Continuing from The Columbine High School Massacre, Part I

MYTH: Harris and Klebold smoked marijuana.
FACT: They didn't. Many of the other students asserted that they were not, in fact, pot heads. Also, since marijuana has a calming effect, it seems likely that anyone who smoked a joint now and again would actually be less likely to shoot up a school. However, Harris does appear to have been taking the popular antidepressant drug Luvox. Luvox, as well as similar antidepressants such as Prozac and Ritalin, have been linked to violent and suicidal tendencies in about 4% of individuals who take them.

MYTH: The massacre was the greatest school shooting in history.
FACT: It was in no way a shooting. The original intention seems to have been to bomb the school, as is evidenced by the fact that, on the day of the shooting, 95 home-made bombs were found scattered around the school and car park. The fact that these were even here provides good evidence that there were more than two people involved, even ignoring the eyewitness testimony. Harris, Klebold, and their accomplices were thankfully pretty bad at making effective bombs, and thus many people were spared. Harris' plan is believed to have been to first of all detonate bombs around the school, then blow up a bunch of cars to kill escapers and people who gathered around to see what is going on. Guns would only have been employed towards the end, to take care of any survivors.

Next week I'll talk about other participants, but here and now, let's look at some strange facts.

• In the midst of the shooting, one witness reported seeing a dark brown pickup truck circling the parking lot very slowly. It pulled out about two minutes before a county sheriff arrived.
• Another student says that he saw one of the shooters (whose name was blanked out in the official FBI report) in the back of a police car the day of the shooting, but the shooter had not been around at school lately. The two had been friends since kindergarten (analogous to junior infants in the Republic of Ireland.)
• A school aide reported the students talking about two groups of shooters, one speaking English and the other speaking German.
• Between the fourth and fifth class periods, a part-time teacher wrote a sentence on the blackboard for her students to correct, then left the room. When she returned, someone had written 'We should blow up the school' underneath it. Neither Harris nor Klebold were in her
  class.
• To this day, the authorities refuse to release autopsies of Klebold and most of the victims. They also will not release all of the ballistics information. One cop exchanged fire with Harris, and three of his bullets were found in the library; when asked about this, he claims that he never fired there.
• Prior to the shooting, Harris and Klebold had been in trouble with the law, and the parents of one student even filed a complaint against Harris for threats. The cops never really followed up.
• On February 14, 2000, two survivors of the massacre were shot outside a sandwich shop. On May 6 of the same year, another survivor was found hanged. The death was ruled as a suicide, but his friends all testified that he seemed to be in excellent mental health.
• At some point, the mother of a student whose child survived being shot in the massacre walked into a pawn shop, purchased a gun, and shot herself. It is not clear why the pawn shopkeeper gave her ammo as well, and if she had brought it from home, she would likely also have owned her own gun.

To round this edition off, let's look at what some of the parents have to say in the aftermath. One mother, whose daughter was killed said that she had given up on trying to get a straight answer, as every time she tried, the story kept changing. A father whose son lost his life that day said that going to court is quite possibly the only way that they will find out what really happened. The father of a survivor says that the sheriff's office is withholding a great deal of information, and a retired judge said that he had 'never seen
such a great effort to withhold evidence that has material relevance to the work of the commission.'

Until we meet again, my friend, this is Hussassan, signing off.

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