STUDENT KILLERS USE VIDEOS DENVER _ The videos of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold detailing their plans for the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School weren't scary, even being shown shortly after they killed 13 people. As they sipped whiskey on recliners, showed off their weapons and spouted their rage about others mistreating them, they appeared more like characters in "Wayne's World" than the team that was to commit whast the the biggest school massacre in U.S. history. Now, through their videos and rants on the Internet, they seem to have set the style that killers will use to explain their rampages, perhaps because they didn't dare confront people face to face. Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho also chose to send his final message by video, which he sent to NBC.
"It is their own personal memorial. It doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I made a bet on Monday that there would be a video and I am batting 1000," said Brooks Brown, the former Columbine student whose family tried repeatedly to warn sheriff's deputies about Harris and his death threats. "He probably didn't have time to upload it to youtube.com. Plus once you do that you are forced to go through with your plan or risk arrest," said Brown.
HARRIS AND KLEBOLD GIGGLE DURING VIDEO LITTLETON, Colo. _ Teen killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had run out of people to ate by the time they entered Columbine High School armed for carnage, homemade videos reveal. After insulting blacks, Christians, women, Jews, athletes, police and others, Harris is heard to exlaim on one tape, "I hate the fucking humans." Klebold concurs. "It's humans that I hate." A more detailed picture of Harris and Klebold emerged Monday, a day after Time magazine published a story on the videotapes, prompting authorities to allow other journalists to view them. Their release angered parents of the victims, who said they had been promised they would be shown the apes before they were publicly released. Several families viewed them Monday evening with journalists. "This is just going to serve to re-illuminate all the feelings and pain that (parents) have already experienced," said Brad Bernall, whose daughter, Cassie, was killed in the April 20 attack. "I'm really upset that someone didn't have the courtesy (to warn us)," said Connie Michalik, mother of Richard Castaldo, who was left paralyzed in the attack. "If anyone was going to see them, we had the right." Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman Wayne Holverson apologized for causing any heartache to the families. "We sincerely regret the untimely release of the story," he said. In the videos, Harris, 18 and Klebold, 17, detailed the plan that eventually left 12 students and one teacher dead. Both gunmen then committed suicide. The pair filmed a dress rehearsal on tape recorded in the basment at Klebold's home.
  
COLUMBINE KILLERS IN TROUBLE WITH LAW MANY TIMES BEFORE MASSACRE
LAKEWOOD, Colorado _ After learning no one would be blamed for missing possible warning signs that foreshadowed the Columbine High School massacre, Judy Brown simply wept.
A day before Brown and other victims were shown the huge cache of weapons the killers had collected. It was difficult to believe this much materiel could be collected without being seen.
"It's done. You know it. They're not going to do any more," Randy Brown said as he hugged his sobbing wife. The Browns were among a dozen relatives of Columbine victims who stood disconsolately against the back wall of the cavernous fairground auditorium Thursday after Attorney General Ken Salazar said the Jefferson County sheriff's office was not at fault for failing to follow up on warnings about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Asked if he thought there was a cover-up later, Salazar said: "I do not know today." And Friday, he said his investigation wasn't over. NOTHING FURTHER WAS EVER ANNOUNCED.
*AP Writers Catherine Tsai and Jon Sarche contributed to this report.
HUNDREDS JOIN FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON FOR COLUMBINE GROUNDBREAKING
Littleton, Colorado - Seven years after the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, hundreds of people joined former President Clinton on Friday for the ceremonial groundbreaking of a memorial honoring the 13 people slain at Columbine High School. "We're here because we love them. We're here to honor them. We're here to remember them, this day and every day hereafter," said Dawn Anna Beck, the mother of slain student Lauren Townsend. "We're here as a family and as a community that's been through the darkest of days and is coming through to the light." Clinton, who was here in 2004 for a similar fundraiser, drew cheers when he said he would donate $50,000 to the $1.5 million project. About $250,000 is still needed to pay for the monument to the 12 students and teacher shot to death by suicidal classmates Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Clinton gave his brief speech as a crowd estimated by organizers at about 2,000 people huddled under umbrellas through a rainstorm and light hail. At times, speakers paused as thunder rolled across the suburban Denver park. Beck read the victims' names and asked the crowd to remember April 20, 1999. "Remember the love? Remember the unity? Not just in this community, but in the nation and throughout the world?" she asked. "Remember the horror? Remember how broken your heart felt, that emptiness, that hollow and helpless feeling, pain seared so deeply that it seemed it never wanted to go away?" The memorial, she said, will always be a place to reflect how lives changed because of Columbine and to better know those who were lost that day. The site is on Rebel Hill, about 500 yards from the school.
TWO-THIRDS OF COLUMBINE STAFF GONE FIVE YEARS AFTER ATTACK
Two-thirds of the staff at Columbine High School have left in the five years since two suicidal teenagers gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher. Only one administrator remains. Principal Frank DeAngelis had vowed to stay only until every student in the building that day, April 20, 1999, graduated. But two years later, he still sits in the office where he once chatted with Dylan Klebold, one of the killers, about a student play.
“I don’t think I could have made it if I didn’t stay at Columbine,” DeAngelis said. “Twenty-five years of my life have been spent at Columbine. Being here provided strength for me during these difficult times.”
DeAngelis still has students who are siblings of those wounded in the attack. Among them is Maggie Ireland, sister of Patrick Ireland, who escaped out the window onto an armored car.
DeAngelis remembers that day clearly.
“I struggled for many months walking out of my office into that hallway because I relived that day over and over again,” he said. “I had flashbacks of the gunmen walking through, shooting.”
None of the 1,700 students will be here Tuesday. The campus is always closed on the anniversary of the attack.
MAGISTRATE ORDERS COLUMBINE DEPOSITIONS DESTROYED
DENVER _ A magistrate has ordered the destruction of sealed statements from parents of the Columbine High School gunmen that were given as part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was later settled.
U.S. Magistrate Patricia Coan said Thursday there appeared to be no need to keep the depositions from Tom and Sue Klebold and Wayne and Katherine Harris because the case had concluded.
Her ruling came over the objections of families of five Columbine victims who filed the suit, claiming the parents knew or should have known what their sons were up to before the shootings. Two families said they planned to appeal before the Oct. 7 deadline. Later, an agreement was worked with the state that sent the depositions to the state archives, where they will remain sealed for 20 years.
Klebold, Harrises
COLUMBINE ATHLETE HANGS HIMSELF LITTLETON, Colo. _ Five Columbine High basketball players gathered on a home patio court to shoot hoops as they struggled to grasp why their close friend and teammate committed suicide. Junior Greg Barnes, 17, who lost one of his best friends and saw a teacher die in last year's Columbine bloodbath, hanged himself Thursday while classmates went to school, said neighbor Leonard Purer. "I do not know if Columbine caused this, but I do know he was upset by it. All the students were upset by it,'' said Purer, who has known the family for nine years. "A CD, set to replay continuously, blasted a song by the group Blink 182 with the lyrics, ''You'll be sorry when I'm gone,'' and ''I never thought I'd die alone,'' said teammate David Mitchell, an exchange student from Melbourne, Australia. *AP Writer Catherine Tsai contributed to this report.
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