by Evan Long
e-mail: evanlong ATSYMBOL xmail PERIOD net
website: http://www.xmail.net/evanlong/
This is a picture of two dead boys in a high school library. The picture, like all pictures, has a thousand words behind it, many of which have not yet been spoken. There are other pictures related to this one as well, pictures too numerous to fit in this space of other individuals injured by the boys in the first, individuals injured emotionally and physically, and some even fatally so. The people of the world were told many, many times that the boys shown in the first picture acted alone in harming the other individuals. The purpose of this article is to clarify the perceptions of the people of the world regarding the events of the April 20, 1999 attack on Columbine High School.
"He told me that there was another shooter on the roof when he was laying outdoors. He could see a man on the roof with a gun." -Columbine attack family member Donna Taylor on a statement by her son, Mark, who was shot at Columbine High School on April 20th
Officially, the attack began at 11:20 and ended at 12:08. Officially, fifteen were killed, including the two attackers. Officially, they used a total of 99 bombs and fired 329 rounds. And officially, no one but Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold participated in, assisted with, or had any specific foreknowledge about the attack.
Almost every detail of the Sheriff's Official Line on the Columbine shooting, a. k. a. "Sheriff's Office Final Report on the Columbine High School Shootings," can be called into question by a study of the court-ordered releases of government documents related to it. Perhaps the most salient is that of the numerous witnesses reporting three to ten black-clad shooters inside the halls of the school, many were able to identify at least some of them by name as trench coat students other than Harris and Klebold or to describe them distinctly as having been neither of the two.
According to these witnesses, the violence at the school was perpetrated by a variety of attackers who can be grouped into roughly a dozen profiles,
including:
·Eric Harris
A second-tier member of the trench coat group, Harris was allegedly found dead and photographed in the CHS library. He was raised at Plattsburg Air Force Base in New York, was seeing a psychiatrist and taking SSRI antidepressants. Police knew of death threats he'd published on his web site but did not investigate further.
·Dylan Klebold
Klebold was said to have been "tied at the hip" with Harris and was widely reported to have been "goofy-looking" and socially awkward, yet had a female companion and at least half a dozen friends. Like Harris, he began to wear a trench coat in his sophomore year at the school.
·Chris Morris
Morris was the reported leader of the trench coat group in the 1998-99 school year. According to one, he was a "mean kid" who talked with regularity about constructing explosives. He was brought before a special CHS panel for pulling knives on students and was reportedly spotted in the north hall of the school with a handgun during the attack.
·Robert Perry
Like Harris and Klebold, Perry was reportedly a member of the trench coat B-team who left CHS in January 1999 but spent a significant amount of the school day on the campus anyway. He was similar in appearance to Klebold but with notably bad acne and was reportedly witnessed on the west side of the school where the shooting is alleged to have begun.
·"The Chiseled Face Shooter"
This attacker was spotted by several students in the science hall of the building with a shotgun. According to one girl, he was muscular with a "chiseled face." She even produced a sketch of this attacker, who was reported to have appeared to have been in his 30's.
·"The Camo Pants Shooter"
Named by name in one interview, this attacker wore camouflage pants and a trench coat. He was seen first bringing a heavy-looking duffel bag into the school and then wielding a shotgun.
·"The Splatterpunks"
All three of these individuals wore camouflage pants that afternoon in Clement Park, where they had gathered to watch the carnage and where, according to a bystander, they verbally displayed foreknowledge of the attack and a moral alignment with the attackers. They were "detained" but released by law enforcement that day.
·"The Blue Jeaned Bomber"
A pudgy male was reportedly seen by many witnesses wearing a white tee and blue jeans on the west side of the school, tossing a bomb onto the roof from a group of three attackers.
·"The Round Faced Shooter"
A shooter in a black trench coat on the west side of the school was reportedly described as having been 5' 9" or 5' 10" in height with a "very round face" and having been "neither Harris nor Klebold."
·"The Short Shooter"
A shooter, 5' 6" in height with ear-length hair, was reportedly spotted running through the Columbine cafeteria in a black jacket firing a weapon.
·"The Baggy Pants Shooter"
An attacker was reportedly also spotted in the cafeteria wearing a red or orange shirt and black baggy pants. According to statements attributed to one witness, this attacker spoke German.
·"Joe"
Several witnesses reportedly overheard an attacker yell, "Joe, where are you?" At least one gunman was reportedly described as a class of '98 student, and a Joe Stair, reportedly at CHS that morning, was one of the most prominent Trench Coat Mafia members of the previous year at Columbine.
·"The Rooftop Gunman"
Witnesses noted a gunman on the roof, a location to which neither Harris nor Klebold officially traveled.
·"The Weaver Park Gunman"
CHS is surrounded by an elementary school, a public library, and public parks including Weaver Park, where two male witnesses noted an attacker crouched with a shotgun on their way off of the campus.
In all, statements from some hundred individuals would be referenced either directly or secondhand in the documents indicating the presence of additional gunmen.
"They said do not talk about anything to anyone. [...] Because they will come after you; the snipers will come after you." -Columbine attack family member Donna Taylor on the government officials who visited her son, Mark, in the hospital after the shooting
The interviews which constitute the sources of those profiles generally took place between April and August 1999, when almost everyone at Columbine High School plus additional individuals were interviewed by police and FBI. The curious thing about the interview portion of the "investigation," however, was that between approximately September and November 1999, a peculiar phase was established which might be referred to as the "Autumn Sweeps." The distinguishing feature of this round was that they tended to serve no other purpose than to take aside the witnesses who had indicated a likelihood of shooters other than Harris and Klebold and to attempt to coerce them into endorsing the official narrative. To illustrate:
"On 10-8-99 Columbine High School student Mindy Pollock was re-interviewed at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office South Sub-Station. [...] The purpose for the interview was to clarify Pollock's perceptions during the April 20th shootings at Columbine High School [...]. [...] The interview was concluded with Pollock understanding that the person she had identified as [redacted] was, in fact, Dylan Klebold. There were no additional concerns [...]."
"On 10-12-99 Columbine High School student Nathan Anema was re-interviewed at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office South Sub-Station. [...] The purpose of the re-interview was to clarify Anema's observations during the April 20th shootings at Columbine High School [...]. In that interview Anema identified [redacted] as possibly being the person he saw throw a pipe bomb during the shootings at Columbine High School on 4-20-99. [...] The interview was concluded with no additional concerns [...]."
"On 10-12-99 Columbine High School student Leiha Murphy was re-interviewed [...]." [...] The purpose of the re-interview was to clarify Murphy's observations during the April 20th shootings at Columbine High School [...]. In that interview, Murphy stated she was certain that she saw [redacted] wearing a trench coat and standing near the sidewalk [...] when the shooting started. [...] The interview was concluded with Murphy and her mother understanding and feeling comfortable with my explanation."
A behind-the-scenes look at this scenario may be found in the news articles of independent journalist John Quinn, who wrote in 1999that "Columbine witness Chris Wisher told to [him] repeatedly that other gunmen were DEFINITELY involved; and law enforcement ["]investigators["] are coercing witnesses into making their stories conform to the two "lone" gunmen theory."
While even Wisher is reflected in his Autumn Sweeps interview as chalking up his observations of additional gunmen to a vivid imagination, not all of the witnesses are recorded as having recanted, and the summaries of the interviews with those who reportedly refused to accept the official line betray the par
