What happened after Columbine
It will have been six years since the shootings at Columbine High School on April 20. People of Red Lake, take note: It has not been a time of quiet reflection in Colorado.
First, there are the lawsuits: The parents of Harris and Klebold faced over a dozen from the injured and the families of those killed. None went to trial, but it wasn't until last month that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the last remaining suit, from the family of slain student Isaiah Shoels.
In all, the killers' parents, the sheriff's office, and the gun suppliers paid out over $4 million in settlement money, divided among dozens of individual litigants. In turn, the parents of killer Dylan Klebold blamed the sheriff, arguing that if the police department had properly followed up on a report about Eric Harris's website, the Klebolds would have realized how dangerous Harris was and stopped their son from fraternizing with him. (They never followed through on their suit, however.)
Additionally, there have been five formal, outside investigations into the Littleton shootings, mostly borne out of criticism of law enforcement--especially of the then sheriff, alleged to have made several errors.
More positive effects have been seen in school districts across the country. In Wayne Township, a roughly 15,000-student district on the west side of Indianapolis, school officials installed closed-circuit cameras at every school and created a voice mail system where students can anonymously report other students threatening violence. "We won't be in denial; we know it could happen here," says Chuck Hibbert, coordinator of Safety and Transportation Services for the district.
At many schools, experts say, fire drills have been supplemented by lock-down drills, where students practice staying in the classroom as they might during a shooting. Almost 30 states have passed legislation that requires or recommends that schools develop safety plans. Many experts believe a key is simply providing students with an anonymous outlet to report potential incidents. The Secret Service reported in a 2002 study of school shootings that in almost all the incidents, others knew beforehand that the student was considering a violent attack on the school.
This story appears in the April 4, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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