The Inside Story of Columbine (Preview)
Lies. Coverups. Ballistics. Lessons.

[Back Cover]

This book is about the 20-year search for the truth, and the process, and hard work, it has been to try to discover the truth. That process was made much more difficult by an active conspiracy to conceal information by the Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney, the Court System, the Supreme Court of Colorado, the Governor of Colorado and countless others. This book is about the efforts of a few people: a few of the victims’ families, some reporters, my wife and myself, and our fight to find out the truth about Columbine.

If you think you know the story about Columbine, you are wrong. If you think you know the whole story, you are really wrong. We still do not know the whole story, but we know enough to finally write the book, and explain this complicated crime, conspiracy and coverup.

This book was written for one reason: We wanted the truth told so that other people can learn the lessons of Columbine. This book, and all of this work, has been to honor the children murdered at Columbine High School.

[Front Matter]

[Title Page]

The Inside Story
Of Columbine

Lies. Coverups. Ballistics. Lessons.

With a Bonus Chapter:

How to Stop a School Shooting.

By: Randy Brown A Columbine Parent

[Copyright]

Copyright (c) 2020 Randall Brooks Brown.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed by Amazon. Inc., in the United States of America.

First printing, 2020.

Randy Brown P.O. Box 271471 Littleton, Co. 80127

Dedication:

This book has taken over 20 years to finish. I have so many people to thank. I know where to start, but I will regret leaving anyone out.

Dedicated to: My Wife, Judy. My sons, Brooks and Aaron. All of the friends who helped and supported us over the years. All of the clients I have had who worked with me through these difficult times. All of the reporters who wrote such courageous stories, especially Lynn Bartels, Kevin Vaughan, and Alan Prendergast. Brian, Lisa, Rich, Sue, Joe, Ann. Al, Phyllis, and others. Don and Dee. Paul Mones, Gavin DeBecker. Lonnie Athens and the other authors who wrote such incredible books. Sheri and Debi. Senator Ken Salazar. Sheriff Mink. Meagan. Peter Boyles. Mike and Mike. John Temple. Westword and Patricia Calhoun. The Rocky Mountain News. Reta. Linda. Celine.

With special memory: Joe Stair. John Hoggins. Ben Kune. Greg Barnes. Austin Eubanks. Paul Roasberry. Chief Justice William Erickson. Tim Roche. PJ Paparelli. Al Velasquez.

To honor the innocent children lost at Columbine.

Introduction

8/22/2019

Understanding it is the key.

You must have an in-depth understanding of the environment at Columbine if you are ever going to understand what happened on April 20^th, 1999. You must understand the society, the school, the children, the lives of the shooters, and the victims. This is the purpose of history. If you don’t understand why, and how, you cannot relate it to your life, your circumstances, you won’t know what to watch for, what to fight, what to try to prevent.

It isn’t enough to know that these boys shot 40 children. You can’t do anything about random violence. You can, however, do something about boys like Eric and Dylan, the environment they lived in, and an abusive school.

That is the purpose of this book. The children here are already dead. Nothing we ever do can change the permanence of the death of these innocent children. We can. however, tell you why it happened, how it happened, and how it has changed all of our lives, so that you can learn from it. The pain is too great, the sorrow too deep. Please learn from this book and stop the next Columbine.

I am Randy Brown. My family and I were involved in the Columbine Tragedy more than two years before April 20^th, 1999, the day of the actual murders. We are the people who reported Eric Harris to the police in 1998. We are the family that Eric Harris threatened to kill. We are the family who Eric Harris listed, in his diary, to be killed on the morning of April 20^th. 1999, before he and Dylan Klebold would go to the school. We were friends with the Klebolds, Dylan’s parents and family. My children were at Columbine High School on April 20^th, 1999: Aaron in the cafeteria and Brooks in the school, and then later, outside in the parking lot My son Aaron was sitting two tables from the bombs placed in the cafeteria, and was shot at as he ran through the school, making his escape. My son

Brooks is the boy that Eric “let go” in the parking lot. My son Brooks is the boy that was falsely accused of being a suspect, by the now disgraced Sheriff John Stone. My wife and I attended almost every meeting of the Governor’s Review Task Force. My wife and I are probably the two most knowledgeable experts about Columbine in the world. We have studied the released information, talked to students, and teachers, and parents, and investigated the Columbine Tragedy and cover-up, for years. We were there for the release of the Basement Tapes, and watched them. We were there when Attorney General Salazar revealed the conspiracy through the little-known “secret meeting” Investigation. I was, through the efforts of some of the victim’s families, on the Columbine Records Review Task Force, under the control of the Attorney General of Colorado. We knew the Klebolds, and we have become friends with some of the victim’s families. We have been involved in almost every phase of the tragedy. We have lived the Columbine Tragedy since 1997, and we have been immersed in the details and investigation since April 20^th, 1999.

That is why I have written this book. This is a complicated crime and cover-up. The facts are known and understood by only a few people. This has been our life, and now we want you to know the truth.

This book is about the efforts of a few people: Brian Rohrbough and a few of the victim’s families, some reporters, my wife and myself, and our fight to find out the truth about Columbine.

If you think you know the story about Columbine, you are wrong. If you think you know the whole story, you are really wrong. We still do not know the whole story, but we know enough to finally write the book, and explain this complicated crime and conspiracy.

This book, and the years of work, and sadness, and depression, and anger have all been for one reason: We wanted the truth told so that we can all leam the lessons of Columbine. This book, and all of that work has all been for one reason: To honor the lives of the children murdered at Columbine High School.

It is for the children, and it always has been.

This book is complicated. It is taken from my writings and notes over the last 20 years. The order is not specifically chronological. I did not always write about something when it happened. Some things I did not write about for a number of years, because of the trauma and sadness involved. I will admit that my perspective has changed on a number of items. I believed something in the year 2000, that I do not believe now. There are many examples of this. I cannot correct those chapters, or the book would be false. When I discovered something, I wrote about it. Many items were based on what I knew at the time, and that changed. It would have to change. This tragedy involved many lies. It was only on learning the depth of those lies, that we learned the truth about certain situations. This book will seem to be confusing, at times. That is the confusion we dealt with, and lived with, for many years. If you are patient, you will see why. The learning process is complicated. It is always complicated in real life. I have not rewritten any of the chapters, or changed any of the words, to make it look like we figured something out before we actually did. The confusion and complications are part of the story, and they remain as written, from the year and date they were written.

I am often unkind in my remarks about certain people. Those were my beliefs at the time. I have left those remarks in the book as written. There has been no editing that would make me look smarter, or better. Those were my beliefs at the time. They stayed as written. I will leave it up to you, the reader, to decide if the anger I felt, and the disappointment I felt, was valid and real. The book is real, and honest.

I am leaving out of the book the crime scene photos and other items that would hurt the families of the children involved, injured, or murdered. There is no need to include those. They are nothing that will help you understand this tragedy. The book is my beliefs and my opinions, and the facts, as best as I can remember it. I hope that it is a learning situation for you, and I hope it shows you this tragedy from the inside.

My real hope is that you will learn from this book. I hope with all of my heart that you will read the parts about stopping suicide and school shootings, and understand them, and believe them. They are the purpose of this book. I want you to know how to stop a school shooting. I want you to stop a school shooting. That is the only way I know of to honor the innocent children who died at Columbine. It is the only way to honor all of the children who have died in school shootings since Columbine. I believe these deaths are preventable. I hope, with all of my heart, that you will believe that too, after you have read this book. That is the only reason that my wife and I have spent so many years learning and studying this tragedy. It has been about honoring the innocent children killed at Columbine. It is about that only. It always has been.

It is about stopping the next school shooting.

The world will never be perfect, but you can give people a chance to be heard, and a peaceful, non-violent method of protesting injustice.

R. Brown

A disclaimer: This book is the truth as I know it I have not softened the writing, or held back on the writing that was in my journals. This is the story, as I lived it.

Yes, I am certainly biased. Yes, I certainly see things a certain way. I wrote things that were too comprehensive in their criticism. It is certainly unfair to say that all of the SWAT team members were cowards. There may be SWAT members who were not cowards, although I did not see one of them act in a courageous way on April 20^th, 1999. Their behavior on the day of Columbine and, in my opinion, on every day after Columbine, shows that they are cowards. There are, of course, exceptions. Lt. Burch and Lt. Black showed great courage in trying to tell the truth about the failures. I know of other policemen who were not there, at Columbine, who, I believe, more, I know, would have gone into that school to stop the killing. I know of one policeman in the school, during the Arapahoe High School shooting, who was unarmed, and still ran to the sound of the shooting, willing to die to stop the killer. Rod Mauler, you know it is true. You are a brave policeman, and would have gone into the school on April 20^th 1999, regardless of your orders, or fear. Unfortunately, that behavior was not common. In fact, we have seen officers stand outside and listen, afraid to enter schools, since the Columbine tragedy. This happens far too often. Even though the strategy has changed for first responders, some still stay outside the school, and do not enter, despite the advantages they have, as a trained policeman, over the untrained and foolish school shooters that are in the school. You only need to read about school shootings, and see, as in the Florida killings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, that not all policeman have courage. That is a sad lesson for us all, and it shouldn’t surprise us. Not all soldiers in wars fight. Some are afraid. Others fight without fear, or by controlling their fear.

In fact, the most important thing I learned from the Stoneman Douglas High School killings, is the comment by the police chief. He actually said that their job was to mitigate the damage. Mitigate. Not stop, not prevent, but to mitigate the damage. That should send a chill up the spine of every parent who reads this. If it does not, you should look up the word mitigate, and see how it can apply to a school shooting situation.

I have criticized teachers and administrators, sometimes without apparent compassion. I may be correct on that subject, or I may be wrong. I can only write what I believe.

In this case, in this book, in this situation, telling the truth was the most important thing. I did that in this book. I have told my story, my belief, my opinion, as best as I possibly can. That was needed for this book. Too many of the books on Columbine are full of lies. They are lies to make some people look good, and to tell a story. The truth in this book is for one reason: I needed you to know what happened, what we lived through, what we learned, and, I needed you to live through the learning process.

Innocent, kind and loved children died at Columbine. They died for no reason at all. They died because some adults are clueless to the pain of bullied children, and the pain of school abuse. I needed to write the truth, as I see it, as I have learned it, so that you can learn, and stop the next school shooting.

Nothing else matters.

Many of the liars of Columbine have lied for years, and continue to lie. In fact, many of their lies keep changing, making them more heroic every day. One administrator locked 10 girls in a closet, and then left the building, leaving the girls behind. That person now tells a story about how they faced down the killers, and their shotguns. They become more heroic every day. It is easy to change one lie into another lie.

That did not happen in this book. These chapters were, and are, frozen in time. I did not go back and make myself look better. I corrected spelling and punctuation. The journal was written when it happened. I am not a hero. I did not write, and I am not writing that I am a hero. In fact, I admit having some of the blame for this tragedy. I live with that every day of ...

It has really bothered me about Sue and her book. She came out with a book a few years ago. I read it and was really upset. It was not the truth. There, plain and simple, it was not the truth. She makes light of the warnings that Judy gave her about Eric Harris. Judy told her that he was dangerous, and to keep him away from Dylan. Judy warned her, very clearly, as a friend. Sue ignored her. Sue was warned, and chose to ignore it.... Sue is working on a suicide prevention program. Her son was killed, and her son murdered innocent children with a shotgun and Tec9. He is not a suicide victim. He is a killer. Sue cannot completely face that fact. She is using the story of suicide to keep her sanity.

It is a falsehood. Her book is so full of lies that I was quite upset over it. In it, she says that Judy was not even a friend. She leaves out details, like the fact that we were invited to the funeral, and all of the other things we did with them and for them, as friends. This doesn’t get to the truth. This doesn’t help. Her book tells people things that are not true. That won’t help stop the next school shooting.

The two books I disliked were ‘Columbine’ by Dave Cullen and Sue’s book, whatever it is called.. I know, it is called: ‘A Mother’s Reckoning.’ I even hate to reveal the title. Oddly, it borrows some of the title from Mein Kampf, which was also ‘a reckoning.’ I am sure that was an oversight, albeit an odd one, since Sue is Jewish. I found it a bit odd that her publisher wouldn’t know the former literary use of that phrase.

Both books are disappointing and misleading. Cullen wrote from the point of view of the police, and with information from the police. That is discrediting to his book, as the police lied through this whole thing. His book is based, to a large extent, on the lies the police told for years.

Sue told her story, and she did not tell it all. The truth is simply too painful for her. She has a long way to go before she accepts her part in this, and before she understands Dylan, and his violence. I can completely understand that.

I had, personally, the oddest experience with Sue’s book. I ordered it the second I heard about it, and waited for delivery. And waited, and waited. I read it the day I received it, without stopping. During the reading I would yell over to Judy: ‘Listen to this.’ She would be downstairs or somewhere in the house, and I would tell her what Sue had written.

It was ridiculous. So many lies and omissions. Judy finally told me to not tell her about them, it was making her depressed. I started highlighting anything that I thought was wrong, so that Judy could review it. The book is full of highlighted pages. It was almost laughable.