The Columbine Legacy: What Changed After the 5th Deadliest School Shooting
Whether students like it or not, Columbine has changed the American school environment, as well as the police enforcement. Whether they changed for the better or for the worse still remains unanswered.
Minutes of terror.
That is how students would describe the school shootings that has shocked/numbed America for every attack that occurred.
Middle schoolers pleaded for their lives as a 12-year-old boy wielded a gun and shot a math teacher in the chest in Sparks Middle School, Nevada on October 22, 2013.
Meanwhile in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, students remembered minutes of terror when they went back to school again — and refused to live in fear in a country whose schools had become ‘war zones.’
“No one expects you going to school in the morning to be an accomplishment, that you faced your fears. It shouldn’t be such an act of bravery — but it is,” Taylor Morales, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting that took 17 lives, said.
However, the fates of these students often lay with the locality’s police response, which varied from place to place. Authorities of Sparks arrived at the school within three minutes of the initial emergency call, only to find that the shooter already committed suicide. Though there were casualties, the quick response of the police earned the praise from its mayor. The opposite happened in Parkland, where authorities drew flak for failing to quickly respond to the shooting.
But the school shooting that defined police response for these attacks was the massacre that occurred in Columbine High School, Colorado — where Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the shooters, claimed 13 lives amid a stand-off in the school library between the perpetrators and the students hiding for their lives.
What Went Wrong in Colorado’s Fateful Day
On April 20, 1999, Klebold and Harris shot themselves to the head at 12:08 PM. 47 minutes after the first shots were fired in the school, SWAT teams finally entered the building. Five hours later, authorities finally declared the area clear — only after 13 lives were lost excluding the perpetrators.
During those 47 minutes, police spent the precious time locking down the area, with no officer going into the scene. When an active killer was on the loose, Columbine police waited for the SWAT to come in and interfere. Meanwhile, gunshots echoed inside the building, and 13 lives would be lost in the first 13 minutes of the 911 call.
According to a Colorado state report, there were warning signs before the incident that went past the authorities’ periphery. On January 1998, Klebold and Harris were arrested for stealing items from a vehicle. However, they were only sent to a juvenile diversion program after pleading guilty of the act. Two months later, Harris threatened to kill a classmate on the Internet and posted that he would like to kill people. Again, the authorities showed no action, despite the threat being reported by the parents of the child that Harris had threatened to kill.
“There were numerous red flags out there. Some action should have been taken,” William Erickson, a former chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, said.
“It’s very likely that if a subpoena had been issued … that probably would have prevented the attack,” he added.
The day of the carnage at 11:10 in the morning, Klebold and Harris arrived at the school in their cars — with them two duffel bags that contained 20-pound propane bombs that were set to detonate at 11:17 am. The two would-be shooters then entered the school premises with the bags and left them at the cafeteria. They then walked back to their cars. There, they waited for the bombs to explode as students flocked to the cafeteria to get their lunch. They waited — until there was nothing. Klebold and Harris then began their assault.
During the first few minutes of the attack, the police entered the property but did not immediately go for the active shooter. The officers instead locked down the area, preventing others from getting in. As they waited for the SWAT team to go inside, authorities lost their precious time in trying to protect its constituents as the active shooters were still on the loose. When the SWAT team finally arrived, it was an hour too late — the perpetrators had already committed suicide.
The police received backlash for their slow response especially in an emergency like this. However, this ‘slow response’ was the norm for many police operations: contain the area, then engage the perpetrator. This was the standard procedure for active hostage situations, where victims are held inside, and any misstep would mean someone else’s life will be claimed.
The school shooting, however, was not a typical hostage situation — rather, it was an active shooter situation. The report criticized the police for not engaging with the shooter sooner while waiting for the SWAT team, which could have saved lives and prevented more deaths.
It has also criticized the school for not paying attention to its students, for the report stated that both Klebold and Harris were bullied by squirting ketchup on their clothes and their classmates calling them various names.
What Changed After Colorado’s Fateful Day
After the report has been published following the school shooting, significant changes were implemented to prevent Columbine-like incidents from occurring again.
“It changed everything,” James Gagliano, a retired member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s elite hostage rescue team, said.
The U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies began funding a new active shooter program, known as the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT), developed by the San Marcos Police Department and Hays County in Texas. As opposed to securing the perimeter, the new strategy now involves ‘isolating, distracting, and ending the threat.’ Today, more than 105,000 officers have been trained under this program.
“You’re going to the sound of the guns,” Gagliano said. “The number one goal is to interdict the shooter or shooters. In the old days, you took land. You went in. You clear the room. Then you slowly and methodically move to clear the next room.”
“Prior to Columbine, nobody understood what the term ‘active shooter’ meant.”
This strategy has been applied to school shootings that have occurred post-Columbine, such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the Sparks Middle School shootings. In fact, in a report written by former senior FBI official Katherine Schweit, 75% of all mass shooting incidents in America required the law enforcement to confront the active shooter before the threat ends. In these incidents, 37% ended in less than five minutes while another 63% ended within less than 15 minutes.
“In this instance … get to the shooter as quickly as possible and that’s what they clearly did here,” Gagliano said, referring to the killings in Parkland.
Meanwhile, Columbine police are now trained in the halls of a former elementary school with cardboard cutouts of children — some with guns. The school district now also has copies of the blueprints of each school, which could be accessed by the police at any time whenever a shooting occurs.
Cameras were also installed in the schools, monitoring student and faculty activity 24/7, with other security features including doors that can be locked remotely and armed officers within school premises.
“We can pick up a suspect on camera. They can send me a picture … so as we arrive, we don’t have to try and figure out who the bad guy is or good guy is,” John McDonald, executive director for school safety in the school district that includes Columbine, said.
The police now also monitor social media for any potential threats. They scan social media for any suspicious posts, and anonymous tips could now be dropped in a state website called Safe2Tell, so police would be able to better watch out for any potential attacks.
“If you say you’re gonna kill us, I believe you,” McDonald stated. “If you say you’re gonna blow us up. We believe you. We are gonna do everything in our power to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
As a result of these upgraded security measures on these schools, Columbine students feel safer.
Teagan Simons, Columbine student who was born after the shooting, commented: “I think it’s made it easier to really focus on school, because I’m not worried about being the victim of something.”
Although it happened over 20 years ago, Columbine remains as one of the most influential incidents in recent American history, and its painful legacy still remains. Some would-be shooters nationwide wanted to emulate Klebold and Harris, thus inspiring similar mass shooting incidents especially on educational facilities. Columbine is now used as a popular term to refer to school shootings — a painful association to a normal Denver suburb.
However, Columbine has also revolutionized police response to active mass shooting incidents. Reliance on SWAT teams were no longer required, and officers are now trained to become aggressive towards active perpetrators — potentially saving more lives from shooting incidents that occurred after Columbine.
But the fight towards education without surviving a ‘war zone’ still ensues as more shootings occurred in American schools. While the debate on gun control and gun rights still flares on, students, faculty, and survivors hope that one day, the youth will graduate out of their academic life without having to fear for their lives, loved ones, and peers. One day, American schools will no longer be war zones, but safe places for one to mature and grow.
References:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-05-18-0105180156-story.html https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/columbine.report/index.html https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbine-shooting-anniversary-how-high-school-massacre-changed-police-response/ https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-school-shooting-columbine-lessons/index.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article202442664.html https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/10/22/hero_teacher_killed_trying_to_protect_students_from_gunman_in_nevada_school_shooting.html
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/student-shot-middle-school-article-1.1491586 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/15/us/parkland-shooting-officer-reinstated/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/columbine-high-school-shootings-fast-facts/index.html
