I love the way Cullen chose to present the story of Columbine, the shootings, the victims, and the killers themselves. The first part of the book is concerned with the events on and around April 20th, 1999. Each chapter begins in that timeframe, but as events take place, he jumps back in time to give context to the events you’re reading about : bios of the victims, history of the town, etc. This jumping around proves to be much more effective in helping the reader keep all of the individuals and events straight, rather than a more linear approach.
The second part of the book is dedicated more to the larger questions surrounding the tragedy. How would the community recover? Who was to blame? And most importantly, what pushed these kids to the edge. Cullen debunks many myths throughout, none more strongly than the story of two goths out to get revenge on a group of jocks.
There’s parts of this book that were difficult to read. I hope that doesn’t stop anybody from reading the most detailed, accurate, and fair accounts of the tragedy that occurred a decade ago.
Notes
Had the propane bombs detonated, they would have incinerated most or all of the inhabitants of the commons. They would have killed five hundred people in the first few seconds. Four times the toll in Oklahoma City. More than the ten worst domestic terrorist attacks in U.S. history combined.
The Trench Coat Mafia was mythologized because it was colorful, memorable, and fit the existing myth of the school shooter as outcast loner. All the Columbine myths worked that way. And they all sprang to life incredibly fast—most of the notorious myths took root before the killers’ bodies were found.
Indignation runs strong in the psychopath. It springs from a staggering ego and sense of superiority. Psychopaths do not feel much, but when they lose patience with inferiors, they can really let it rip. It doesn’t go any deeper.
They told the New York Times they had contacted the sheriff’s department about Eric fifteen times. Jeffco officials would insist for years that the Browns never met with an investigator—despite holding a report indicating they had.
And therapy often makes it worse. “Unfortunately, programs of this sort merely provide the psychopath with better ways of manipulating, deceiving, and using people,” Hare wrote. Individual therapy can be a bonanza: one-on-one training, to perfect the performance. “These programs are like a finishing school,” a psychopath boasted to Dr. Hare’s team. “They teach you how to put the squeeze on people.”
Brian took charge of his tragedy that day. He discovered the power of being Danny Rohrbough’s dad. From that day forward, he would not hesitate to wield it.
Psychopaths generally turn to murder only when their callousness combines with a powerful sadistic streak. Psychologist Theodore Millon identified ten basic subtypes of the psychopath. Only two are characterized by brutality or murder: the malevolent psychopath and the tyrannical. In these rare subtypes, the psychopath is driven less by a greed for material gain than by desire for his own aggrandizement and the brutal punishment of inferiors.
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
It also appears that even the best parenting may be no match for a child born to be bad.
Eric had a preposterously grand superiority complex, a revulsion for authority, and an excruciating need for control.