Hate-Filled Tapes Detail Columbine Killers’ Plans

In chilling home movies in which they acted out their attack, laughing at and mocking those they planned to kill, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left behind a stark videotaped document that spelled out for authorities their motivation and the methods the teenagers used in their rampage at Columbine High School.

In the videotapes shown to reporters here Monday, Harris and Klebold say they hope to carry out the biggest mass murder in U.S. history. At times speaking directly to law enforcement officials, the young men meticulously recount how they obtained the four guns and built the bombs they used to kill 12 classmates, a teacher and, finally take their own lives. The hours of tape are filled with profanity and tirades against gays, African Americans, women and Jews.

In one session taped March 15, viewers are given a disturbing look into the minds of the teenage killers. Lounging on reclining chairs in the basement of the Harris home, the shooters speak of their rage, fueled by what they say were years of taunting from athletes, rich kids and peers interested only in conformity. Their hate-filled conversation includes a discussion about how they planned to blow off one classmate’s jaw and to scalp another.

“I hope we kill all 250 of you,” says Klebold. “If you could see the rage I’ve built up over the years. . . .”

Harris, swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels and lovingly handling a sawed-off shotgun he named Arlene, shrugs, “I’m really sorry about all of this, but war’s war.”

Three videotapes prepared by Harris and Klebold in the months before the April 20 attack were found at Harris’ home soon after the carnage. They are startling in their matter-of-fact recitation by the gunmen of what they intended to do to those they believed had wronged them.

At one point, Harris begins to list every girl who declined to go out with him. He muses about dying and becoming a ghost, and the two guffaw about haunting the survivors of their shooting spree, making noises that will trigger flashbacks and “drive them insane.”

Also shown Monday was a black and white surveillance tape from the Columbine cafeteria, where pipe bombs were detonated and fires broke out at the start of the rampage. The silent tape depicts the busy lunch hour cafeteria where the gunmen had placed the largest bombs. With a time display showing 11:25, flashes are shown and students dive under tables. Smoke billows and obscures the camera, blurring the bright strobes of fire alarms.

After a fire breaks out, most of the students race out of the lunchroom and up a flight of stairs. At one point a man walks through the frame; an explosion blows him off his feet.

Harris and Klebold enter the cafeteria twice. Brandishing their guns, they thread their way around overturned chairs, and Harris stops to drink from an abandoned soda cup. Unnoticed by the gunmen are six students huddled under a table.

The existence of the videotapes was not publicly known until last month. Excerpts were read at the sentencing of the man who sold the pair the TEC-DC9 assault pistol that Klebold used during the attack. At the time, authorities said they didn’t want to release the tapes because they might bring the gunmen the notoriety they sought.

Jefferson County officials made an abrupt turnaround Monday when Time magazine published a detailed account of the massacre based on the home movies provided by the sheriff’s office. A sheriff’s spokesman said the department felt obligated to share the tapes with the media and the families of the slain, although no video or audio recording of the tapes was allowed.

Families of the victims had been asking authorities for months to view the tapes but had been rebuffed. Sheriff’s officials on Monday apologized to the families for the timing of the release, amid the holiday season. Authorities said they hope to complete an official report on their investigation next month.

The graphic tapes upset at least one Columbine family. The parents of Brooks Brown, a onetime friend to Klebold, attended the video viewing. At one point, an emotional Randy Brown asked reporters, “Why don’t you do us a favor and wait until after Christmas to show this? What does it prove?”

Later, Judy Brown said she wanted to see the tapes, “to help us through this. I loved Dylan.”

The tapes reveal the teenagers’ fascination and detailed knowledge of the armaments they had amassed. In one segment, they lay out all the pipe bombs, homemade grenades, ammunition, knives and guns on the floor, fanning them out in a fancy display. On a video tour of Harris’ room with lighthearted narration from both young men, desk drawers are filled with bomb-making material, a closet holds combat knives and guns and gunpowder are stored in a coffee can.

Harris waves his journal and suggests to law enforcement officials that if they want to know what led him to plan a bloody rampage, they should simply “Read this.”

The pair dismiss what they anticipate will be comparisons to other school shootings, mocking with backwoods accents the camouflage-wearing boys who shot classmates in Kentucky. “Do not think we’re trying to copy anyone,” Harris says. “We thought of this before the first one ever happened.”

Harris and Klebold discuss the cults that might follow their example and seem gleeful about their impending fame. They debate whether Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino will immortalize them on screen. “Directors will be fighting over this story,” Klebold remarks.

A few weeks before the attack, the two perform an elaborate fashion show, modeling appropriate clothes and donning bandoliers holding spare ammunition, bombs, knives and guns. Both posture for the camera, mock-shooting their guns at the lens and then whooping after the “kill.”

In the last snippet of tape, a one-minute segment shot on the morning of their rampage, Harris and Klebold are dressed and ready for “our little Judgment Day.”

Both teenagers are tense, and Klebold is seen pacing. He looks into the camera and bids his parents farewell saying, “I didn’t like life too much. Just know I am going to a better place than here.”

Harris says tersely, “That’s it. Gotta go. Goodbye.”