I was watching the History Channel last night, and they had a show about the Columbine massacre. It was presented in an outstanding fashion. It was enthralling. It was also horrifying.

I ran into a dilemma as the show progressed. I didn’t know which to find more shocking: The greusome murder spree that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on, or the gross negligence demonstrated by the police. I don’t just mean all the missed opportunities to lock up Eric Harris prior to that day. More specifically, I mean the lack of action taken during the massacre.

The police literally did nothing as one youngster after another was executed. They sat outside “containing” the incident. Over 3 hours went by before the police attempted to enter the school. The kiling spree did not end until Harris and Klebold committed suicide. To emphasize, this is the ONLY reason the killing stopped. The murderers killed themselves. If they hadn’t, nothing would have stopped them from murdering more children.

As far as I am concerned, the police are accessories to murder. How many people died while they sat out there measuring to see who has the biggest weiner? One teacher suffered 2 gunshot wounds. These wounds may not have been fatal had he received prompt medical treatment. He did not, and as a result, he bled to death from 2 wounds that may have been non-fatal under other circumstances.

From the account of the massacre, as described on the show, I would say that there were only 2 heros that day. The teacher that bled to death – not because he died, but because of his effort to get students to safety (which resulted in getting shot) – and the young, probably traumatized student who did his best to help that teacher.

“To protect and serve” was not the credo that day. The only people being protected were the police, and noone was well served by the policy of containment. The policy has changed since the massacre, but what idiot created such an irresponsible, reprehensible, negligent, and monumentally stupid policy in the first place?

I can’t help but think just how many more students could have died that day if Harris and Klebold had been less bent on their delusion of godlike grandeur, and more bent on killing efficiently and effectively. Certinly, if the goal had truly been “to kill them all,” they could have done so in a more effective manner than strolling around like maniacal rock stars and firing with reckless abandon.

There were two 20 pound propane tanks in the cafeteria, set to detonate at lunchtime. They did not go off. Had they started shooting in the cafeteria, and barred the doors, rather beginning the spree outside, and signalling the entire school of their intentions, and had the tanks blown, the body count may have been in triple digits.

I just can’t get past how atrociously the situation was handled by the police.

Anyway, the show was called Zero Hour: The Columbine Massacre. Check for another airing of it.

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Category: Pointless Nonsense