The affidavit also revealed that Division Chief Kiekbusch had told at least three whopping lies at the press conference ten days after Columbine: that the Browns had not met with Investigator Hicks, that the department couldn’t find bombs like those in Eric’s Web descriptions, and that it had been unable to locate his Web postings. The affidavit contradicted all three, and Kiekbusch had to have been familiar with it, since he had just attended the Open Space meeting with one topic: how to suppress it.
Jeffco responded with new lies. It issued a press release claiming it had disclosed the affidavit’s existence a few days after Columbine—at the very time commanders were meeting to plot how to hide it. All the local media called Jeffco on the lie.
“It’s amazing how long”: Sue Klebold recalled this exchange to David Brooks in 2004. He reported it in his New York Times column.
The FBI and Secret Service: The FBI released its report, The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective, in 2000. Two years later, the Secret Service and the Department of Education teamed up for a broader analysis: The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative. Both reports were excellent, and I relied on them extensively. I also used news accounts to document foiled copycats in other cities. I interviewed school administrators, students, and mental health experts about zero tolerance policies.
two biggest myths: The Secret Service studied every targeted attack at schools from December 1974 to May 2000. There had been forty-one attackers in thirty-seven incidents. Disciplinary history and academic performance also varied widely. The loner myth was perhaps the single biggest misconception. Some of the attackers were loners; two-thirds were not.
they “snapped”: “Nonviolent people do not ‘snap’ or decide on the spur of the moment to meet a problem by using violence,” the FBI report said. Planning ranged from a day or two in advance to over a year.
in video games: Only an eighth were fond of violent video games. A larger group—about a third—exhibited violence in their own written assignments or journals.
Most perps shared: In many cases, bullying may have played a role: 71 percent of attackers had experienced persecution, bullying, threats, or injury. Initially that sounds dramatic, but the study did not address how many nonattackers suffer that sort of experience; it’s pretty commonplace for a high school kid. Several of the shooters experienced severe or long-term bullying, though, and in some cases, it seemed to be a factor in the decision to attack.
suffered a loss or failure: Loss came in different forms: 66 percent had suffered a drop in status; 51 percent had experienced an external loss, which included the death of a loved one but was more commonly being dumped by a girlfriend. The key was that the attacker perceived it as significant and felt his status drop.
More than half told: There were at least two outsiders in the know 59 percent of the time. Someone had suspected the attack 93 percent of the time.
The danger skyrockets: The FBI offered this example of a high-risk threat: “At eight o’clock tomorrow morning, I intend to shoot the principal. That’s when he is in the office by himself. I have a 9mm. Believe me, I know what I am doing. I am sick and tired of the way he runs this school.”
Melodramatic outbursts: Melodrama and wild flourishes of punctuation are common—for example: “I hate you!!!!… You have ruined my life!!!!” Most laymen assume that such drama signals greater danger. That’s a common fallacy, the report said. Perpetrators are just as likely to remain calm. No correlation has been established between emotional intensity and the actual danger it foretells.
A subtler form of leakage: The FBI said a kid had reached the point of leakage when the same ugly ideas grabbed hold of him “no matter what the subject matter, the conversation, the assignment, or the joke.”
list of warning signs: The FBI listed criteria in four different areas: behavior, family situation, school dynamics, and social pressures. The behavioral list alone included twenty-eight characteristics. It cautioned that lots of innocent kids exhibited one or two or even several of its warning signs; the key was evidence of a majority of the items from all four areas. The risk factors were also highly correlated with substance abuse.
A national task force: It included officers involved in Columbine, and leaders in the field, from the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team to the National Tactical Officers Association.
CHAPTER 50. THE BASEMENT TAPES
The first installment: Jeffco showed the Basement Tapes to Time, then the Rocky, and then to a small group of reporters at a single screening. I was not included and have not seen them. My depictions came from three sources: a detailed account in the police files, news stories from the reporters who viewed them, and descriptions by Agent Fuselier and Kate Battan, who each studied them for six months. The police report ran ten pages and documented each scene in detail, with extensive quotations.
After the initial press showing, Jeffco promised more but never held another. The Klebolds then filed a motion asserting that the tapes belonged to the killers’ estates. Other suits followed. Most victims’ families eventually fought for release of the tapes. Jeffco worked with the killers’ families to suppress them, a legal alliance that infuriated the victims. In December 2002, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch threw out the copyright claim with an angry rebuke. He called it “a transparent attempt to hide something of public interest.” But Stone’s department insisted that the killers’ words were too dangerous to expose to the public.
A Denver Post motion worked its way up to the Colorado Supreme Court. The court ruled against Jeffco. It unanimously declared the material to be public records. Colorado law includes a loophole, though, stating that records may be withheld in cases of “public interest.” It was then up to the new sheriff to rule whether the tapes and writings were a risk to the community. He decided that the killers’ journals were safe but the Basement Tapes were not. The Post chose not to appeal. Any future sheriff has the power to release the tapes at any time.
The Colorado attorney general’s Web site states the following: “The ‘public interest’ exception is a specific exception in the Open Records Act. According to this law, an agency may hold public records confidential if the records custodian decides that making them available to the public would cause substantial injury to the public interest. This is the case even if the record is something that would otherwise be available to the public under the Open Records Act. The reason this law exists is that the Legislature realizes that there will be situations in which information should be kept private, even though no law specifically states that it is private.”
Eric made at least three attempts: Chris later reported the three attempts to police detectives.
Zack told the story: But both versions of Zack’s account, as recorded in his FBI file, are confusing, so I presented the gist of what he conveyed.