NEWS
FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2006
6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
STATE COLUMBINE ANNIVERSARY
Massacre plans exposed
RIVERTON — Five teenage boys accused of plotting a shooting rampage at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on the Web site MySpace.com.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sheriff's deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect, Sheriff Steve Norman said. Authorities also found documents about firearms in two suspects' school lockers.
"What the resounding theme is? They were actually going to do this." Norman said.
Norman said he would ask prosecutors to bring charges of conspiracy to commit murder against the teens, ages 16 to 18. He said the state attorney general would handle the prosecution.
Deputies' interviews with the suspects indicated they planned to wear black trench coats and disable the school's camera system before starting the attack between noon and 1 p.m. Thursday, Norman said. The suspects apparently had been plotting since the beginning of the school year.
Officials at Riverton High School began investigating on Tuesday after learning that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com, he said.
The message discussed the significance of April 20, which is Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School attack in Colorado, in which two students wearing trench coats killed 13 people and committed suicide, the sheriff said. Norman said that the potential victims were popular students and that the suspects may have been bullied.
Victims recall worst school shooting
Aimee Eubanks holds her seven-month-old son, Caden, as she visits the grave site of Corey DePooter, in Littleton, Colo., on Thursday, which was the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. Aimee's husband Stephen was DePooter's best friend. He was also shot during the massacre at the school.
Ed Andrieski/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY ROBERT WELLER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLETON, Colo. — As a sophomore at Columbine High School seven years ago, Marjorie Lindholm was a cheerleader with a 3-plus grade-point average who wanted to become a doulin.
For life changed dramatically when the killing spree began on April 20, 1999. Lindholm found herself locked in a classroom with other students and a teacher, Dave Sanders.
She was there for four hours as Sanders and 12 classmates were gunned down by students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who later shot and killed themselves.
Now 24, Lindholm believes she has only recently begun to heal. Writing a book, "A Columbine Survivor's Story," with her mother has helped, she said.
Many survivors have moved on after the deadliest school shooting in the nation's history. But for others marking the massacre's seven-year anniversary Thursday, it has been more difficult.
Sean Graves was shot four times and paralyzed from the waist down. The father of Mark Taylor, who was hit by more than a dozen bullets, left his family in 2001 after 34 years of marriage. Anne Marie Hochhalter's mother killed herself 18 months after the massacre, which left her daughter paralyzed from the waist down.
Brooks Brown, a friend of the two killers, was briefly named a suspect by authorities, outraging family members who had reportedly tried to warn sheriff's deputies that Harris had threatened Brooks and was building bombs. Brown said he is now doing well, running a small video production company.
And there are others.
Columbine Principal Frank DeAngelis went with a divorce after throwing himself into his work, but is now engaged to his high school sweetheart.
There were no classes at Columbine on Thursday, as is the case each anniversary. Relatives of the victims and survivors by now are used to calls from reporters. For Dawn Anna, the mother of Lauren Townsend, the 18-year-old valedictorian slain that day, the calls are far from a nuisance.
"When you call you are remembering Lauren," she said.
"When you hit bottom you don't
stay down there very long. Issues come that take you back. But we have chosen to remember Lauren's light and beauty."
Brian Rorhbough, whose son, Daniel, was killed, planned to host a radio show Thursday to discuss the investigation into the killers and whether the attack could have been prevented, as some contend. "The public has a right to know what happened," he said.
In her book, Lindholm recounts her memories of April 20,1999.
"Within seconds, the whole building began to shake, and I heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots and extremely loud screaming," she wrote. "The gunfire was so loud that it didn't seem like normal guns could make that much noise."
About 20 students and teachers took shelter in the science classroom two doors down from the library, where most of the killing was done.
Sanders, Lindholm's typing teacher, was brought into the room with gunshot wounds to
his neck and upper back. Students covered him in a blanket and took pictures of his family from his wallet and showed them to him, hoping to keep him conscious.
"I can't breathe and I'm not going to make it," he said, according to Lindholm's recollection.
The rescue was as terrifying as the wait, with SWAT team members leading the students out at gunpoint, apparently unaware whether they were victims or assailants.
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