School shooting deaths are only the beginning of tragedy. Three years after the April 20, 1999 school massacre here, the repercussions of Columbine still ripple through this Colorado community. At face value, the two gunmen — Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who, after killing 12 students and one teacher, turned their weapons on themselves — should bear sole blame. The reality is that grief makes people turn on each other, and in anger they lash out again and again. Still.
Part of the story is told by the pile of Columbine law-suits, including some against the parents of Harris and Klebold, who still live here. The family of Mark Taylor, one of the slain students, persists in seeking damages from drug maker Solvay, which manufactures Luvox, prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Harris had been taking Luvox, and Taylor's family says that the drug's known side affects — nausea, weight loss, impaired judgment — may have contributed to Harris's homicidal rage. The family of slain teacher Dave Sanders continues to blame AOL Time Warner, Palm Pictures and 11 video game makers because they believe that violent movies and games spurred Harris and Klebold to their murderous acts. A U.S. District judge in March dismissed the suit, but the Sanders family has appealed. The family has also sued several Jefferson County officials because they believe police waited too long before entering the high school, allowing Dave Sanders to bleed to death. The family of Patrick Ireland, who was wounded, have blamed the operators of the gun show where Harris and Klebold bought their shotgun, alleging unlawful gun sales occurred at the show.
Litigation aside, talk to a Columbine parent and it quickly becomes evident how wide the wound gapes. Judy Brown is the mother of Brooks Brown, friend of Klebold since first grade, off-and-on friend of Harris in high school. A full year before the shootings, Brown and her husband notified the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department that Harris' website contained alarming material. Brooks — who was initially misidentified as a suspect because of his friendships — was not hurt by the gunmen. Yet today, Mrs. Brown continues to sound the alarm: "There has to be, in every school, someone these troubled kids can go to. Certainly there are usually teachers they can relate to, but they need someone in the administration as well. Even today, Columbine does not have an anti-bullying program. One lady said to me, 'You can't expect them to do it this fast.' Well, yes you can."
According to Brown and others, the favoritism shown to athletes that made Harris and Klebold feel like outcasts and the bullying that made them defensive still pervade the high school atmosphere. Perhaps some simply don't want to acknowledge that their community is now forever transformed. "People want to suppress the truth and want us to have this perfect community, but we're not a perfect community," says Brown. "We have so many lessons to be learned, and we don't want to talk about [the massacre]. Until we really talk about it truthfully, we're not going to get past it."
Among the issues to be aired are the widespread belief that the sheriff's department reacted incompetently and recurring suspicions of a cover-up in the ensuing investigation. It doesn't help that in an inves-tigation of this magnitude, discrepancies have been found in reports, documents have been lost and some witnesses weren't immediately taped. And so the tragedy goes on. One family wrongfully accused a law enforcement officer of shooting their slain son and was compelled to apologize publicly last week when an independent review showed that Harris was indeed the killer. Other families continue to ask for grand jury investigations, a coroner's inquest, legislative reviews. Immediately after the killings, no one would have been heartless enough even to consider criticizing a Colum-bine family, victim or survivor. Today, patience is shorter and nasty letters appear in the local papers alleging that some of the lawsuits are prompted by "greed" and that it's time to let go and move on.
But the pervasive spirit in this still sad town is that as fruitless as the quests for justice and blame might be, they may in the end prove therapeutic. These are, ultimately, continued expressions of helplessness and grief. People who send a child off to school in the morning and have to deal with a corpse that night can't be expected to heal in an instant. Or even in three years.
