I left [my friends] I felt alone, lost and even agitated that I had spent so much time with them and now I have to go because of something I can't stop." In one of the so-called "basement tapes", he blamed his father for moving the family frequently, stating that it forced him to "start out at the bottom of the ladder."
Shortly after moving to Littleton, Harris began attending Ken Caryl Middle School, where he became friends with Dylan Klebold. Around the same time, he underwent two surgical operations to correct pectus excavatum, a congenital condition in which the breastbone sinks into the chest. The deformity remained mildly observable at the time of his autopsy.
Harris entered Columbine High School in 1995 as a freshman, shortly after the school had undergone a major renovation and expansion. He soon met Tiffany Typher through a German class; Harris asked her to freshman homecoming, and she accepted. After the event, Typher reportedly lost interest in seeing him for undisclosed reasons. When she refused to date Harris, he staged a mock suicide by lying on the ground at a school bus stop with fake blood, with friends playing along. When Typher screamed for help, Harris stood up and laughed, prompting her to storm off while shouting at him to seek psychological help.
Dylan Klebold
Dylan Bennet Klebold was born on September 11, 1981, in Lakewood, Colorado, to Thomas and Sue Klebold. In an interview with Colorado Public Radio, Sue recalled experienced a fleeting sense of foreboding at Dylan's birth, describing it as "a passing feeling that went over very quickly, like a shadow," which she interpreted as a warning that her child might bring her great sorrow. As an infant, Klebold was treated for pyloric stenosis, a condition in which the opening between the stomach and small intestines thickens, causing severe vomiting during the first few months of life.
Klebold's parents had met when they were both studying at Ohio State University. After they both graduated, they married in 1971, and their first child, Byron, was born in 1978. Thomas worked in geophyiscal consulting and, at the time of the massacre, ran a mortgage management business from home. Sue worked for the Colorado Community College System, administering job training grants for people with disabilities. Both Klebold's parents were described as pacifists who disdained weapons. Klebold and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with their father's Lutheran background while also observing some religious traditions at home reflecting their mother's Jewish heritage.
Klebold attended Normandy Elementary School for first and second grade and then transferred to Governor's Ranch Elementary School where he was part of the Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students (CHIPS) program for gifted children. According to classroom accounts, though Klebold was bright as a young child, he appeared somewhat sheltered in elementary school, which made his transition to middle school difficult. His parents were reportedly unconcerned the difficulties adjusting, assuming it was typical behavior for young adolescents.
During his earlier school years, Klebold played baseball and was described as an avid fan of the sport. He was also a member of the Cub Scouts alongside Brooks Brown, a friend since the first grade.
Background
Personalities
Both Harris and Klebold worked as cooks at a Blackjack Pizza located about a mile south of Columbine High School. Weeks before the attack, Harris was promoted to shift manager. The pair and their group of friends were heavily interested in computers, and were enrolled in a senior-year 6 a.m. bowling class.
Some described Harris as charismatic, and others described him as nice and likable. From some accounts, he had many friends and played midfield for a local soccer team, the Columbine Rush, during his first two years in high school. Josh Swanson, a former teammate, said that Harris was a "solid" soccer player who enjoyed the sport a lot. By his junior year, however, Harris was known to be quick to anger and to threaten people with weapons. Classmates also noted a stylistic change, as he transitioned from preppy attire to dressing in darker, cargo-style clothing. Harris often bragged about his ability to deceive others, once stating in a tape that he could make anyone believe anything.
Though some described Klebold as friendly, many considered him very shy and quiet. He was often fidgety and rarely opened to new people, particularly to women. However, in the final year of his life, many observed a change in his behavior: he became more short-tempered and prone to outbursts of anger. Prior to the shooting, Klebold had been disciplined for swearing at teachers and for defacing a person's locker with a homophobic slur.
Friendship
Much of the information on Harris and Klebold's friendship is unknown, on their interactions and conversations, aside from the Basement Tapes, of which only transcripts have been released, aside from a short audio clip recorded surreptitiously by a victim's father. The pair claimed they were going to make copies of the tapes to send to news stations, but never did so. Harris and Klebold met at Ken Caryl Middle School during their seventh grade year. Over time, they became increasingly close, hanging out by often going out bowling, carpooling and playing the video game Doom over a private server connected to their personal computers. By their junior year of high school, the boys were described as inseparable. Chad Laughlin, a close friend of Harris and Klebold, said that they typically sat alone together at lunch, keeping to themselves.
A rumor eventually started that Harris and Klebold were gay and romantically involved, due to the time the pair spent together. It is unknown if they were aware of this rumor. Judy Brown believed Harris was more emotionally dependent on Klebold, who was more liked by the broader student population. In his journals, however, Klebold wrote that he felt that he was not accepted or loved by anyone. Due to these feelings, Klebold possibly sought validation from Harris. Klebold's mother believes that Harris's rage, intermingled with Klebold's self-destructive personality, caused the boys to feed off of each other and enter in what eventually became an unhealthy friendship.
Columbine High School
At Columbine High School, Harris and Klebold were involved in video and sound productions and worked as computer assistants, maintaining the school's computer server. However, the pair had their access to the server revoked and were suspended in October 1997 after gaining access to students' locker combinations and sharing them.
Early accounts of the shooting depicted Harris and Klebold as very unpopular students and targets of bullying. While sources support accounts of bullying specifically directed toward them,[page needed] claims that they were outcasts have been reported to be false, as both had a close-knit group of friends. Harris and Klebold were initially reported to be members of a clique called the "Trenchcoat Mafia," despite later confirmation that the pair had no connection to the group and did not appear in its photo in Columbine's 1998 yearbook. Harris's father erroneously stated in a 9-1-1 call he made on the day of the shooting that his son was "a member of what they call the Trenchcoat Mafia."[page needed] Klebold and a group of friends attended the high school prom three days before the shootings; his date was classmate Robyn Anderson. Harris, meanwhile, attended the afterparty.
Harris and Klebold linked their personal computers on a network and played video games over the Internet. Harris created a set of levels for the game Doom, which later became known as the "Harris levels". The levels are downloadable over the internet through Doom WADs. Harris had a web presence under the handle "REB" (short for Rebel, a nod to the nickname of Columbine High's sports teams) and other online aliases, including "Rebldomakr", "Rebdoomer", and "Rebdomine". Klebold went by the names "VoDKa" and "VoDkA", after the alcoholic beverage. Harris had various websites that hosted Doom and Quake files, as well as team information for those with whom he gamed online. The sites openly espoused hatred for people in their neighborhood and the world in general. When the pair began experimenting with pipe bombs, they posted results of the explosions on the websites. The website was shut down by America Online after the shootings and was preserved for the FBI.
Initial criminal activity
During the early months of 1997, Harris, Klebold, and others engaged in nighttime acts of criminal mischief on weekends, including setting off explosives, stealing street signs, and vandalizing the homes of classmates the two disliked. In his internet blog, Harris referred to these acts as "rebel missions," and the website posts as "mission logs." Harris later threatened others on his website, "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown." Brown, a former friend, had cut ties with Harris and informed his parents about Harris's alcohol collection after Harris threw a chunk of ice at his car's windshield. Harris first became the subject of a complaint to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office complaint in August 1997 after Brown's brother reported the threats. In March 1998, the Brown family once again contacted police after Harris showcased pipe bombs on the website. It was later revealed that an investigator had drafted an affidavit for a search warrant for the Harris household, but the warrant was never submitted to a judge.
On the night of January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold broke into a parked van in a Dear Creek Canyon Park lot and stole electronic equipment. Shortly afterward, a Jefferson County sheriff's deputy encountered the two boys parked further down the road at another park entrance. Because the park area was closed at that time of night, the deputy approached them to investigate, announcing his presence as one of the boys prepared to move the stolen items into the trunk of the car. After being questioned about the origin of the equipment, Harris admitted to the theft. Both Harris and Klebold were soon charged with mischief, breaking and entering, trespassing, and theft. The two left favorable impressions on juvenile officers, who offered to expunge their criminal records if they agreed to participate in a diversion program that included community service, anger management classes, and counseling.
Several months later, in May 1998, Harris submitted a letter of apology to the owner of the van. In the letter, Harris expressed regret for his actions; however, in a personal journal entry dated April 12, 1998, he wrote: "Isn't america supposed to be the land of the free? how come, If im free, I cant deprive some fucking dumbshit from his possessions If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van in plain sight in the middle of fucking nowhere on a fri-fucking-day night? Natural selection. Fucker should be shot. [sic]".
By February 1999, Harris and Klebold were discharged from the diversion program several months ahead of schedule for good behavior. In the final termination report, their probation officer described Harris as "a very bright individual who is likely to succeed in life," while Klebold was said to be intelligent but in need of understanding that "hard work is part of fulfilling a dream."
Hitmen for Hire
For a December 1998 economics class assignment requiring Harris to create a business service advertisement, he and Klebold produced a video titled Hitmen for Hire, which was released publicly in February 2004. The video depicts them as members of the "Trench Coat Mafia," a group of students known for wearing black trench coats, extorting money in exchange for protecting "preps" from bullies. Although they were not members of the Trench Coat Mafia, they were friends with some of its members. Harris and Klebold wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre, and the video has been described as resembling a dress rehearsal, showing them walking through the school hallways and shooting at bullies outside with fake guns.
Both also displayed themes of violence in their in-class writing projects. Of a Doom-based story that Harris wrote in January 1999, his teacher remarked, "Yours is a unique approach and your writing works in a gruesome way — good details and mood setting." In February 1999, Klebold submitted an English paper describing a tall, left-handed man dressed in a trench coat, hat, and boots, killing nine "college preps" with automatic pistols and explosives. The unnamed character appeared to draw on Klebold's own physical traits and foreshadowed his later involvement in the massacre. When confronted by his teacher about the violent content, Klebold replied, "It's just a story."
Acquiring arms
Harris and Klebold were unable to legally purchase firearms because both were underage at the time. In November 1998, Klebold enlisted Robyn Anderson, an 18-year-old Columbine student and future prom date, to make a straw purchase of two shotguns and a Hi-Point carbine for them. No charges were filed against Anderson in exchange for her cooperation with the investigation following the shootings. After illegally acquiring the weapons, Klebold sawed off his Savage 311-D 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, reducing its overall length to approximately 23 inches (580 mm), while Harris's Savage-Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun was shortened to around 26 inches (660 mm).
Klebold also purchased a TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handgun with a complex ownership history. The manufacturer of the gun first sold it to Miami-based Navegar Incorporated, which then then sold it in 1994 to Zander's Sporting Goods in Baldwin, Illinois. The gun was subsequently sold to firearms dealer Larry Russell in Thornton, Colorado. In violation of federal law, Russell failed to maintain records of the sale, yet he determined that the purchaser was at least twenty-one years of age. Two men, Mark Manes and Philip Duran, were later convicted of supplying weapons to Harris and Klebold.
The bombs used by the pair varied and were crudely made from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, and metal propane tanks. The CO2 and pipe bombs were primed with matches placed at one end of their fuses. Both had striker tips on their sleeves. When they rubbed against the bomb, the match head lit the fuse. The weekend before the shootings, Harris and Klebold had purchased propane tanks and other supplies from a hardware store for a few hundred dollars. Several residents of the area claimed to have heard glass breaking and buzzing sounds from the Harris family's garage, which later was concluded to indicate they were constructing pipe bombs.
More complex bombs, such as the one that detonated on the corner of South Wadsworth Boulevard and Ken Caryl Avenue, had timers. The two largest bombs built were found in the school cafeteria and were made from small propane tanks. Only one of these bombs went off, only partially detonating. It was estimated that if any of the bombs placed in the cafeteria had detonated properly, the blast could have caused extensive structural damage to the school and would have resulted in hundreds of casualties.
Massacre
On April 20, 1999, less than five weeks before Harris and Klebold were scheduled to graduate, Brooks Brown, who was smoking during lunch break, saw Harris arriving late near the school senior parking lot. They had reconciled from their sophomore-year dispute just a few months before the shooting. Brown approached Harris and jokingly scolded him for skipping a morning test, noting that Harris was usually serious about schoolwork and being punctual. Harris replied, "It doesn't matter anymore," and added seconds later, "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Feeling uneasy, Brown left the school grounds. At 11:19 a.m., after walking some distance away from the school, he heard the first gunshots and reported the incident to the police via a neighbor's cell phone.
By that time, Klebold had already arrived at the school in a separate car, and the two boys left two duffel bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb, inside the cafeteria. Their original plan called for the bombs to detonate while Harris and Klebold waited at their cars, shooting, stabbing, and throwing additional explosives at survivors of the initial explosion as they ran out of the school. At noon, this would have been followed up by bombs placed in their personal cars detonating, intended to kill first responders and others on scene. When the devices failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold entered the school and began shooting their classmates and teachers. The Columbine High School massacre was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S history until it was surpassed by the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting committed by Nikolas Cruz on February 14, 2018. Harris was responsible for nine of the fourteen confirmed deaths—Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, Anne Marie Hochhalter (initially left paraplegic and eventually died from her injuries in 2025), teacher Dave Sanders, Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Kelly Fleming, and Daniel Mauser—while Klebold was responsible for the remaining five victims: Kyle Velasquez, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, and Corey DePooter. Twenty-three others were injured, 20 by the shooters, most in critical condition.
Suicide
Of the 56 library hostages, 34 remained unharmed and were able to escape after Harris and Klebold initially left the library area. Investigators later determined the shooters had enough ammunition to have killed all of the hostages. At 12:02 p.m., approximately 20 minutes after their initial shooting spree, which resulted in 12 student deaths, one teacher fatally wounded, and 24 other students and staff injured, ten of whom had been killed in the library, Harris and Klebold returned to the library. They are believed to have returned to observe their car bombs detonate, which had been set up to explode at noon; the devices failed to detonate. Harris and Klebold then fired at police from the west windows, though no one was injured in the exchange. Three to six minutes later, they approached the bookshelves near a table holding Patrick Ireland, who was severely wounded and intermittently conscious, and Lisa Kreutz, a student injured earlier in the library, who was unable to move.
By 12:08 p.m., Harris and Klebold had killed themselves. In a subsequent interview, Kreutz recalled hearing a comment such as, "You in the library", around this time. Harris sat down with his back to a bookshelf and fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth; Klebold went down on his knees and shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9. An article by The Rocky Mountain News stated that Patti Nielson overheard them shout "One! Two! Three!" in unison, just before a loud boom. Nielson said that she had never spoken with either of the writers of the article, and evidence suggests otherwise. Just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Ireland was lying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Underneath the scorched film of material was a piece of Harris' brain matter, suggesting that the latter had already died beforehand.
Suggested rationales
There was controversy over whether Harris and Klebold should be memorialized. Some were opposed, saying that it glorified murderers, while others argued that Harris and Klebold were also victims. Atop a hill near Columbine High School, crosses were erected for Harris and Klebold along with those for the people they killed, but the father of victim Daniel Rohrbough cut them down, saying that murderers should not be memorialized in the same place as victims.
Overview
Harris and Klebold wrote some about how they would carry out the massacre, and less about why. Klebold penned a rough outline of plans to follow on April 20, and another slightly different one in a journal found in Harris's bedroom. In one entry on his computer, Harris referenced the Oklahoma City bombing, and they mentioned their wish to outdo it by causing the most deaths in US history. They also mentioned how they would like to leave a lasting impression on the world with this kind of violence. Much speculation occurred over the date chosen for their attack. The original intended date of the attack may have been April 19; Harris required more ammunition from Mark Manes, who did not deliver it until the evening of April 19.
Harris and Klebold were both avid fans of KMFDM, an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko. It was revealed that lyrics to KMFDM songs ("Son of a Gun", "Stray Bullet" and "Waste") were posted on Harris's website, and that the date of the massacre, April 20, coincided with both the release date of the album Adios and the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Harris noted the coincidence of the album's title and April release date in his journal. In response, KMFDM's Konietzko issued a statement that KMFDM was "against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others" and that "none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever".
An April 22, 1999, article in The Washington Post described Harris and Klebold:
They hated jocks, admired Nazis and scorned normalcy. They fancied themselves devotees of the Gothic subculture, even though they thrilled to the violence denounced by much of that fantasy world. They were white supremacists, but loved music by anti-racist rock bands.
The attack occurred on Hitler's birthday, which led to speculation in the media. Some people, such as Robyn Anderson, who knew the perpetrators, stated that the pair were not obsessed with Nazism nor did they worship or admire Hitler in any way. Anderson stated, in retrospect, that there were many things the pair did not tell friends. In his journal, Harris mentioned his admiration of what he imagined to be natural selection, and wrote that he would like to put everyone in a super Doom game and see to it that the weak die and the strong live. On the day of the massacre, Harris wore a white T-shirt with the words "Natural selection" printed in black.
Bullying
At the end of Harris's last journal entry, he wrote: "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 number, and I asked and all, but no. No no no don't let the weird-looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo." However, in another entry by Eric in his journal, he stated that even if he were complimented and respected more by his peers, the attack would've still, in all likelihood, occurred.
Similarly, Klebold wrote in his journal both about his perceived rejection, a desire to belong, and an extreme contempt for others.In March 1997, he wrote, "I do shit to supposedly ‘cleanse’ myself in a spiritual, moral sort of way... trying not to ridicule/make fun of people ([name omitted] at school), yet it does nothing to help my life morally." Two months later he wrote, "I am GOD compared to some of those un-existable [sic] brainless zombies," referring to his perception of his perceived tormentors.
In the a recorded videotape, Klebold stated, "You've been giving us shit for years. You're fucking gonna pay for all the shit! We don't give a shit. Because we're gonna die doing it." However, he and Harris also stated on the tapes that nobody was to blame and that the attack could not have been prevented.
Accounts from parents and school staff described bullying at Columbine as "rampant." Nathan Vanderau, a friend of Klebold, and Alisa Owen, Harris's eighth-grade science partner, reported that the pair were frequently targeted by other students. Vanderau noted that a "cup of fecal matter" was once thrown at them. Chad Laughlin recounted: "A lot of the tension in the school came from the [1998 senior] class above us. There were people fearful of walking by a table where you knew you didn't belong, stuff like that. Certain groups certainly got preferential treatment across the board. I caught the tail end of one really horrible incident, and I know Dylan told his mother that it was the worst day of his life." According to Laughlin, the incident involved jocks pelting Klebold with "ketchup-covered tampons." Brooks Brown supported Laughlin's account, recalling: "People surrounded them [Harris and Klebold] in the commons and squirted ketchup packets all over them, laughing at them, calling them faggots. That happened while teachers watched. They couldn't fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it." In his 2002 book No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine, Brown also wrote that Harris's chest condition drew ridicule from other students.[page needed]
Other commentators have disputed the theory that bullying was the motivating factor. Jeff Kass who has also published a book on the attack believes that bullying wasn't the cause. Peter Langman also argues against bullying being the cause of the attack. Other researchers have concurred.
Journals and investigation
Harris began keeping a journal in April 1998, a short time after the pair was charged with breaking into a van, for which each received ten months of juvenile intervention counseling and community service in January 1998. They began to formulate plans then, as reflected in their journals.
Harris wanted to join the United States Marine Corps, but his application was rejected shortly before the shootings because he was taking the drug fluvoxamine, an SSRI antidepressant, which he was required to take as part of court-ordered anger management therapy. Harris did not state in his application that he was taking any medications. According to the recruiting officer, Harris did not know about this rejection. Though some friends of Harris suggested that he had stopped taking the drug beforehand, the autopsy reports showed low therapeutic or normal (not toxic or lethal) blood-levels of fluvoxamine in his system, which was around 0.0031–0.0087 mg/ml, at the time of death. After the shootings, opponents of contemporary psychiatry like Peter Breggin claimed that the psychiatric medications prescribed to Harris after his conviction may have exacerbated his aggressiveness.
Klebold entitled his journal A Virtual Book: EXISTENCES. Klebold's first journal entry was March 31, 1997, over a year prior to when Harris began his own writings, and in it, he talks about his depression and suicidal thoughts, over two years prior to the massacre. For the rest of his writings, Klebold often wrote about his view that he and Harris were "god-like" and more highly evolved than every other human being, but his secret journal records the aforementioned self-loathing and suicidal intentions. Page after page was covered in hearts, as he was secretly in love with a Columbine student.
After their arrest, which both recorded as the most traumatic thing they had ever experienced, Klebold wrote a yearbook message to Harris, saying how they would have so much fun getting revenge and killing police, and how his wrath from the January arrest would be "god-like". On the day of the massacre, Klebold wore a black T-shirt which had the word "WRATH" printed in red. It was speculated that revenge for the arrest was a possible motive for the attack, and that the pair planned on having a massive gun battle with police during the shooting. Klebold wrote that life was no fun without a little death, and that he would like to spend the last moments of his life in nerve-wracking twists of murder and bloodshed. He concluded by saying that he would kill himself afterward in order to leave the world that he hated and go to a better place. Klebold was described as being "hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal".
Some of the home-recorded videos, called "The Basement Tapes", have reportedly been destroyed by police. Harris and Klebold reportedly discussed their motives for the attacks in these videos and gave instructions in bomb making. Police cite the reason for withholding these tapes as an effort to prevent them from becoming "call-to-arms" and "how-to" videos that could inspire copycat killers. Some people have argued that releasing the tapes would be helpful, in terms of allowing psychologists to study them, which in turn could possibly help identify characteristics of future killers.
Media accounts
Initially, the shooters were believed to be members of a clique that called themselves the "Trench Coat Mafia", a small group of Columbine's self-styled outcasts who wore heavy black trench coats. Early reports described the members as also wearing German slogans and swastikas on their clothes. Additional media reports described the Trench Coat Mafia as a cult with ties to the neo-Nazi movement which fueled a media stigma and bias against the Trench Coat Mafia. The Trench Coat Mafia was a group of friends who hung out together, wore black trench coats, and prided themselves on being different from the 'jocks' who had been bullying the members and who also coined the name Trench Coat Mafia. The trench coat inadvertently became the members' uniform after a mother of one of the members bought it as a present.
Investigation revealed that Harris and Klebold were only friends with one member of the group, Kristin Thiebault, and that most of the primary members of the Trench Coat Mafia had left the school by the time that Harris and Klebold committed the massacre. Most did not know the shooters, apart from their association with Thiebault, and none were considered suspects in the shootings or were charged with any involvement in the incident.
Marilyn Manson was blamed by the media in the wake of the Columbine shooting, and responded to criticism in an interview with Michael Moore, in which he was asked, "If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people in the community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?", to which he replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them—I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did", referring to people ignoring red flags that rose from Harris and Klebold prior to the shooting.
Psychological analysis
Although early media reports attributed the shootings to a desire for revenge on the part of Harris and Klebold for bullying that they received, subsequent psychological analysis indicated Harris and Klebold harbored serious psychological problems. Harris and Klebold were never diagnosed with any mental disorders, which is overwhelmingly uncommon in mass shooters. According to Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and a clinical psychologist, Harris exhibited a pattern of grandiosity, contempt, and lack of empathy or remorse, distinctive traits of psychopaths that he concealed through deception. Fuselier adds that Harris engaged in mendacity not merely to protect himself, as Harris rationalized in his journal, but also for pleasure, as seen when Harris expressed his thoughts in his journal regarding how he and Klebold avoided prosecution for breaking into a van. Other leading psychiatrists concur that Harris was a psychopath.
According to psychologist Peter Langman, Klebold displayed signs of schizotypal personality disorder – he struck many people as odd due to his shy nature, appeared to have had disturbed thought processes and constantly misused language in unusual ways as evidenced by his journal. He appeared to have been delusional, viewed himself as "god-like", and wrote that he was "made a human without the possibility of BEING human." He was also convinced that others hated him and felt like he was being conspired against, even though according to many reports, Klebold was loved by his family and friends.
Lawsuits
On April 19, 2001, the families of more than 30 victims recieved shares in a $2,538,000 settlement from the families of the perpetrators and the two men convicted of supplying the weapons used in the massacre. The Harris and Klebold parents contributed $1,568,000 to the settlement from their homeowners insurance policies, Mark Manes contributed $720,000, and Philip Duran contributed $250,000. The Harrises and the Klebolds were additionally ordered to guarantee an additional $32,000 for any future claims, while Manes was ordered to hold $80,000 and Duran $50,000 for the same purpose.
One family had filed a $250-million lawsuit against the Harrises and Klebolds in 1999 and did not accept the 2001 settlement. In June 2003, a judge ordered the family to accept a $366,000 settlement. Two months later, the families of five other victims received undisclosed settlements from the Harrises and Klebolds.
Legacy
ITV describes the legacy of Harris and Klebold as deadly, noting that they have inspired several instances of mass killings in the United States and abroad. CNN describes that the duo as having left a lasting mark on pop culture, while the Napa Valley Register has called them "cultural icons". Dave Cullen, the author of Columbine, described Harris and Klebold as the creators of a movement for disenfranchised youth.
Copycats
The Columbine shooting influenced several subsequent school shootings, with many praising Harris and Klebold. Cho Seung-Hui, who perpetrated the Virginia Tech shooting, called them "martyrs". In some cases, it has led to the closure of entire school districts. According to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth".
Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold." Larkin wrote that the Columbine massacre established a "script" for shootings. "Numerous post-Columbine rampage shooters referred directly to Columbine as their inspiration; others attempted to supersede the Columbine shootings in body count."
A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people... charged with Columbine-style plots." A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties. 60 mass shootings have been carried out, where the perpetrators had made at least a single reference to Harris and Klebold.
In 2015, Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before."
In 2024, Natalie Rupnow, who carried out the Abundant Life Christian School shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, was revealed to have worn a KMFDM shirt like Harris, which suggested that she may have intended to copycat Harris when she carried out the shooting.
Fandom
Harris and Klebold have also spawned a fandom that calls itself "Columbiners", primarily active on the blogging site Tumblr. While some members express a scholarly interest in the pair or the events, the majority, mostly young women, express a sympathetic or, at times, sexual interest, in Harris and Klebold. The fandom has produced homoerotic art of the two, fan fiction imaging the their lives had the shooting not occurred, and costumes replicating the outfits Harris and Klebold wore on the day of the attacks. According to the news site All That's Interesting, "Many of these 'Columbiners' have no positive feelings about the massacre, but are instead focused on the troubled inner lives of its perpetrators because they see themselves in them." The fandom has received intense criticism for glorifying Harris and Klebold and for allegedly inspiring shooting plots, such as the Halifax mass shooting plot.
Media about the duo
The documentary film Bowling for Columbine, directed by Michael Moore and released in 2002, focuses on a perceived American obsession with guns, their affect in schools, and their role in the shooting. The film also features interviews with several survivors of the attack as well as people who knew the perpetrators.
The 2003 Gus Van Sant film Elephant depicts a fictional school shooting, some of whose details were based on the Columbine massacre, such as one scene in which one of the young killers walks into the evacuated school cafeteria and pauses to take a sip from a drink left behind, as Harris did during the shooting. In the film, the killers are called "Alex and Eric" after the actors who portray them, Alex Frost and Eric Deulen.
In the 2003 Ben Coccio film Zero Day, which was inspired by the Columbine shooting, two shooters are played by Andre Keuck and Cal Robertson and called "Andre and Calvin" after their actors.
In 2004, the shooting was dramatized in the documentary Zero Hour, with Harris and Klebold portrayed by Ben Johnson and Josh Young, respectively.
In 2005, game designer Danny Ledonne created a role-playing video game entitled Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, in which the player assumes the roles of Harris and Klebold during the massacre. The game received substantial media backlash for allegedly glorifying the pair's actions. The father of one victim told the press, "It [the game] disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent."
The 2016 biographical film I'm Not Ashamed, based on the journals of Rachel Scott, includes glimpses of Harris's and Klebold's lives and of interactions between them and other students at Columbine High School. Harris is played by David Errigo Jr. and Klebold is played by Cory Chapman.
Reaction of Sue Klebold
Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan, was initially in denial about her son's involvement in the massacre, believing, among other things, that he had been manipulated by Harris. However, after viewing the "Basement Tapes" in October 1999, she came to terms with Dylan's role in the attacks. Ten years later, she spoke publically about the Columbine High School massacre for the first time in an essay published in the October 2009 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine. In the piece, Klebold wrote, "For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused", and, "Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love." Stating that she had no knowledge of her son's intentions, she said, "Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there." In Andrew Solomon's 2012 book Far from the Tree, Klebold acknowledged that during the massacre, when she discovered that Klebold was one of the shooters, she prayed that he would die before harming others: "I had a sudden vision of what he might be doing. And so while every other mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, I had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else."
In February 2016, Klebold published a memoir titled A Mother's Reckoning, recounting her experiences before and after the massacre. It was co-written by Laura Tucker and included an introduction by Andrew Solomon. It received favorable reviews, including from the New York Times Book Review, and peaked at number two on The New York Times Best Seller list.
On February 2, 2017, Klebold delivered a speech at a TED Talk titled, "My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story." As of February 2026, the talk has been viewed more than 26 million times on YouTube and the official TED website. In July 2021, Klebold appeared on an episode of the BBC documentary series Storyville, alongside other American parents whose children had committed school shootings.
See also
- God complex
- List of attacks related to secondary schools
- List of school shootings in the United States
Bibliography
- Brown, Brooks; Merritt, Rob (2002). No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine. Lantern Books. ISBN 1-59056-031-0.
- Cullen, Dave (2009). Columbine. TwelveBooks. ISBN 978-0-446-54693-5.
- Daggett, Chelsea (November 2015). "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold: Antiheroes for outcasts" (PDF). Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies. 12 (2). ISSN 1749-8716. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 6, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
- Larkin, Ralph W. (2007). Comprehending Columbine. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-59213-491-5.
- Rico, Andrew Ryan (September 1, 2015). "Fans of Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold". Transformative Works and Cultures. 20. doi:10.3983/twc.2015.0671.
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