Columbine High School is located in Littleton, Colorado. The school was opened in the Fall of 1973. On April 20, 1999, 2 students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, planted explosives and shot fellow students and teachers in a horrific rampage that lasted just over forty minutes. (history.com) The Columbine School Shooting on April 19, 1999 forever changed the safety of children while in school. The shooting, which was the first major school shooting in the United States’ history, created many social and political changes impacting school safety.
Before Columbine, only one out of every five schools used security cameras. Not many schools monitored or locked their doors. Today, three out of five schools use security cameras. After Columbine, many schools hired security officers. The hope was that students would feel safe with these officers around (kplu.org)
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were two very disturbed high school seniors. Both Harris and Klebold had criminal records prior to the attack. These students were
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At 11:19AM, the boys entered the school. They planted bombs which, thankfully, failed to go off. Here, Harris and Klebold began their vicious killing spree. The killers mainly targeted athletes, minorities, and Christians. Eric and Dylan killed 13 people (12 students and 1 teacher) and wounded 20 people before killing themselves in the library at about 12:00PM (history.com). The killers were ruthless. Eric Harris was reported asking a fellow student “Do you believe in god?” When she said yes, he shot her to death. When people across the nation heard the news, they worried for the safety of the children and teachers. Unfortunately, Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold- one of the columbine shooters, “... While every mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, i had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else”