The name of the killers were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. what ive found ou about this killing was that for months before the act was done they were planning it. the wrote journals and even made videos. eric hassis even had his own website that he dedicated to bashing and threatning class mates. he was just up for any violence really. now dylan on the other hand i feel like he was being bullied for so long that he joined eric to get rid of the bullies. he had a history with dipression and suicdal thoughts/ he had anger manangment problems and was enrolled in many classes for his problems. the killing was put into a time line in. the order goes.....
April 17, 1999
Columbine High School's prom takes place on the night of April 17th. Someone has scratched out the date 'April 17' on several prom posters at the school and written in its place, 'April 20 - It's coming.'
April 20, 1999
Approximately 9:00 The school's daily announcements begin on classroom televisions, courtesy of the school's Rebel News Network. A message scrolls across the bottom of the screen saying, "Today is not a good day to be here."
11:10 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold arrive seperately at the school, driving their own cars. They park near the cafeteria and the entrances and exits into the school's lower floors. Eric Harris tells a student they see outside to leave, because he "likes him". Shortly afterward, a witness sees the same student, [later identified as Harris' friend Brooks Brown] walking away from the school.
11:14 Harris and Klebold leave their cars, carrying several CO2 bombs, one semi-automatic 9mm handgun, a 9mm carbine rifle, a sawed-off twelve gauge shotgun, and a sawed-off twelve gauge pump shotgun. They also carry two duffel bags, each containing one twenty-pound propane bomb. The timers on the bombs are set to go off at 11:17 a.m. This is enough explosives to kill nearly all 500 students in the cafeteria. In his journal, Harris writes down the number of students who are in the cafeteria at certain times. They have arrived at the school during the busiest lunch hour. The set the bags down beside a table and leave the cafeteria. The school custodian also changes the cafeteria surveillance tape at this time.
11:17 Klebold and Harris wait outside in the parking lot for the bombs to go off. In homemade videotapes outlining their method of attack, the boys planned to shoot any student who escaped the cafeteria following the explosion. In the boys' cars bombs are set to explode once they are back inside the school. The Jefferson County, Colorado Sheriff's department receives the first of several 911 calls. The caller reports an explosion in a field three miles southwest of Columbine High School. Although two backpacks concealing pipe bombs, aerosol cans, and propane tanks were placed in the field, only one detonates. These bombs were used by Klebold and Harris as a diversionary tactic.
11:19
11:19 – 11:23
Witnesses identify Harris and Klebold standing at the top of the school's west exterior steps, dressed in black trench coats and carryings backpacks and duffel bags. From where they are standing, the two can see the school's west side, southwest parking lot, cafeteria exits and entrances, and the athletic field. At about this same time, one of the suspects shouts, "Go!" Klebold and Harris pull their shotguns from the bags, (the 9mm are hidden beneath their coats on shoulder straps.) They begin shooting at students in the area. This is the first time either of the boys has fired their weapons.
Rachel Scott is killed and Richard Castaldo wounded as they sit outside on the grass eating lunch. Daniel Rohrbough, Sean Graves, and Lance Kirklin have just stepped outside a cafeteria side door when they are shot. Five students sitting outside are also shot. One of them, Michael Johnson, hides with three others in a nearby storage shed. Mark Taylor is injured so badly he cannot move. Klebold heads down the stairs to just outside the cafeteria, where Daniel Rohrbough is lying on the ground. He shoots Rohrbough a second time at point blank range, killing him instantly.
Lance Kirklin is also shot a second time, but survives. Klebold leans in the doorway of the cafeteria, but then joins Harris at the top of the outside stairs. Harris then shoots down the steps, hitting Anne Marie Hochhalter several times as she tries to run for the cafeteria. At this time, witnesses report on the gunmen say, "This is what we always wanted to do! This is awesome!"
During the shooting outside, both Klebold and Harris are seen lighting and throwing bombs onto the roof, into the parking lot, and down the hillside outside the school. Deputy Paul Magor of the Jefferson County Sheriff's department is dispatched the to scene of the fire and explosion in the field. The school custodian pushes the 'record' button on the surveillance camera's VCR, unwittingly recording part of the nation's worst school shooting. Also at this time, the school's resource officer, Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gardner, is called to the back lot of the school. The following video contains portions of various 911 calls, including those of teacher Patti Nielsen and Eric Harris's father.
11:21
11:22
11:23
11:24 Several members of the school's custodial staff and faculty, including teacher William Sanders, try to find out what is happening outside the cafeteria. Once inside the cafeteria, Sanders and custodians Jon Curtis and Jay Gallantine tell students to hide underneath the tables.
While in the midst of writing a speeding ticket, motorcycle patrolman Paul Smoker hears the report of a 'female down' at the school. He radios dispatch that he is responding to the call.
Teacher Patricia (Patti) Nielson is working as a hall monitor when she hears a commotion outside the west entrance of the school. She looks outside, seeing two male students with what she thinks are toy guns, and assumes that a school video production is being taped. She is on her way outside to tell the boys to “knock it off” when one of the gunmen fires into the west entrance, causing glass and metal fragments to spray into the hallway. Nielson suffers abrasions to her shoulder, forearm and knee from the fragments.
Beside Nielson is student Brian Anderson. Brian had been told by a teacher to get out of the school because of the explosions and commotion. Not realizing where the danger is, he exits through the first set of west doors, and is caught between the interior and exterior doors when Harris fires at the doors in front of him, shattering the glass. Brian suffers wounds to his chest from the flying glass fragments.
Despite their injuries, Patti Nielson and Brian are able to flee into the school library while Harris and Klebold are distracted by the arrival of Deputy Gardner. Gardner has just pulled up in the lower south parking lot of the school with the lights on his patrol car flashing and the siren sounding.
As Gardner steps out of his patrol car, Eric Harris turns his attention from shooting into the west doors of the high school to the student parking lot and to the deputy. Gardner, particularly visible in the bright yellow shirt of the community resource officer’s uniform, is the target of Harris’ bullets. Harris fires about 10 shots at the deputy with his rifle before his weapon jams.
Gardner fires four shots at Harris.
Harris spins hard to his right and Gardner momentarily thinks he has hit him. Seconds later, Harris begins shooting again at the deputy. Although Gardner’s patrol car is not hit by bullets, two vehicles that he is parked behind are hit by Harris’ gunfire. Investigators later found two bullet holes in each of the cars.
Harris then turns and enters the school through the west doors.
Students in the cafeteria realize the activity occurring outside is more serious than a senior prank. A mass exodus of students is seen on the school’s surveillance videotape as students escape up the stairs from the cafeteria to the second level. Several students recalled Sanders directing them to safety by telling them to go down the hallway to the east side exits of the school.
11:25
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office dispatch advises that there are possible shots fired at Columbine High School. “Attention, south units. Possible shots fired at Columbine High School, 6201 S. Pierce, possibly in the south lower lot towards the east end. One female is down.”
Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter in the school library, calls 911 to report shots being fired outside the library.
11:26 The Hallway Littleton Fire Department dispatches a fire engine to the explosion and grass fire on Wadsworth.
After exchanging gunfire with Harris, Gardner calls on his police radio for additional units. “Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me.”
Dispatch reports several shots fired at Columbine High School.
Teacher’s 911 call from inside the library reports smoke coming in through the doorway. She yells at students to get on the floor and under the tables.
Jefferson County Deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker arrive on the west side of the school and begin the rescue of two wounded students lying on the ground near the ballfields.
Smoker sees Gardner down the hill to his right, holding a service pistol. Gardner yells to Smoker as a gunman, carrying a semi-automatic rifle, appears on the inside of the double doors.
Harris, leaning out of a broken window on the set of double doors into the school, begins shooting a rifle. Smoker fires three rounds at him and the gunman disappears from the window. Smoker continues to hear gunfire from inside the building as more students flee from the school.
Student witnesses who entered the north main hallway from adjoining classrooms see Klebold and Harris standing just inside the school’s northwest entry doors. Both suspects, they later recalled, are armed with guns. Witnesses see Klebold fire a semi-automatic weapon east towards the students in the main hallway and south down the library hallway. They also hear bullets hitting lockers and other objects in the hallway as students run for cover.
A student in the gym hallway observes Klebold and Harris walking east down the north hallway. Both are firing weapons … and both are laughing.
Student Stephanie Munson and another student walk out of a classroom into the school’s north main hallway. As they enter the hallway, they see a teacher and several students running behind them. The teacher yells for the students to “Run! Get out of the building!” They both run through the main hallway leading to the school’s main entrance on the east side. Stephanie is shot in the ankle but both are able to escape the building and continue across the street to safety at Leawood Park.
A student in the counseling hallway sees students in the north hallway running east through the lobby. Klebold is running behind them, but comes to an abrupt halt near a bank of phones at the entrance to the main lobby area.
Yet another student, on the telephone with her mother, glances up in time to see the sleeve of a black trench coat shooting a TEC-9 towards the main entrance of the school. She drops the phone and hides in a nearby restroom until she can no longer hear any activity in the hallway. The gunman, she assumes, has turned around and gone back the other way. She goes back to the phone and whispers to her mother to come pick her up and then escapes through the east doors to the outside. Her mother’s cell phone bill shows this call is made between 11:23 and 11:26 and lasts 3.8 minutes. The student estimates that she talks to her mother about two minutes before she sees the gunman.
Klebold is last seen running back down the north hall to the west in the direction of the library hallway.
Teacher Dave Sanders, still on the second level, turns into the library hallway toward the west entrance and the sounds of gunfire. As Sanders passes the entrance to the library, he apparently sees a gunman coming toward him from the north hallway. Sanders turns around and heads back the way he had just come. Just before turning the corner to go east, he is shot. Sanders is able to crawl to the corner of the Science hallway where teacher Richard Long helps him down the hallway into classroom SCI-3. A group of students, including two Eagle Scouts, Aaron Hancey and Kevin Starkey, gather around him, attending to his injuries and administering first aid.
11:27
Deputy Gardner, who is in the south parking lot and has exchanged gunfire with Eric Harris, radios dispatch with a “Code 33.” Code 33 means “officer needs emergency assistance.”
Deputy Magor sets up a road block on Pierce Street at the southeast corner of the student parking lot. He immediately is approached by a teacher as well as students reporting a person in the school with a gun.
Dispatch announces that possible hand-grenades have been detonated at the school.
Harris and Klebold walk up and down the library hallway, randomly shooting but not injuring anyone. Investigators later scrutinized Nielson’s 911 call made from the school’s library. From the tape, the investigation shows that Harris and Klebold spend almost three minutes in the library hallway randomly shooting their weapons and lighting and throwing pipe bombs. They throw two pipe bombs in the hallway and more over the stairway railing to the lower level.
A pipe bomb is thrown into the stairwell from the library hallway and lands in the cafeteria below. A large flash is observed on the cafeteria videotape. A second pipe bomb also is thrown into the cafeteria from the upper level.
Teacher Patti Nielson, hiding under the front counter just inside the library entrance, continues her phone contact with the Jefferson County dispatcher. Nielson reacts to the sounds of gunshots and explosions coming from the hallway outside the library. Interspersed with short conversations with the dispatcher, she screams at the students in the library to get under the tables and to stay hidden. She then reports that a gunman is just outside the library entrance.
11:28
Numerous students, running from the school, seek safety behind Taborsky’s patrol car on the school’s west side. The students tell the deputies that gunmen are inside the school randomly shooting at people with UZIs or shotguns and throwing hand-grenades. They describe the younger of the two gunmen as possibly high school age and wearing a black trench coat and a hat on backwards. The second gunman is described as “taller, a little older” and also wearing a black trench coat.
Smoker can see other deputies on the west side of the school near the concrete shed and the ballfields.
Dispatch alerts the deputies that the shooter may have a shotgun.
A 911 call reports that students are injured outside the school.
Deputy Smoker radios that students are saying the shooter is wearing a black trench coat.
11:29
Gardner requests emergency medical response to the west side of the school.
Dispatch alerts all units that Deputy Gardner is under fire and the suspect just ran into the building. “Shots fired on the southwest side with a large weapon.”
Harris and Klebold walk into the school library. The 911 call records a male voice yelling, “Get up!”
11:29 – 11:36 The Library Harris shoots down the length of the front counter. One student, crouched behind a paper copier, is injured by flying wood splinters from the counter.
The gunmen walk through the library toward the west windows, killing one student on the way, before they shoot out the windows toward law enforcement and fleeing students.
Law enforcement returns the fire.
The gunmen then turn their attention to students inside the library. They kill four and injure four more in the west area of the library before moving back toward the library entrance to the east.
Harris and Klebold shoot out the display cabinet near the front door before firing their guns in this section of the library, injuring five and killing three.
Harris and Klebold leave the library’s east area and enter the center section, reloading their weapons at this point.
Two more students are killed and two more injured in the library’s center section before the gunmen leave the library.
In 7 ½ minutes, 10 people are killed and 12 more wounded. There are a total of 56 people in the library; 34 escape injury.
Two library employees remain hidden in the television studio. One teacher hides in the periodicals room. Patti Nielson, originally hiding under the front counter, drops the phone. She ultimately crawls into the library’s break room to hide in a cupboard. All four women remain in the library until they are evacuated by SWAT around 3:30 p.m.
11:30
Jefferson County Patrol Deputy Rick Searle, on the upper grassy area on the southwest side of the school, is evacuating students who have taken cover behind Taborsky’s patrol car. In three separate trips, Searle transports the students, including those wounded, south to a safe location at Caley Avenue and Yukon Street. Medical triage soon will be established at this spot. As soon as he gets back from his evacuation trips, he discovers even more students who have escaped the school and taken cover behind Taborsky’s patrol car.
Deputy Kevin Walker, positioned at a southern point in the student parking lot, is able to watch the lower level main south doors of the school and the entrance to the cafeteria. He can provide rescue and cover for the students fleeing to the south from the school’s lower level.
Deputy Taborsky reports hearing additional shots being fired inside the school -- “large caliber.”
Dispatch reports possible shots fired in the library.
Video of the above scene Littleton Fire calls for personnel to stage at the scene. As the department learns that some students fleeing the school are possibly injured, personnel are instructed to stage in several areas nearby and set up triage sites to treat the injured.
The county’s dispatch center goes into an emergency command system as the incoming reports begin to provide glimpses of the incident’s magnitude. Additional dispatchers soon arrive to help deal with the escalating radio traffic and 911 calls.
11:31
Deputy Searle reports smoke coming from the building.
Deputy Taborsky reports a person down on the southwest side of the school.
The 911 tape from the library records the sound of many gunshots being fired during this minute. One of the gunmen in the library yells, “Yahoo!”
The first fire alarm sounds from the upper level corridor of Columbine High School.
11:32 Communications Problems
Deputy Walker reports possibly seeing one of the gunmen through the windows on the upper level, southwest corner. Walker describes him as wearing a “white T-shirt with some kind of holster vest.”
As students and faculty escape the school to the south, they report what they saw or experienced to Deputy Magor, whose patrol car is blocking the traffic on Pierce Street to the south. Magor realizes the severity of the escalating situation and radios that the Sheriff’s Office needs mutual aid at the scene.
Many agencies already are aware of the situation at the high school because of the radio traffic they are hearing and personnel are quick to arrive at the scene. Several arriving Denver police officers and one Littleton police officer have children who are students at Columbine. One student, hiding with others inside the school’s kitchen, is on a cell phone with the Denver Police Department. His father is an officer in the department.
The first call is received by the Sheriff’s Office from the media requesting information about what is happening at Columbine High School.
11:33
Jefferson County SWAT commander Lt. Terry Manwaring, on his way to the high school, orders the Jefferson County SWAT team and the Sheriff’s Office command staff to be paged.
Dispatch reports a possible shooter on the football field behind the shed.
Jefferson County Dispatch asks if any deputies on scene have a “long gun” (a rifle or shotgun).
In response to Magor’s call for mutual aid, Jefferson County Dispatch advises that additional assistance is coming from other agencies.
Suspects move to the center section of the library.
11:34 - 11:36
11:35
Dispatch advises additional gunfire being reported.
Dispatch advises that several SWAT teams are en route.
The last victim is killed at Columbine High School.
Suspects move to the front counter of the library.
11:36 – 11:44 The Science Area
From the library Harris and Klebold go into the hallway and make their way to the science area. Witnesses describe the two as looking through the windows of some of the classrooms’ locked doors, making eye contact with some of the students, yet not attempting to break into the rooms or harm any more students.
A teacher sees Klebold and Harris in the science hallway, stopping in front of the chemical storage room just east of Science Room 3 where she is hiding.
Several students witness the suspects shooting into empty rooms. Klebold and Harris also tape an explosive device on the storage room door next to the area where teacher Dave Sanders and several students are hiding. Witnesses say the gunmen do not appear to be overly intent on gaining access to any of the rooms. The gunmen easily could have shot the locks on the doors or through the windows into the classrooms, but they do not. Their behavior now seems directionless.
11:36 Command Post Formed
Deputy Searle reports a man on the roof wearing a red, white and blue striped shirt. Initially thought to be a possible shooter, the man is later identified an employee of a heating and air conditioning company on a service call at the school to fix a leak above the girls' locker room. The repairman is on the roof when the first shots are fired and, when he realizes something is wrong, he uses a pair of vice grips to clamp the roof access hatch closed so nobody can come up to the roof.
Sgt. Ken Ester of the Intelligence Unit reports to the southeast side of the school and assists Deputy Magor.
Several more pipe bombs are thrown into the cafeteria from the library hallway a floor above. Another explosion can be seen at this time on the cafeteria videotape.
Dispatch advises multiple reports of shots in the library and multiple suspects with different descriptions -- the last being “a white, red and blue striped shirt up on the roof.”
Jeffco SWAT team commander Manwaring arrives at Pierce and Leawood and advises dispatch that the command post and the SWAT staging area will be set up at that location.
11:37 The Hallway
Another pipe bomb is thrown over the railing from the hallway above and into the cafeteria area where it explodes. This can be heard on the 911 call made from inside the library.
Littleton Fire Department is staged at Weaver and Pierce Streets.
11:38
Deputy Walker, on the south side of the school, reports an explosion that blows out windows near the cafeteria. The explosion is from a pipe bomb.
As the pipe bomb explodes, several students run out of the south cafeteria doors toward Walker. The deputy directs them to take cover behind several cars, covering them with his own gun while they position themselves away from the line of fire. Walker radios to dispatch that he has students with him, but he does not have any safe path to evacuate them from the parking lot.
Dispatch reports that one shooter is in the food preparation area and that the shooter has 17 students in that area with him. In actuality, a 911 call received from a student hiding with 17 others in the school’s kitchen reports what he thinks is a shooter in the area. The investigation determined from the cafeteria videotape that several custodial staff, equipped with keys and school radios, were in the kitchen area at that time. The student assumed what he heard were the shooters and reported to dispatch that the shooters had keys to the school and walkie talkies.
11:39
Jefferson County Patrol Sgt. Phil Hy arrives on scene and begins identifying and disseminating pertinent information to the initial responders.
11:40
Deputies report 30 students have exited the school on the west side. Many of these students taking cover behind the patrol cars are those who are able to escape from the school library after Klebold and Harris leave the library and go into the science area.
Deputy Taborsky, protecting students who have fled out the west side of the school, reports that one of the shooters might be “Ned Harris” and that he is possibly wearing bulletproof armor. The witness probably was saying “Reb,” which was Harris’ nickname.
Dispatch advises that the suspects are possibly wearing body armor.
Deputy Walker reports more explosions inside the school. The explosions seem to be moving east.
11:41
Deputy Searle reports the man is still on the roof and has moved over to the north side.
11:42 – 11:43
Based on 911 calls coming in, dispatch advises that a suspect has possibly left the building.
Dispatch also reports one person wearing a red and white shirt on the north side of the roof, one suspect in the library with a shotgun and several bombs, and another person in the cafeteria with “bulletproof equipment and several bombs.”
11:44 - 11:49
In response to reports that one of the suspects may have left the building, several deputies on scene radio their positions around the school, confirming that a perimeter has been established and all exits are covered by law enforcement.
Jefferson County Deputy Bob Byerly reports that he and members of the Colorado State Patrol (CSP) are on the northeast side of the school by the tennis courts. He maintains a view of the north side of the school and the northeast doors.
Deputies Taborsky and Smoker are on the southwest, protecting and evacuating numerous students escaping out the west side.
Deputy Searle is on the northwest side of the building, assisting with evacuation and transportation of students and staff.
Sgt. Ester and Deputy Magor are on the southeast side, assisting students and diverting traffic away from the area.
Deputy Neal Schwieterman is on the west side by the ballfields and athletic shed, assisting with transporting students to triage and to safety.
Deputy Walker is protecting and evacuating students on the south side.
Klebold and Harris leave the science area and go down into the cafeteria. The cafeteria videotape records Harris kneeling down and resting his rifle on the stair railing and firing several shots at one of the large 20-pound propane bombs hidden in a duffel bag. Photos of the cafeteria show duffel bags and backpacks scattered throughout the area, yet Harris seems to know exactly where the bombs are located and in what bags. He apparently shoots at the one, presumably in an attempt to make it explode. It does not.
The videotape also shows Klebold walking directly over to the same bomb after Harris’ failed attempts to detonate it. Klebold seems to be tampering with something on the floor.
The suspects both take a moment to drink from water bottles left by students on the school lunch tables.
A witness hiding in the cafeteria hears one of the gunmen say, “Today the world’s going to come to an end. Today’s the day we die."
11:49
Suspects are in the office area.
Sgt. Ester reports that Denver Metro SWAT has arrived on the east side of the school.
11:51
The 911 call made by Patti Nielson from the library is terminated by the dispatch center since no more activity could be heard on the line.
11:52
Jefferson County Undersheriff John Dunaway arrives at the command post and authorizes SWAT to make an immediate entry into the school.
Deputy Byerly reports shots fired on the east side of the building.
The fire sprinkler system alarm in the cafeteria is activated.
11:53 County Support
Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone, on his way to Columbine High School, calls Jefferson County Commissioner and Board Chairman Patricia Holloway. He alerts her that gunshots are being fired at the south Jefferson County school and there are reports of students injured and possible hostages taken.
Dispatch informs the command post that bomb squads from the Jefferson County and Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Offices are en route.
Dispatch also confirms a live bomb at Wadsworth and Chatfield. “Repeat. A live bomb at Wadsworth and Chatfield.”
11:53 – 11:55
Law enforcement officers on the east side of the school report noises and shots coming from the school’s northeast side.
Searle reports that Denver Police Department personnel are at the shed on the west side of the school and they have “long guns.”
A two-hour 911 phone call (from 11:29 a.m. to 1:24 p.m.) from a school secretary and a school security officer hiding in the school’s main office reports shots fired in the office, into the ceiling and in the art hallway to the north.
Dispatch gives the command post a description of one of the suspects: “Eric Harris, 5’10”, thin build, shaved blond hair, black pants and white T-shirt, light blue gym backpack.”
Littleton paramedics transport student Stephanie Munson, shot in the ankle while escaping out the east main entrance, to Littleton Hospital.
11:56
Klebold and Harris’ movements continue to be extremely random. The cafeteria videotape shows the gunmen coming back down the stairs and into the cafeteria. Klebold is holding the TEC 9.
Television news announces reports of two gunmen at Columbine High School.
Deputy Smoker advises dispatch that four down on the west side need to be evacuated.
11:57
Two ambulances, responding to Gardner’s call for medical assistance on the south side, approach the south parking lot.
Walker reports shots fired from inside the school.
The cafeteria videotape shows Klebold and Harris standing in the cafeteria surveying the damage.
The suspects walk back toward the kitchen area.
Deputy Schwieterman reports an ambulance has arrived on the south side.
11:58
Schwieterman, positioned by the west side athletic shed, reports that there are five victims outside on the southwest side of the school and gives directions where ambulances should come into the area to rescue them.
Littleton Fire Department announces that its command post is set up at Leawood and Pierce.
11:59
The suspects leave the kitchen area.
12:00 P.M. Klebold and Harris leave the cafeteria and go upstairs to the library.
The command post tells dispatch to request Channel 7’s news helicopter flying overhead to land in Clement Park in order to pick up a Sheriff’s deputy for an aerial survey of the school.
An armored vehicle is requested to rescue the injured because the scene is “not safe for medical.”
Uninterrupted media coverage about the shooting in progress at Columbine High School begins on local television channels.
12:02
SWAT commands use of a Littleton fire truck to provide cover as the first Jefferson County, Littleton and Denver SWAT officers approach the school. Deputy Del Kleinschmidt, a Jefferson County K-9 team member assigned to SWAT, volunteers to drive the truck.
12:03
A television reporter interviews the mother of a student who told her about gunmen dressed in black in the high school’s commons area. The station also reports that, according to information gleaned from its police scanners, the school is being evacuated.
12:02 – 12:05
Littleton Fire Department paramedics rescue Sean Graves, Lance Kirklin and Anne Marie Hochhalter as they lay wounded outside the cafeteria. Because the scene is not safe, law enforcement deputies and officers move in closer to provide cover for paramedics Mark Gorman, Monte Fleming and John Aylward and emergency medical technician Jerry LoSasso as they retrieve the victims.
Gunfire erupts from the second story library windows above the cafeteria as the paramedics rescue the wounded students outside.
Deputy Walker sees a muzzle flash from a library window and returns fire.
Deputy Gardner fires three shots at the gunmen.
Denver police officers also provide suppression fire to the library windows. This allows the paramedics to retrieve the three wounded teens. The fourth student, Dan Rohrbough, is determined to be deceased. The paramedics rush the living to medical attention.
After the ambulances leave the scene with the wounded, the gunfire coming from the library windows ceases. No gunshots attributed to the gunmen are heard again.
Gardner turns his attention to a group of 15 students huddled behind a vehicle in the parking lot just a car away from him. One at a time, he evacuates the students down the line of cars to the protection of the last car farthest away from the school and the shooters.
Other students begin to escape, some out a side door of the cafeteria, and the officers “leapfrog” them back to Gardner or other waiting deputies.
A television news helicopter begins broadcasting aerial images of Columbine High School.
Jefferson County crime lab is en route to the scene with its mobile crime laboratory unit.
12:06
The first SWAT team, on foot behind a Littleton fire truck, arrives at the east main entrance to the school. Manwaring, leading the ad hoc team, splits the group into two teams and directs Jefferson County SWAT Deputy Allen Simmons to take his team into the school. It is estimated that at 12:06 p.m., Simmons’ team of five officers enters Columbine High School through the southeast doors. Manwaring will lead the second team, using the fire truck as a shield, to the west side where students are reported “down” and gunfire occurring.
Television news coverage broadcasts images of the SWAT team outside the high school.
Student Anne Marie Hochhalter is transported to Swedish Medical Hospital.
Dispatch advises that a victim shot in the head is at the Caley/Yukon triage area.
12:07
Deputy Walker asks dispatch to check on the status of the party on the roof.
12:08
A final shot is fired from the library window at law enforcement and paramedics.
Shortly thereafter, Eric Harris sat down on the library floor, his back against a bookcase, and put the barrel of his 12 gauge into his mouth. Harris's injury caused massive, multiple skull fractures and blew out his brain stem and cerebral cortex, leaving only a small portion of the medulla oblongta. Death is instant. At roughly the same time of Harris's suicide, Dylan Klebold is believed to have fired his 9mm into his left temple. According to the autopsy summary, Klebold survived long enough to aspirate blood into his lungs, and would have been capable of some involuntary movement. The two bodies are discovered in the library next to one another. Due to reader demand, I have made two posthumous photographs of Harris and Klebold available. They may be viewed here and here. Warning - these photos are extremely graphic.
The killing at Columbine High School is over.
In just under an hour, 15 people are dead, 23 are injured.
It will be Wednesday afternoon - more than 24 hours later - before the bodies of those killed are removed from the school. Several more days, weeks, and months are spent collecting evidence from the school, the Harris and Klebold homes, computers, and taking statements from witnesses.
Had the bombs detonated as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planned, the death toll would have been over 400, more than double the number killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.
yes the was coptied. for acuacy. i am not taking credit for that.
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