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Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold prowl through the
school with shotguns and
semi-automatic weapons. |
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Eric Harris was rejected
from the Marine Corps 5
days before the shooting. |
On the morning of 20th April, 1999, two students walked into their high school in West Denver, Colorado, armed with guns, bombs and grenades hidden under trench coats. In just 16 minutes, they shot and killed twelve of their fellow students together with one teacher and injured 21 others.
At first it was thought that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were two depressed teenagers carrying out an act of revenge. However, their actions weren’t impulsive, as most revenge attacks tend to be. Harris and Klebold planned the attack for over a year, collecting weapons and making explosive devices with the help of information from the Internet. Investigations have reported their aim was to achieve infamy by killing as many people as possible and their school was the most convenient target.
In the lead up to the shootings, they vented their hate of society on websites and in personal journals and boasted on video that they wanted to inflict “the most deaths in U.S. history”. The pair planned to plant explosive devices in the cafeteria, hidden in duffel bags, as students gathered there for lunch. The bombs were to be detonated by timers and, as survivors from the blast fled the building, Harris and Klebold would be armed and waiting in the car park.
More bombs were left in cars, timed to go off when the emergency services arrived on the scene, creating even greater casualties. The pair even planted decoy bombs in a field a few miles away from the school to ensure the local police and fire service were distracted. Thankfully the devices in the cafeteria failed to explode. If they had detonated, up to 600 students and school staff may have lost their lives.
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* Images from Zero Hour program |
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