Massacre Rubs Old Wounds at Columbine
As a result, of the 176 school districts in the state, "only about five [information-sharing agreements] have been completed so far," notes criminologist Bill Woodward, who has tracked their progress at the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. "People still don't want to share information because [over] their whole lives they've been taught that the liability will be on them if they do."
That is most likely what motivated the killers' parents to try to withhold their sons' notorious "basement tapes" in which they detail their reasons for the attack, as well as keep under wraps the depositions the parents gave. Although the basement tapes were eventually shown to the press and to parents, they remain unavailable to the public, and the judge in the case recently ruled that the parents' depositions should remain sealed in the National Archives for 25 years, in part out of concerns that they could be used by those planning copycat crimes.
Yet some are dubious of such reasoning. "It's ridiculous to think that those depositions could have inspired someone like that person in Virginia to go on a killing spree," says Judy Brown, whose son Brooks was threatened by Eric Harris a year before the shooting. "I'll tell you who would read them: parents and psychologists trying to avoid another Columbine."
As for the basement tapes, "if you saw what Eric had in his room, every parent would be stunned," she says of the pipe bombs hidden behind CDs and gunpowder in a coffee can.
"Then he hands over the camera and says, 'Look, Mom, my room is clean.' "
Adds Rohrbough: "These [tapes] are so critical because before seeing them I could never have guessed what you should be looking for. There's stuff so remarkably similar [to the Virginia Tech attack] that it will send a chill down your back."
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