Columbine Remembered

A review of Dave Cullens book, Columbine, by Jennifer Senior of the New York Times. Dave Cullens work seems to be discussed in a largely negative light amongst 'Columbines' online, in such places as Tumblr. The book is not without fault, Cullen attributes a sex life to Harris that never existed, making him out to be a ladies man who scored more than the jocks. Eric Harris likely died a virgin. Ultimately, 'Columbine' provides us with an invaluable insight in to the Columbine massacre that should not be ignored. Cullen provides us with a profile of two young killers that is both compelling and shocking. Many seem to dismiss the book, citing the fact that Cullens conclusions of Eric and Dylan are incorrect and he shouldn't attribute feelings and thoughts to them, seemingly without basis. Yet in saying Cullen is wrong about Harris and Klebold, one attributes feelings, thoughts and personalities to the two boys with little basis, too. Cullen is in a position the vast majority of Columbiners are not. He has met key players in the case. In the updated paper back of his book, Cullen details multiple meetings he had with both Harris and Klebolds parents. Cullen also had access to investigators working on the case, including the lead investigator, psychiatrists who are experts in their field and were able to view and evaluate all material relating to Harris and Klebold. His sources are meticulously listed, and the breadth of his research cannot be dismissed. Whilst 'Columbine' is not without error, Dave Cullens acclaimed book is well worth the read and provides a compelling look at Columbine. "Had Dave Cullen capitulated to cliché while writing “Columbine,” he would have started his tale 48 hours before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s notorious killing spree, stopped the frame just before they fired their guns, and then spooled back to the very beginning, with the promise of trying to explain how the two boys got to this twisted pass. But he doesn’t. As Cullen eventually writes, “there had been no trigger” — at least none that would be satisfying to horrified outsiders, grieving parents or anyone in between. Eric Harris was a psychopath, simple as that. Dylan Klebold was a suicidally depressed kid who yoked his fate to a sadist. Instead, what intrigues the author are perceptions and misperceptions: how difficult a shooting spree is to untangle; how readily mass tragedies lend themselves to misinformation and mythologizing; how psychopaths can excel at the big con. The broad outlines of what happened at Columbine High School in Colorado one decade ago are well known. On April 20, 1999, just weeks from graduation, Harris and Klebold murdered one teacher and 12 of their peers, making this the most lethal high school massacre in the nation, and wounded two dozen. Then they holed up in the school library and turned their guns on themselves. Yet what’s amazing is how much of Cullen’s book still comes as a surprise. I expected a story about misfits exacting vengeance, because that was my memory of the media consensus — Columbine, right, wasn’t there something going on there between goths and jocks? In fact, Harris and Klebold were killing completely at random that day. Their victims weren’t the intended targets at all; the entire school was. Columbine, it turns out, was a failed attempt at domestic terrorism. Shortly after 11:14 a.m., the two boys hauled a propane bomb into the cafeteria, programmed to go off at 11:17. It never did. Had the massacre gone as planned, it would most likely have killed more than 500 people, yielding far less readily to rumors about high school’s tribal politics. It’s to his credit that Cullen, a Denver journalist who covered the story for Salon and Slate, makes the reader care about getting it right. “Columbine” is an excellent work of media criticism, showing how legends become truths through continual citation; a sensitive guide to the patterns of public grief, foreshadowing many of the same reactions to Sept. 11 (lawsuits, arguments about the memorial, voyeuristic bus tours); and, at the end of the day, a fine example of old-fashioned journalism. While Cullen’s storytelling doesn’t approach the novelistic beauty of “In Cold Blood” (an unfair standard, perhaps, but an unavoidable comparison for a murder story this detailed), he writes well enough, moving things along with agility and grace. He leaves us with some unforgettable images — like the pizza slices floating aimlessly about the school commons, which was flooded with three inches of water because the sprinkler system had gone off — and he has a knack for the thumbnail sketch. “He was a shrink turned hostage negotiator turned detective, with an abridged version of the complete works of Shakespeare in the back seat of his car,” Cullen writes of Dwayne Fuselier, an F.B.I. agent and one of the book’s heroes. “He could be a little stoic. Hugging his sons felt awkward but he would reach out to embrace survivors when they needed it.” Fuselier is one of the people Cullen spotlights in his retelling in order to clear up the historical record. Some of the confusion generated by Columbine was inevitable: Harris and Klebold started out wearing trench coats, for instance, but at some point removed them, giving the illusion that they were four people rather than two. The homemade pipe bombs they were tossing in all directions — down stairwells, onto the roof — only seemed to further the impression that there were more of them. And then there were the SWAT teams: students trapped inside the building would hear their rifle fire, assume it was the killers and report it to the media by cellphone, complicating the cops’ efforts to keep them safe. “This was the first major hostage standoff of the cellphone age,” Cullen notes. The police “had never seen anything like it.” But the most subtle distortions of the media echo chamber, it seems, did not concern logistics. They concerned motive. As early as two hours into the live coverage of Columbine, news stations began to report that something called the Trench Coat Mafia, a group of disgruntled goths, was possibly behind the attack. Many of the students, watching this coverage on classroom televisions while still trapped inside the building, began to repeat this information to reporters on the outside once they’d escaped. (And it made sense: the killers were wearing trench coats.) And so a loop began, reinforced by four eyewitnesses who said the gunmen were deliberately targeting their victims. One offered such a precise level of detail — the killers were taking aim at “anyone of color, wearing a white hat or playing a sport” — that it proved irresistible, both to students and to members of the media, who (Cullen speculates) were out of their element in this teenage universe, and therefore willing to repeat this rumor whether their “witnesses” had seen the gunmen or not. “Reporters,” the author points out, “would not make that mistake at a car wreck.” Of course, tragedies often lend themselves to myths, so as to meet the needs of the day. For weeks after Sept. 11, the lovely legend persisted that the Rev. Mychal Judge, a New York Fire Department chaplain, died from falling debris when he took off his helmet to give last rites to a firefighter. As I wrote sometime later in New York magazine, that’s not how he died. But people had a stake in that belief. And Columbine generated a similar tale of spiritual martyrdom. A boy who witnessed the murders in the school library told people afterward that a slain student, a fellow evangelical named Cas­sie Bernall, was asked by one of the killers if she believed in God. “Yes, I believe in God,” he said she replied. Two other witnesses, both sitting near Cassie, heard no such thing, and Cullen goes on to say that a 911 tape from that day “proved conclusively” that she hadn’t uttered these words. It didn’t matter. The story caught the imagination of the evangelical world, and Cassie’s mother, Misty Bernall, wrote a book, “She Said Yes,” that has since sold more than one million ­copies. “Columbine” is weakest when Cullen tries to channel the voice of Eric Harris. (“Five or six hundred dismemberments ought to be enough for one awesome afternoon of TV” is one such example.) As the author himself makes clear, Harris’s mind isn’t a particularly interesting place to inhabit — just sneering and young and unfathomably angry. But his nuanced dissection of the differences between Harris and Klebold is first-rate, leaving readers in the strange (and challenging) position of feeling pity, almost, for Klebold. Cullen walks us carefully through the definition of psychopathy, and how it differs from insanity, noting how perfectly Harris met the profile — particularly in his egomania, outsize contempt for humanity and talent for manipulation. (Just months before the attack, a teacher wrote on one of his essays, “I would trust you in a heartbeat.”) Whereas Klebold, for most of the book, seems forlorn, awkward and miserable. “The anger and the loathing,” Cullen explains, “traveled inward.” In case you’re wondering, we don’t get the granular details of Harris and Klebold’s last 48 hours until the end of the book, when we know so much more it’s almost beside the point. Which isn’t to say some of the testimony still isn’t chilling. That Sunday, in a homemade videotape, Harris addressed his parents. “They could not have stopped him, Eric assured them,” Cullen writes. “He quoted Shakespeare: ‘Good wombs have borne bad sons.’ ”"

Yet it wasn't to be. For Eric and Dylan, Columbine was a failure. As Eric raised his gun to his mouth, preparing to die, what was he thinking? So sure of himself in the months leading up, so sure of his skills and of the mass destruction and devastation he would help cause, did he ever stop to think it would end like this? Another failure, the biggest moment of his life was not the big show he expected. He went out with a fizzle, ending his life within the library he had hoped would be reduced to rubble. And Dylan? Co-conspirator, the boy who poured his heart out in his journal, lamented on his sad existence, his suicidial ideation. The plan he helped build failed too, like so many other things in his life. For Dylan, it was just another sad chapter to a self perceived sad life. The success of the day for Dylan was the final act, the raising of the gun to his head. Pulling the trigger, Dylan achieved what he had wanted for some time. Death. Peace?

Another interesting article by Peter Langman, author of 'Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters'. This time, Langman examines whether or not Eric Harris died a virgin and whether his lack of a girlfriend and intimacy had any influence in the massacre. Langman also provides a succinct analysis of Brenda, the woman who claimed to have had sex with Harris and whose false statements are reported as truth in Dave Cullens book 'Columbine'. "School shooters typically experience extreme frustration and/or anguish in their pursuit of intimacy, whether their primary focus is on finding love or simply having sex. Sometimes this appears to be a significant factor in their attacks, as in the case of Luke Woodham. Luke's first victim in his attack was his former girlfriend, and the attack occurred on the one-year anniversary of their break-up. This is not to suggest that the break-up caused the attack--the situation was more complex than that--but the break-up loomed large in Luke's mind. In other cases, disappointment with girls is part of the picture, but is not as prominent. What about Columbine? Though Eric Harris's attack was influenced by multiple factors, did the issues of love or sex play a role in the dynamics that culminated in murder? Eric pursued girls throughout high school. He experienced some success, going on dates with a number of girls. He experienced a great deal of disappointment, however. He doesn't seem to have ever had a steady girlfriend, and girls typically didn't date him for long. Eric did not handle rejection well, and sometimes became threatening in response to refusals to go out with him. He once made a list of students from the class of 1998 who "should have died," and this list included girls who had refused to go out with him. Here he connected rejection with homicidal thoughts. Interestingly, despite his pursuit of girls, his journal says nothing about ever being in love or wanting to find love. In contrast, Dylan Klebold's journal is full of passages about his pursuit of love and his love for certain girls. Eric's journal suggests he was interested in sex, not love. Eric wrote about his fantasies of tricking girls he knew into his room and raping them. Did Eric ever experience a sexual relationship? Though others have said "yes," I am not convinced. The only person I am aware of who claimed to have been intimate with Eric was a 23-year-old woman named Brenda. Her reporting, however, is highly problematic. She first came forward with her claim nearly three months after the attack at Columbine. She was interviewed by reporters and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI). There are several discrepancies between these interviews. In addition, she gave the CBI a photograph she claimed was of Eric, but which the CBI concluded was not Eric. She also gave them a voicemail recording she said was from Eric. The CBI stated that this did not sound like any other recording of Eric. Later, Brenda told someone online that she knew about the Columbine attack and was supposed to have been part of it. When the CBI heard about this they again interviewed her. After hemming and hawing Brenda eventually admitted that she had made the story up. Also, Brenda claimed that she was introduced to Eric by a mutual friend; this person, however, has told me that this is not true--that he never knew Brenda. I have not been able to find any reference to Brenda by Eric or any of his friends. Thus, there is apparently no confirmation that she ever knew Eric. Given all these facts, her claim to have had a sexual relationship with Eric is highly dubious. Eric's documents also seem to suggest that he had never had sex. The attack occurred on April 20, 1999. A month before this, on March 22, Eric made a list of things to do before the attack. Along with specific preparations for the rampage, he included the item: "get laid." On April 3, in his last journal entry, he lamented his inability to have sex, noting that maybe he was trying too hard, but that with the date of the attack closing in, he had to try hard. Though not conclusive proof, these documents suggest that Eric had not succeeded in his quest for sexual experience. If this is true, does it have any connection to the attack? Besides Eric's list of girls who deserved to die because they rejected him, his journal suggests that his sexual frustration did play a part in his motivation. Eric wrote about his self-hatred and lack of confidence with girls and wrote, "If people would give me more compliments all of this [the attack] might still be avoidable.... You know what, maybe I just need to get laid. Maybe that'll just change some s--- around." As I noted in my book (Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters), Eric was desperate for status, desperate to feel like a man. He was so desperate that he thought the attack might be avoidable if he could just "get laid." This would have changed his sense of himself, allowing him to feel more like a man. Eric Harris had a complex personality with narcissistic features combined with self-denigration, an antisocial rejection of morality and values, and a powerful streak of sadism. There were multiple factors in his desire to kill people on a massive scale. One of these factors, however, seems to have been his sense of failure in the realm of manliness and sex."

"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused. I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son's schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about my self, about God, about family, and about love. I think I believed that if I loved someone as deeply as I loved him, I would know if he were in trouble. My maternal instincts would keep him safe. But I didn't know. And my instincts weren't enough. And the fact that I never saw tragedy coming is still almost inconceivable to me. I only hope my story can help those who can still be helped. I hope that, by reading of my experience, someone will see what I missed." In the final act of their lives, planned for months in advance, Eric and Dylan inflicted on their parents a pain we will never understand. While the Klebolds and the Harris' deal with the pain of losing their own beloved children, they also faced the anguish of knowing they killed 12 classmates and one teacher. As time passed, it became evident to the world through the investigation that Eric and Dylan had carefully plotted to commit mass murder. They hid their plans from their parents for months, slowly stockpiling bombs, guns and ammunition under the same roofs their parents slept. In death, Eric and Dylan made fools of the people who raised and loved them. The exclusion that Eric and Dylan so hated in life was passed on their parents after their deaths, in ways Eric and Dylan could not imagine. A proud man, Wayne Harris now faced the scrutiny of an entire nation. People pondered how on earth two teenage boys could deceive their parents, many even blamed the parents. How could they not know the terror their children were planning? How did they miss it? In death, Eric's journals made a laughing stock of his mother and father. Video footage that has not been released, but has been widely discussed, details how Eric blatantly hid his arsenal in his bedroom. Eric himself discusses a close call whereby a store clerk phoned to inform him his ammunition was in. Wayne answered the phone, the potential for the whole plan to go down the drain was very real. Yet Wayne was not on the ball - he didn't order any ammunition, end of story. Eric escaped, relieved at his fathers blindness to the rage and violent potential of his son. In the final instalment of the basement tapes, Eric and Dylan offer final messages to their parents. They praise them, pass on their love, tell the world their parents were wonderful and not to blame. A final message for two sets of parents who raised their sons the best they good, in loving homes. Neither Wayne and Kathy Harris, nor Sue and Tom Klebold, have seen the Basement Tapes. They have not heard the final words to them from their sons, and even if they did what consolation would it be for the pain and anguish they have lived with for the past 15 years.

"Dylan Klebold, along with his friend Eric Harris, shot and killed 13 people and injured 23 others in April, 1999 in Columbine High School, before they turned their guns on themselves. My family moved into the same Colorado neighborhood as the Klebold family in July 1998, seven months before the tragedy. I never got the chance to meet Dylan but did have two pre-Columbine conversations with his father, Tom, in which he asked me (after he learned of my developmental psychology background) to tell him how it is possible to have two sons, one with whom he had a difficult relationship and the other whom he considered to be a "perfect child." Guess which one committed mass murder? You guessed it: The perfect child. My closest friend in the neighborhood knew the Klebolds well and he told me that Dylan was one of the shyest and quietest teenagers he had ever met. This jibes with a picture of Dylan painted by psychologist Peter Langman in his 2009 book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. While Langman is not surprised that Harris--a hate-filled and raging bigot--would have become a murderer, he is fascinated by what he considers the saddest part of the Columbine story, and that is how a nice kid like Dylan Klebold, with no history of violence, prejudice or even unkindness towards others, could have participated in one of the worst acts of violence in American history. In my 2009 book Annals of Gullibility, written before many of the details (for example, Klebold's diary entries or statements from survivors) had become public, I ventured the guess that Klebold had passively allowed himself to become Harris' pawn. Langman supports that position, and provides convincing details about the personality dynamics, and mental illness that made Klebold vulnerable to being sucked into Harris' grandiose and awful plot. Langman developed a typology of school shooters which he used to characterize the teens who commit such acts (he did not address cases in which the shooters were adults). In this typology, Langman characterizes shooters as "psychopathic" (anti-social), "psychotic" (thought-disordered), and "traumatized" (abused). He places Eric Harris squarely in the psychopathic category, while he places Dylan Klebold in the psychotic category, even while recognizing that his psychotic symptoms were "complicated" and relatively mild (for example, while he had paranoid delusional tendencies he did not hallucinate or lose complete touch with reality). In fact, Langman diagnoses Klebold as having a "schizotypal" personality disorder, a condition bordering on--but not yet quite at--the level of psychosis, although sharing some features, such as disordered thinking and language processes, feelings of persecution, and a distorted self-image. A key aspect of Klebold's mental illness was severe depression and suicidal thoughts, both commonly found in people with schizoptypal personality disorder given their general sense of worthlessness and social isolation. The truth of the matter is that Dylan was a talented and kind person who was genuinely liked by peers, and it is very possible, indeed likely, that if he had gotten the help he needed he could have grown into a contented adult. A very painful aspect of Klebold's existence was that he was too shy to ask girls out on dates, and he felt hurt and abandoned when his one extremely close friend began to pull away from him when the friend acquired a girlfriend. Klebold's friendship with Harris can be characterized as a rebound relationship, and the path towards antisocial behavior (which began before Columbine with a van break-in by the two of them) can be understood as an extreme dependency on Harris driven perhaps by a fear that if he asserted his autonomy, this new close friendship would disappear as well. As an example, although Klebold's mother was Jewish and he occasionally expressed to others disapproval of Harris' anti-Semitic rants, he tolerated them and agreed to participate in an attack timed to occur on Hitler's birthday. Similarly, while Klebold showed mercy to at least four victims who begged for their lives (unlike Harris, who was merciless and criticized Klebold for being weak), he still shot and killed numerous people in an apparent attempt to impress his sick friend. It may perhaps be viewed as unseemly to characterize killing people as "foolish," and certainly such a term does not exempt Klebold from the strongest moral condemnation. But what other word than foolish can one use to describe someone who would harm others in contravention of his own gentle and law-abiding tendencies, cause irreparable and permanent pain to the parents whom he apparently loved, and then throw away his own very promising life, in order to stay in the good graces of another person? While evidence of Klebold's mental illness sheds important light on his homicidal behavior, it still is useful to examine his behavior using my four-factor causative theory of foolishness. These factors are: situations, cognition, personality, and affect/state. In terms of situations, the critical factor explaining the turn Klebold's life took was his meeting and coming under the influence of Eric Harris. Without Harris, there is a chance that Klebold still might have committed suicide, and there is a chance he might have become dependent on another cult-like leader (Klebold and Harris both viewed Harris as a latter-day Charles Manson), but there is little doubt that he would have lived the balance of his life without killing or intentionally harming anyone. In addition, all three of the within-person factors in the explanatory model played a part. In terms of cognition, Klebold had a thought disorder, expressed in his over-generalized belief that killing people would establish a sense of superiority and revenge over being socially rejected. The personality factor was his extreme dependency and weakness of will, especially in relation to Harris. The affective/state factor motivating Klebold was extreme misery and the desire to find release from his pain. This model can be considered broadly psychodynamic, in that it views behavior--whether foolish or not--as the result of three within-person factors that are roughly equivalent to the three within-person factors in Freud's so-called structural theory: cognition as ego, personality as super-ego and affect/state as id. An element not found in the structural theory is the role of situations. This is a critical omission, in that almost all foolish behavior occurs in a social context, and one cannot understand, let alone predict, individual acts of foolishness without knowing what that context is and how it intersects with the person's personal tendencies. Foolish behavior, defined as action which fails to recognize or attach sufficient weight to unintended risk, generally occurs infrequently for most actors. Unfortunately, some foolish acts, as when it involves the taking of another human being's life, have tragic consequences for all who are involved." http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/incompetence/201102/murder-most-foolish

"In all the discussions since Columbine about school shootings, discussions that have now been revived with the tragedy at Sandy Hook, people have been avoiding blaming the killers. After Columbine, over 80% of the nation blamed the parents for the attack. That number has held steady. Still others have blamed violent video games, movies, and more, even though there is little evidence of their effect on killers of these sorts of attacks. People have blamed bullies, teachers, and just about everyone and everything else for these attacks. The ultimate sin of “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother” is that it spread the rumor that no killer is responsible for his own actions, that every killer is mentally ill and unable of thinking rationally. It is time we revive a word in our society, it is time we talked honestly about something we all know exists but are afraid to confront. It is time we bring back the word evil. We use the word “psychopath” to describe people like Eric Harris, and it is an accurate enough word. But if anyone looks at the checklist of what it means to be a psychopath: “charming callous, cunning, manipulative, comically grandiose, and egocentric, with an appalling failure of empathy”, the description sounds an awful lot like what most of us think of when we think of the word evil. Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to immediately assume there must something more to a story when we see killers like Eric Harris and Adam Lanza act out. We want to imagine that these killers come from the same background us, because then we can understand their actions. And, most importantly, we can control them. We want to believe that we have control, because when someone is simply bullied, all we have to do is stop bullying. When someone is insane, all we have to do is cure them of their insanity. When someone is a loner, we just have to make sure they get more social. In other words, there is a solution. But, in a case like Eric Harris, there is no obvious solution, no way to control his destiny. His father tried very hard to discipline him, but was often fooled by Eric’s charm and lies. Most people around him were completely unaware of his dark side. When we discuss the situation with Adam Lanza, we at least have to admit that it is possible he was motivated by evil. We must stop assuming that he was some sort of victim, whether of other people, or of his own “insanity”. As far as anyone can tell, he seems to have only been afflicted by Asperger’s, something that has so far shown absolutely no correlation to violent inclinations. When we don’t admit the possibility of evil, we begin to prematurely convict innocent people. We imagine that everyone who is a loner, has trouble with bullying, or has mental issues, is a born killer. This is another problem with the “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother” article. It makes a false comparison, and imagines her son to somehow be in any way connected to Eric Harris and Adam Lanza. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Eric Harris wasn’t out of control. He was perfectly in control. It’s not yet clear whether Adam Lanza was evil or not, but the fact that he was able to kill with such deadly accuracy, shooting each child 4 times to make sure they were dead, does not indicate a person who was out of control. - See more at: http://popchassid.com/eric-harris-adam-lanza-evil/#sthash.NXi3IASm.dpuf"

This article, written shortly before the two year anniversary if the massacre, discusses Columbine admirers. Over 15 years on, this is still a problem. Sadly, today's technology allows these individuals to contact family members of victims and express their idolisation of the people who killed their children. Tom Mauser, father of Daniel Mauser, posted a heartfelt video on YouTube in response to Harris and Klebold admirers. He also takes the time to respond directly to comments posted in his videos by admirers of the two men who killed his child. Tom is a truly wonderful man, and I've had the privilege to speak to him personally. His strenght and courage in the face of unimaginable loss are truly admirable, and for the past 15 years he has been making a tangible difference in ending gun related violence. His son, Daniel, would undoubtedly be proud of his Dad. The below article highlights the reality that interest and admiration of the Columbine killers can be very real indication of the potential for violence. Since this article was written, we have seen other crimes committed by individuals who profess an admiration for Harris and Klebold, or a lack of condemnation for their actions. A recent example is Adam Lanza, perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Massacre. "Harris, Klebold have admirers Columbine killers are honored on web sites, mimicked by teens who are outcasts By Kevin Vaughan, News Staff Writer Published March 7, 2001 at midnight It's been nearly two years since the tragedy at Columbine High, and yet the presence of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold can still be felt. Their reach stretches from the grave to a cultlike status on the Internet to a spate of teen-age copycats, including a 15-year-old boy accused of opening fire Monday morning in a San Diego-area high school, killing two classmates and sending 13 people to hospitals. Admirers have used cyberspace as a forum for memorial tributes to two of the most notorious mass murderers in American history. One even proposes a ''ribbon campaign'' to honor the Columbine killers. The following is no surprise to those with expertise in the mind-set of criminals. ''You have to understand there's a lot of people out there whose lives are kind of empty,'' said Ron Walker, a former FBI agent and expert in criminal profiling who lives in the Denver area. Ted Bundy killed dozens - maybe even hundreds - of unsuspecting young women in a coast-to-coast rampage and still got marriage proposals as he sat on death row. So it stands to reason, Walker said, that some people would identify with Harris and Klebold, the two Columbine seniors who felt picked on at school and hatched a plan to rain death on their classmates. That adulation can take several forms. On the Internet, it's easy to find Web sites dedicated to Harris and Klebold. One urges visitors to support the ''Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold ribbon campaign.'' It idolizes the two as ''our fallen heroes'' willing to risk their own lives ''for the sake of proving a point.'' Another Web site includes a gallery of pictures of the two killers and urges visitors to ''imagine being tormented every day when you go to school.'' Still another urges people to remember that Harris and Klebold were ''people, too.'' And then there are the recent copycat Columbine plans: * In early February, authorities in Hoyt, Kan., charged three high school students - ages 16, 17 and 18 - with plotting a Columbine-like attack on Royal Valley High School. Police officers searching homes on Feb. 5 found three black trench coats like those worn by Harris and Klebold in the Columbine assault. They also found bomb-making materials, a modified assault rifle, ammunition, white supremacist drawings and floor plans for their school in northeastern Kansas. * Two days later, the school in the news was Preston Junior High in Fort Collins. There, three ninth-graders were accused of plotting a Columbine-style attack on their school. They had access to guns and had drawn crude plans of the school that appeared to show the best places to shoot. Among the weapons turned up in a search of one of the boy's homes was a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol, like one of the weapons used in the Columbine attack. * Then, on Valentine's Day, police officers in Elmira, N.Y., arrested an 18-year-old senior at Southside High after he came to school lugging a duffel bag full of explosives, a loaded handgun and the parts to a shotgun. Investigators eventually found more than 20 crude bombs, some at school, some at the boy's home. The boy was caught after he allegedly carried his cache of bombs and weapons into the school's cafeteria and then wrote a note to a classmate about them. That student told a member of the faculty, who called police. ''There are a lot of sick people out there who may identify with what these people have done,'' Walker said. ''There are a lot of people out there who may identify with the motive of these two guys - people who may have been picked on, people who were kindred spirits.'' They may also look at the attention Harris and Klebold got, even in death, and crave that, as well. After all, their pictures were plastered across the front page of every newspaper in the country, across the covers of major magazines, and around the Internet. ''It becomes a way to sort of enhance their own identity,'' said John Nicoletti, a police psychologist who works with Denver-area departments. ''Especially if you have someone whose life is not really going that well, anyway. ''This is the chance to take control. This is the chance to be in the spotlight. This is the chance to be an avenger.'' An attorney for one of the Fort Collins boys has argued that the teens there had no serious intent to carry out their plot, that they did not think of Harris and Klebold as heroes. In some cases, kids may be genuinely planning something. In others, they may merely be fantasizing. But Nicoletti said there's no way to know for sure: ''I guess my reaction to the attorneys and the others who say, 'Well, they didn't mean it,' is 'How many more signals do you need? What else short of drawing blood was missing in Fort Collins?' '' All of this comes as April 20 approaches, the anniversary of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, at Columbine. For police officers across the country, that means there's no longer any such thing as innocent talk about blowing up a school and gunning down students. ''This isn't like it was when I was in high school,'' said Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman, who graduated in 1973. ''It just isn't the same. And you can see that in some of the threats we actually do hear about. ''They seem to be more frequent and they go across all lines - econonomic, social, sexual. You can't pin them down. That's why you have to take them all seriously.'' That, however, doesn't always happen. Just last weekend, the 15-year-old boy accused in Monday's California shooting talked about taking a gun to school and shooting people. The talk came as the suspect spent the night at a friend's home, according to a man who is dating the other boy's mother. ''I even mentioned Columbine to him,'' Chris Reynolds told The Associated Press. ''I said I don't want a Columbine here at Santana. But he said, 'No, nothing will happen. I'm just joking.''' That the boy had bragged beforehand fit a pattern seen in other copycat crimes. ''When we work with schools and companies on workplace violence, we always say the same thing: 'They always tell you before they do it. There's no surprises,''' Nicoletti said. And this week's incident probably was not the end of people trying to emulate Harris and Klebold. ''Probably,'' said Walker, the former FBI agent, ''somewhere in this country there is someone sitting down as the date approaches thinking at some point that he might engage in an act that outdoes Harris and Klebold. ''Whether he's really thinking about doing something like that or whether they're just fantasizing, you can't say.''