Dave Cullen, the author of the acclaimed book “Columbine,” had a cogent op/ed in the New York Times urging us not to jump to conclusions about the Aurora shooter. Cullen covered the aftermath of the massacre and went on to write the definitive history of America’s most notorious school shooting.
The op/ed inspired me to read Cullen’s book. I was surprised to learn that almost every major media narrative about the shooting is false. Not disputed, not debateable, just flat-out wrong.
Our stereotypical mass murderer is a loner, and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are often described as such. They weren’t loners. They had a tight circle of friends and Eric was even something of a ladies’ man. Both boys had prom dates the weekend before the massacre.
Nor were Harris and Klebold social outcasts. They weren’t even tight with the so-called “trench coat mafia,” a clique of goths and other non-conformists that flourished at their school the year before the shooting. Harris and Klebold didn’t even technically wear trench coats during the shooting, they wore dusters, which are the full-length equivalent of a trench coat.
Most people believe that the killers sought to wreak vengance on jocks and/or bullies. The targeted killing theory doesn’t hold up to cursory scrutiny. The first phase of the plan was to detonate massive homemade bombs in the cafeteria. Nothing larger than a pipe bomb went off that day, but the fact that the killers tried to use explosives decisively debunks the targeted killing hypothesis. As Cullen puts it, Columbine was a failed bombing first and a shooting spree second. The killers also rigged their cars with explosives in the hopes of killing first responders and journalists.
Columbine has more in common with geopolitical terrorism than most people think. The standard narrative is that Columbine was like a classic workplace shooting where disgruntled people “snap” or “go postal” and take revenge on their perceived tormenters.
Cullen argues that the Columbine killers staged spectacular violence for a mass audience, which is a hallmark of terrorism. Harris’s diary lays out his objectives in detail. Eric admired Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh and boasted in his journal that he would outdo him in casualties. That said, unlike your stereotypical terrorist, the Columbine killers didn’t have any specific political ends. The carnage was an end it itself.
Columbine is arguably the most iconic mass shooting in American history. What we think we know about Columbine springs to mind when we try to make sense of the Aurora shooting. So, it’s well worth revisiting our assumptions thirteen years later. Cullen describes how preconceptions about mass murderers fed back on themselves to create and solidify myths during the Columbine crisis. Now, these myths are shaping our perceptions of the Aurora shooting, to everyone’s detriment.
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