Eric Harris was evil!
AGC Queen
Washington Post Staff Writers
LITTLETON, Colo., April 28勇ric Harris thought about war, fantasized about war
and wrote about war. He was thrilled when he heard, one morning in philosophy
class, that the United States was on the verge of bombing Yugoslavia. Rebecca
Heins, who sat next to him, remembers Harris saying, "I hope we do go to war,
I'll be the first one there." He wanted to be in the front lines, he said. He
wanted, as he put it, to "shoot everyone," Heins recalls.
Harris said that morning that he hoped he would get drafted. But then he took
direct action to improve his chances of becoming a real warrior: He tried to
enlist in the Marines. He seemed a good candidate, physically trim and
extremely smart. But he was not destined to storm a beach or parachute behind
enemy lines in the uniform of his nation.
On a visit to his home April 15, Marine recruiters learned from Harris's
parents that their son took a powerful antidepressant called Luvox.
Harris had explicitly stated on his application that he did not take any
prescription drugs, so the Marines rejected him.
Five days later, Harris and his buddy Dylan Klebold staged their own private
war at Columbine High School, killing 13 people before they finally killed
themselves.
In hindsight there were many clues, many peculiar signs, that Harris, who has
emerged as the leader of the rampage, and Klebold, the follower, were actively
dangerous, that they weren't just rebels, or juvenile delinquents, or "Goths"
who liked to wear black and listen to German rock bands. There is now a trail
of evidence that the two telegraphed their actions.
But they also operated under the general camouflage of teenage life, when dark
moods and obsessive thoughts and sudden changes in clothing and beliefs are not
all that strange. The Columbine case shows how difficult it is to separate the
rebels and individualists and creative people from the serious menaces to
society -- until something horrible happens.
In a childhood memoir he composed for a creative writing class one day in early
April, Harris re-created a world in which he and his older brother, Kevin, were
young boys, sons of an Air Force pilot, playing a war game in his back yard in
small-town Plattsburgh, N.Y.
But the war game wasn't just a game. In the memoir, the boys were Rambo-like
heroes, caught in a genuine battle for survival. Armed with M-16s, Eric and his
brother were fending off an entire army of assailants.
"It sounded like they were in Vietnam," says classmate Domonic Duran. "They
were running away from the enemy, diving under logs, hiding from helicopters,
throwing pine cones that were like grenades. It was shocking because it was so
good."
So good, in fact, that when it was read aloud to the class by a friend --
Harris declined the honor -- the students snapped their fingers vigorously, the
class sign of approval. No one could have known that the high school literary
triumph prefigured the horror to come, with Klebold cast as the brother and all
of Columbine High as the emeny.
Not only friends were fooled by Harris and Klebold. So were law enforcement
authorities and counselors who dealt with the two after they were arrested for
burglarizing a car. When a judge asked Eric Harris what kind of grades he got,
Harris answered, "A's and B's, your honor" -- which was true. When a neighbor
heard a racket at the Harris house the day before the shootings, he
investigated and saw the teenagers banging pipes and breaking glass. It was
material for their pipe bombs. The boys looked at the neighbor, smiled, and
gave two thumbs up.
Also fooled, apparently, were their parents.
"You can't imagine how confused they are," said Randy Brown, a friend of Thomas
and Susan Klebold. He was one of six people, other than the parents and a
minister, who attended Dylan Klebold's funeral.
"If you knew this kid and you knew what he was like -- other than the fact that
he was associated with Eric -- you would never believe this was possible. . . .
They're having trouble coming to grips with this situation. It's so
unbelievable. With Eric, there were signs, there were red flags everywhere,
that were ignored. With Dylan, there was not one sign. Not one," Brown said.
The Browns knew that Eric Harris had the potential for violence because Harris
threatened their son, Brooks, in electronic messages and on Harris's Web site.
They turned the material over to police, who did nothing, according to the
Browns. Police did not notify the juvenile court magistrate supervising the
burglary case of Harris and Klebold.
The material from the Browns is on Web pages written by "rebdoomer" and
"rebdomine," screen names linked to Harris. America Online removed the material
from its public sites soon after the shooting.
One typical passage states, "I live in Denver and god damnit I would like to
kill almost all of its residents. [Expletive] people with their rich snobby
attitude thinkin they are all high and mighty and can just come up and tell me
what to do and then people I see in the streets lying their [expletive] asses
off about themselves."
That was included under the label "Society." Under "Philosophy" he wrote: "My
belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law, and if you don't like
it, you die. If I don't like you or I don't like what you want me to do, you
die. . . . I'll just go to some downtown area in some big ass city and blow up
and shoot everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame."
Harris also listed the wide range of things that he said he hated. He hated
R-rated movies on cable television ("My DOG can do a better damn editing job
than those [expletive].") He hated people who think they can forecast the
weather. He hated people who think that wrestling is real. He hated it when
people blocked his path in the hallway. What he loved: When a kid blows his
hand off playing with firecrackers.
"Eric was evil," said Randy Brown.
District Attorney Dave Thomas said he had reviewed some of the pages of the
journal found in Harris's house, presumably written by Harris, detailing the
year-long plans for the killings, which the teenagers hoped would result in 500
people dead and end with them hijacking a plane and crashing into New York
City.
"What I read was disjointed. I found it rambling. There were words that I don't
know what they mean. I'm going to have to do some research," he said. He said
he didn't detect a philosophy -- other than a serious dislike of other people.
What's clear is that they liked war, war as a game, war as entertainment. Like
many kids, they played "Doom" and "Duke Nukem," computer games where the
object, more or less, is to shoot and kill as many people as possible.
In creative writing class, they did nothing to conceal their dark interests.
Terra Oglesbee, who sat in front of Harris and next to Klebold, said, "It was
good writing, but it was very gory." And littered with profanity, she said. The
teacher of the class, identified by students as Judy Kelly, could not be
reached for comment.
Oglesbee, Heins and Duran said that nothing about Harris and Klebold indicated
a propensity toward real violence. They wore Army boots and fatigues and trench
coats, but so did a lot of students. Heins said that the report that Harris
took antidepressants doesn't mean much, because a lot of kids do, even her
sometimes, she said.
Luvox is licensed by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment of
obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is characterized by persistent and
distressing thoughts, or compulsive behaviors, such as hand-washing. It is in
the same family as Prozac and functions as an antidepressant, and it is often
prescribed to people who are both depressed and have obsessive thoughts.
Oglesbee, who is black, said neither Harris nor Klebold showed signs of being
racist -- an element that came into focus during the shootings, when one of the
gunmen reportedly used a racial epithet before shooting a black student in the
face.
"They were great. I thought they were cool. I thought they were nice guys,"
said Heins, who has been in all-black clothing since 8th grade, when she shared
a class with Harris and Klebold. They were "preppie" back then and called her
"devil child," she said. Only in the last year or so, students said, did their
attire turn toward the dark, Gothic fashions.
Before he started dressing that way, Oglesbee said, Harris was not only
normal-looking but rather attractive -- "hot," she said.
The signal that the two were planning something violent was cloaked in abundant
noise. For example, last fall, Klebold and Harris made a video for a government
and economics class in which they showed themselves as hit men, a protection
ring of sorts, who could be hired out to wreak justice on jocks who picked on
other students. The video was violent and ended with the two bludgeoning the
head of a dummy amid much fake blood.
"Everyone thought the end was a little freaky," said one classmate, who
wouldn't give her name because, like some students, she fears there might still
be an accomplice or accomplices on the loose.
But she noted that many of the videos were violent and that her own contained
sexual scenes. "Everybody's video involved fighting," she said.
Staff writers David Brown and Dana Priest and research editor Margot Williams
contributed to this report.
Send email to: PUSSS...@aol.com
Annie
>Randy Brown, a friend of Thomas
> and Susan Klebold. He was one of six people, other than the parents and a
> minister, who attended Dylan Klebold's funeral.
What a sad image- only 9 people (total) at someone's funeral, including the
minister. My guess is if Klebold died in another manner, not having been
involved in such a heinous act, that he could have filled a church. I don't
think he was the outcast he seemed to try to be...it's sad to see lives
come to an end this way, it's frightening that human beings can be so
sick...
> The Browns knew that Eric Harris had the potential for violence because
Harris
> threatened their son, Brooks, in electronic messages and on Harris's Web
site.
> They turned the material over to police, who did nothing, according to
the
> Browns. Police did not notify the juvenile court magistrate supervising
the
> burglary case of Harris and Klebold.
Um, at the bare minimum, why didn't the police remove the web site? I
believe in free speech but I believe that a person has the right to NOT
have a web page up that carries threats against them.
> That was included under the label "Society." Under "Philosophy" he wrote:
"My
> belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law, and if you
don't like
> it, you die. If I don't like you or I don't like what you want me to do,
you
> die. . . . I'll just go to some downtown area in some big ass city and
blow up
> and shoot everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame."
Frightening....
> Harris also listed the wide range of things that he said he hated. He
hated
> R-rated movies on cable television ("My DOG can do a better damn editing
job
> than those [expletive].") He hated people who think they can forecast the
> weather. He hated people who think that wrestling is real. He hated it
when
> people blocked his path in the hallway. What he loved: When a kid blows
his
> hand off playing with firecrackers.
This is utterly confusing. He seemed to be very negative - hateful of
everything.
That's a sign, IMO, that he needed help.
> In creative writing class, they did nothing to conceal their dark
interests.
teachers should tune in to this. not to blame them, but they need to be
concerned when a student writes such shit.
> Terra Oglesbee, who sat in front of Harris and next to Klebold, said, "It
was
> good writing, but it was very gory." And littered with profanity, she
said. The
> teacher of the class, identified by students as Judy Kelly, could not be
> reached for comment.
I went to a school that would write you up for saying "Damn" out loud. No
not a religious school, just a normal high school. times have changed.
Elaine Gallant
Ok. I think the war is evil. Harris at least had an excuse for shooting
people. What excuse do we have for blowing up Serbians? Most of us can't
even say "hello" in their language. What did the Serbian people do to us?
What we do is much worse than what Harris and his pal did.
AGC Queen wrote in message <19990429094246...@ng-fd1.aol.com>...
kickedi...@hotmail.com
> > The Browns knew that Eric Harris had the potential for violence because
> Harris
> > threatened their son, Brooks, in electronic messages and on Harris's Web
> site.
> > They turned the material over to police, who did nothing, according to
> the
> > Browns. Police did not notify the juvenile court magistrate supervising
> the
> > burglary case of Harris and Klebold.
>
> Um, at the bare minimum, why didn't the police remove the web site? I
> believe in free speech but I believe that a person has the right to NOT
> have a web page up that carries threats against them.
>>>No kidding! Fortunecity deletes an innocent anti-Matt Damon page for
"uploading hate material." Geocities deletes a page for using it to link to a
tripod page. Angelfire deletes a page for virtually no reason at all. And AOL
leaves some killer's hateful spewings up until after he massacres a school?!
*sigh* The Internet...
> > Harris also listed the wide range of things that he said he hated. He
> hated
> > R-rated movies on cable television ("My DOG can do a better damn editing
> job
> > than those [expletive].")
>>>I think those edited versions of R-rated movies on cable television are
entertaining, monster. (Especially "The Prince of Tides" and stupid "Lethal
Weapon"- "you son of a snitch!")
tammy
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/kcorrigan/
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