AP Was There: Shock, then terror as Columbine attack unfolds

LITTLETON, Colo. — EDITOR’S NOTE — On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys dressed in black trench coats went on a murderous rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. They shot dead twelve classmates and a teacher and wounded twenty others before committing suicide.

Twenty-five years later, The Associated Press is republishing this story about the attack, the result of reporting from more than a dozen AP journalists who conducted interviews in the hours after the attack occurred. The article first appeared on April 22, 1999.

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A moment of surprise, then hours of fear

By TED ANTHONY

AP National Writer

LITTLETON, Colo. – Her favorite lunch meal was ready – “my only meal,” Sarah DeBoer jokes. So, nachos in hand, she walked to the common area of ​​the Columbine High School cafeteria.

It was a sunny Tuesday morning, maybe 60 degrees, just 17 school days before graduation, and there was a spring mentality — the kind that says summer is on its way.

Outside, two disgruntled young men knew something their classmates did not. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had an endgame in mind.

Ms. DeBoer, who knew the couple casually, had spoken to them on Friday. Granted, they liked to bitch about guns and revenge and Adolf Hitler. But they seemed – to them at least – fine.

Upstairs in the school library, four dozen students studied their way through the lunch period.

Down the hall, Dave Sanders, a popular instructor and coach, was teaching science. Nearby, Stephanie Williams, 16, a junior, was singing in the choir room.

Then, at about 11:15, a sound from outside: pop-pop-pop-BANG.

In the cafeteria they thought it was a lunch joke. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

Sarah DeBoer, a 16-year-old sophomore, hit the floor with her lunch companions. As the realization washed over her, she said one thing. Whether it was out loud or just to herself, she doesn’t remember exactly.

“I think I’m going to die.”

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In moments of chaos and hours of confusion, memories can become cloudy. But through countless interviews and briefings, an understandable, if still inaccurate, portrait emerges of what went on behind the tan walls of a suburban school.

Just after the lunch period begins, two young men in black trench coats open fire in the parking lot. Senior Wade Frank, 18, outside in the parking lot next to a picnic area, hears popping noises and sees a girl lying against a curb, shot in the leg. As he watches, another youth is shot in the back and falls forward.

Then a gunman throws a bomb in the parking lot and goes inside.

“He just walked casually. He was in no hurry,” says Frank.

Sophomore Denny Rowe, 15, is having lunch outside with friends. “These guys opened fire on anything that looked human,” Rowe said. Bullets bounce everywhere.

“A boy was running and suddenly his ankle swelled with blood,” said sophomore Don Arnold, 16. “A girl was running and her head popped open.”

As the gunmen enter the school, two students lie dead outside. Still shooting, the two walk to the cafeteria, where food server Karen Nielsen hears someone yelling, “Get down!”

Klebold, 17, and Harris, 18, are heavily armed: an assault rifle, sawed-off shotguns, handguns. In the cafeteria, someone takes off his trench coat to reveal homemade grenades. He throws a pipe bomb.

Gunshots ring out. Students fall. One gets up to run and others follow.

The news is spreading: the ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ has gone mad. Many of the building’s 900 students duck into closets and bathrooms, under tables and chairs. A couple calls 911 on cell phones. Dozens flee the building and hide in the bushes around the school.

Senior Nick Foss, 18, and a friend push two teachers, a chef and another woman into a bathroom. “I heard people praying for their spouses and children,” Foss said. The attackers bang on doors and shout: “We know you’re in there.”

Casey Brackley, 15, is at the gym when an administrator herds children into the equipment room.

“I fell to my knees and prayed,” says Mrs. Brackley. They stay for 15 minutes before the manager sends them out.

Neil Gardner, the Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy assigned to the school full-time, hears shots and sees one of the gunmen in a first-floor hallway. He radios for help and fires back as the bullets ricochet off the lockers. Within minutes, seven officers arrive and begin pulling students, including some of the shooting victims, out of the building.

In the choir room, above the common room, Stephanie Williams and her classmates hear the sounds.

Someone comes to the door and warns him with a thumb-forefinger gesture: a gun.

Her teacher tells everyone to sit down. But a little later, the adjacent two-story school auditorium seems a safer place, so some go; then after about 10 minutes they run into the main hall.

“The group I was in went straight for the door. He shot at us,” says Stephanie. “All we knew was to run.”

As they flee, a door behind them explodes in gunfire.

Sarah DeBoer, separated from her friend who had walked into the weight room, lies on the cafeteria floor until she hears a car explode outside. Then she runs into the room and lies down between the chairs.

She stays there for a while. Fellow students – 15, maybe 20 – cry softly. Teachers warn them to keep quiet. In the distance they hear sharp reports and dull explosions. Finally a janitor comes in and says, Go!

They run and gunfire ensues.

“I turned around and I saw Dylan was the one turning around and shooting me,” Sarah says. “He didn’t know it was me; we just ran out of the room.”

The shooters go upstairs, towards the library.

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“All jocks stand up! We’re going to kill you all,” shouts a gunman in the library.

Student Aaron Cohn, a baseball player, is spared because a girl jumps on his back while he lies on the ground, covering the baseball slogan on his shirt.

“They were laughing after they shot,” Cohn said. “It was like they were having the time of their lives.”

Some students are murdered at their desks, one with a pencil still in hand. The gunmen play ‘peek-a-boo’ with others, crouching under desks and opening fire. Isaiah Shoels, who is black and has come into contact with the gunmen before, is one of those who will fall.

An attacker says, “Oh, my God. Look at this black child’s brain. Great man!”

Some children play dead. By the time it’s over, twelve will no longer be playing.

Klebold and Harris leave behind broken windows, bloody floors, and a silence the library has never heard. Elsewhere upstairs, Sanders, the teacher, has been shot twice in the chest, but he manages to get the students through a hallway, away from danger. He stumbles into a science room, bleeding and coughing blood.

Outside, the first SWAT team arrives on scene 20 minutes after the first 911 calls and joins sheriff’s deputies. It finds several explosives around the school and proceeds cautiously.

“People showed up right away, but we couldn’t get in,” said Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone. “We were way out of range.”

About 45 minutes after the shooting started, at noon, ambulances take the first injured students – those who managed to run out – to hospitals. Bomb squads, fire trucks, more SWAT units and paramedics arrive.

Nick Foss and other students manage to crawl into a space between the ceiling and the acoustic tiles. Foss falls through a tile and falls to the floor of the staff room. He runs.

Kammi Vest, 18, hides in the choir room closet with as many as 60 other students. Others try to crawl through heating vents to safety.

In the science room, Dave Sanders is dying. Students cover the 47-year-old teacher with their shirts and a blanket and keep him talking. But his heart rate slows and he feels cold.

Shots can be heard until almost 12:30 p.m. Around that time, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris turn their guns on themselves in the library, though no one will be sure of that for hours.

As 12:30 passes, after no shots ring out for several minutes, SWAT teams begin sweeping the building room by room. It is literally a minefield: there are fallen backpacks everywhere, each one a potential bomb. Bombs of different shapes and sizes will appear in the coming days. This includes two 35-pound propane bombs hidden in the school kitchen.

At around 2:30 PM, SWAT teams begin to free the people in hiding. They run in small groups with their hands behind the head of the school to a waiting area. They are searched, questioned, given medical care and bused to Leawood Elementary School where they are reunited with their parents.

Now the world sees it all on television. Escaped students cling to each other. For some, tears flow freely; for others it will take time. Even the tough guys, the ones with the backward baseball caps and baggy camouflage pants, cry.

At 4:30 p.m., after the shooters’ bodies are found, authorities declare the school under control. Dr. Chris Colwell goes in, called in for a medical synopsis. In the sunlit, silent library is the worst thing he has ever seen.

“You walk in there with the hope that maybe there is someone who is still alive and can be saved,” Colwell said. “It didn’t take me long to see that this wasn’t the case.”

He declares them all dead: ten students and two alienated classmates who let their anger consume them.

The bodies will remain there for a whole day until the known bombs are cleared.

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By the next afternoon, nearby Clement Park has become a place of mourning. Students and teachers and viewers, they come to commiserate, to speak of faith and perseverance, to see the spectacle and talk to the press.

Among the pilgrims: Sarah DeBoer, wearing her Columbine football jersey, and Stephanie Williams, accompanied by a friend to comfort her. They stand together, feet away from the scene of the greatest horror of their lives, and try to process the scenes running through their minds.

“I was so scared yesterday,” Mrs. DeBoer says, her voice shaking.

“They destroyed the school, but I think we should definitely go back,” she says. “If you don’t go back, they will win.”