Prior to the shootings, both teens spent a significant amount of time playing first-person-shooter computer games. Block suggests that these virtual worlds became essential for the teens and that Harris and Klebold may have been unable to distinguish the boundaries between their virtual lives and their real lives -- in effect mixing the two.
Before the attack, shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold spent "more and more time with their computers, to the point that they may have been unable to distinguish the boundaries between their virtual lives and their real lives," says Oregon Health & Science University psychiatrist Jerald Block, MD.
"Then, as they got into trouble with school authorities, limits were put on their use of the computer. This made them react with homicidal rage and suicidal depression," he tells WebMD.
Eleven messages posted between Sunday's attacks by "nghtmrchld26" spoke of abuse at the hands of Christians, of leaving this nightmare behind to a better place, and quoted liberally from the hate-filled screeds of Columbine High School killer Eric Harris.
Two of the posts also included links to videos featuring Harris and fellow Columbine killer Dylan Klebold that are posted on the Web site YouTube.com.
One five-minute video features still images of Harris and Klebold as well as actors who played them in a movie about the April 20, 1999, attack on the high school. As the pictures flick through in slide- show fashion, the song Anarchy from the band KMFDM plays.
A poster for KMFDM hung on the wall in Harris' bedroom the day of the Columbine killings.
Another message has a link to a video called Hitmen for Hire - a project Harris and Klebold did for a marketing class. In the video, they pose as hit men who get even with students who bully others.
On another website, a poster named nghtmrchld26, believed by police to be Murray, said he rebelled against an upbringing that forbade him from buying rock music, video games and popular DVDs.
He writes that he felt oppressed by the restrictions. The hypocrisy of religious leaders, he wrote, prompted him to rebel, although he feared "returning back to what is at least 'familiar,' into a system I at least know how to behave in.' "
DyingChild_65 did not feel loved. He wrote that he was angered by being rejected by various groups over the years.
"I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things," one post said. "Never inviting me to all your fun parties, never inviting me to hang out."
DyingChild_65 ends his rant by saying: "Like Cho, Eric Harris, Ricky Rodriguez and others, I'm going out to make a stand for the weak and the defenseless this is for all those young people still caught in the Nightmare of Christianity for all those people who've been abused and mistreated and taken advantage of by this evil sick religion Christian America this is YOUR Columbine."
I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. ....God, I can't wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don't care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.
Well all you people out there can just kiss my (expletive removed) and die. From now on I don't give a @#%$ about what all you (expletive removed) have to say, unless I respect you which is highly unlikely, but for those of you who do happen to know me and know that I respect you, may peace be with you and don't be in my line of fire, for the rest of you, you all better @#%$ hide in your houses because I'm coming for EVERYONE soon, and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth, and I WILL shoot to kill and I WILL @#%$ KILL EVERYTHING! No I am not crazy, crazy is just a word, to me it has no meaning, everyone is different, but most of you @#%$ heads out there in society, going to your everyday @#%$ jobs and doing your everyday routine (expletive removed) things, I say @#%$ you and die, if you got a problem with my thoughts, come to me and I'll kill you, because........God (expletive removed), DEAD PEOPLE DON'T ARGUE! My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law. If you don't like it, you die. If I don't like you or I don't like what you want me to do, then you die. If I do something incorrect, oh @#%$ well, you die. Dead people can't do many things, like argue, whine, @#%$, complain, name, rat out, criticize, or even @#%$ talk. So that's the only way to solve arguments with all you (expletive removed) out there, I just kill. God I can't wait till I can kill you people, I'll just go to some downtown area in some big city and blow up and shoot everything I can.
Police do not believe this to have been a coincidence. The two youths are thought to have made contact over two MySpace groups, “RIP Eric and Dylan” — a reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 schoolmates at Columbine — and “Natural Selection”.
Auvinen’s parents are regarded as somewhat bohemian in the small dormitory township of Jokela. His father plays part time in a jazz band and composes his own music; Auvinen’s mother is an activist for the Greens. They are regarded as stalwart members of the community and neighbours describe them as a “normal family”.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a killing rage at Columbine High School in 1999 because they were abruptly denied access to their computers, an Oregon psychiatrist says in a published study.
The two young men relied on the virtual world of computer games to express their rage and to spend time, and cutting them off in 1998 sent them into crisis, said Jerald Block, a researcher and psychiatrist in Portland.
"Very soon thereafter - a couple of days - they started to plan the actual attack," Block said.
Block published his research in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, a peer- reviewed journal.
The paper is likely to generate debate, said Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Block sifted through thousands of pages of documents released by Columbine investigators and said he believes both Harris' and Klebold's parents banned them from their computers after the two were caught breaking into an electrician's van in 1998.
Harris and Klebold had each previously been temporarily kept off computers at school or at home, and after each incident, Block said, the boys' writings or behavior became more violent.
Block said he worries about people immersing themselves so deeply and also about cutting them off cold-turkey.
"How do you pull them out, without triggering homicidal or suicidal behavior?" he asked.
Depending on the final details, Wayne and Katherine Harris do not oppose storing the depositions under seal "in order to bring closure to this matter," their attorney, Michael Montgomery, said Wednesday in a court filing.
In 2002, the parents of Columbine killer Eric Harris gave more than 16 hours of depositions in connection with a lawsuit by Columbine survivor Mark Taylor against Solvay Pharmaceuticals, maker of Luvox.
Taylor claimed that Luvox, an anti-depressant, made Harris homicidal and suicidal. However, Taylor dropped the lawsuit in February 2003 after Solvay agreed to contribute $10,000 to the American Cancer Society.
The other depositions of Harris' parents and the parents of Dylan Klebold took place over a four-day period in August 2003 in connection with a lawsuit filed by the families of five slain Columbine students. But, like the Solvay lawsuit depositions, the depositions were sealed when those families reached a settlement with the Harris and Klebold families.
The depositions have since been sitting in a highly secured evidence room at the federal courthouse awaiting a decision by Babcock about what should be done with them.
After 25 years, the National Archives would decide if the depositions are of significant social value and could release them to the public. Otherwise, they'd be destroyed, according to evidence presented at today's hearing.
Babcock said he wouldn't make a final decision until all sides had an opportunity to file written responses with him. He gave the parties a two-week deadline to file motions.
Mr. Thompson appeared in court yesterday for a bail hearing with his lawyer, Anthony M. Salerno. Mr. Salerno said he appealed the bail amount and wants it reduced, because the case is an “overreaction and over-prosecution.”Let me refresh your memory on some Mr. Thompson's threats…
“After my initial review of the preliminary evidence, I would categorize this as a situation where it’s more about attention versus intention,” Mr. Salerno said. “He (Mr. Thompson) certainly got attention for it, but not the way he was seeking.”
Mr. Thompson did not post threats to anyone in particular, Mr. Salerno said, and his Web postings were likely a call for attention. Mr. Thompson was not charged with threatening to commit a crime, which is a charge police can file if someone makes a verbal threat to kill or harm another person.
“I assert that there is a strong difference and a bright line between intentions and someone looking for attention. There is absolutely no evidence that he harbored any specific intentions,” Mr. Salerno said. “I would not consider him dangerous to the point where he should be held on excessive bail.”
Mr. Thompson has no prior record. Mr. Salerno would not allow his client to be subjected to a mental health evaluation, which was discussed at the initial hearing Friday. “I wouldn’t let them do that because at this time, no mental health defense has been raised,” Mr. Salerno said.
He even gives out his Whitehall Circle address and warns that he’ll be “waiting” with his SKS assault rifle, the same type of gun police confiscated from his home.Just because a name wasn't used in the threat doesn't mean that Thompson isn't a danger to himself and others.
“This anger I have towards the types of people I hate is only gonna get more intense as I get older,” he writes. “So yeah, I think I will hurt and kill at least one disgusting preppy teenybopper before the decade is over. I can only hope. Watch, I’ll be the guy at the top of the clock tower.”
Police searching Mr. Thompson’s bedroom closet Thursday recovered an SKS 7.62 x 39 mm rifle, 22 rounds of ammunition, and a nail-studded baseball bat Mr. Thompson called the “ugly stick,” according to court records.
Mr. Thompson works at the Beechwood Hotel, according to court records. During the police interview, Mr. Thompson said he purchased the assault rifle for $200 from a friend at work, and the ammunition for it while on a hunting trip in Vermont in late October.
Police also recovered a diary from his bedroom in which he wrote of his admiration for Eric Harris, one of the two high school students involved in the Columbine High School massacre in Jefferson County, Colo., on April 20, 1999.
When state and Shrewsbury police interviewed Mr. Thompson, he allegedly told state Trooper Matthew D. Murphy that he was picked on in elementary school and high school.
In shockingly graphic online postings, Thompson railed against “mind numbing” pop culture and teens who shop at preppy stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch. He bragged he would one day be “on the news” for a killing spree.
“I’d love to kidnap a teenybopper and cut her up real good before blowing her head off with a shotgun loaded with buckshot,” he wrote in a posting Monday. “That’s what they deserve.”
State police were tipped off to Thompson by someone who read his hatred-filled postings on a fan bulletin board for teen pop star Jesse McCartney.
A Shrewsbury chef who dubbed himself the “teenybopper killa” and cited Columbine killer Eric Harris as an inspiration was nabbed with a stash of weapons after making online threats to snuff out “preppy” teens, authorities said.
Police said they also found a journal in Thompson’s bedroom that referenced Eric Harris, one of two teen outcasts who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999.
“Thompson told me that he respected Harris for what he did because Thompson himself was picked on in elementary school and high school,” state Trooper Matthew Murphy wrote in court papers.
Police served a search warrant Thursday night and arrested Thompson at the Shrewsbury home where he lives with his parents.
In a bio on the Internet Movie Database site, he writes of the teen celebs: “They all suck, and don’t deserve the fame they have. Anyone who supports preppy teenyboppers is a (expletive) moron with the intelligence of bird (expletive), and I wish I could meet you so I could smash you in the face and break your (expletive) arms.”
His most violent tirades are saved for teenage girls, some of whom he urges to come to his Shrewsbury home to “fight” him.
“And what the (expletive) does everybody have against a guy hitting a chick? What do girls expect? To be unharmed because of their gender? That’s a (expletive) rip off,” he writes.
He even gives out his Whitehall Circle address and warns that he’ll be “waiting” with his SKS assault rifle, the same type of gun police confiscated from his home.
“This anger I have towards the types of people I hate is only gonna get more intense as I get older,” he writes. “So yeah, I think I will hurt and kill at least one disgusting preppy teenybopper before the decade is over. I can only hope. Watch, I’ll be the guy at the top of the clock tower.”
BERLIN: A German teen who stormed his former school with guns and bombs had venerated as "God" one of the gunmen in the 1999 Columbine shooting in the U.S, according to excerpts from his diary published Wednesday.
"It is terrible how similar Eric (Harris) was to me. I am the further development" of Harris, Bosse said. "I have learned from his mistakes, the bombs."
On Friday, Bosse had written: "In three days, it will all be over! The people will lie dead on the school yard, the school will burn and my brains will be blown out!"
On the eve of the attack, he wrote that he was sad that what he was planning would distress his family, complained that he had never had a proper girlfriend — and hoped that other "outsiders" would "be like me: a Goddamn hero."
A special cyber squad became interested in Emard in the days following the Dawson shooting. He allegedly posted messages on vampirefreaks.com applauding Kimveer Gill.When he was arrested at his parent's house, probably in the basement, a cache of 20 weapons was found.
The teenager also posted various pictures of himself with different weapons, as did Kimveer Gill, and made derogatory comments about various different minorities.
However, I think it's important to note that kids getting picked on doesn't explain the totality of the issue. Something had to make school shootings start in the first place in the mid-to-late '90s -- bullying has been going on for ages -- and analyses of Columbine showed the shooters did not concentrate on those who'd picked on them, opting instead for "Doom"-style random violence.I'm glad to see that I'm not going crazy by having the same opinion.
My preferred explanation -- one that ruffles feathers -- is parenting. Many of these kids had plenty of time alone in their houses (Harris and Klebold made pipe bombs), and in most cases I can recall, the parents could easily have afforded quitting one job or working fewer hours. It's also a parent's job to monitor his/her children's mental health issues, and keep guns away from the offspring if need be.
I think it's the only explanation that stands up to scrutiny, as it's one of the few explanations that changed markedly between my parents attending high school in the '70s (much bullying, lots of access to guns, no shootings) and now. Other factors can make it wax and wane, but as long as parents let a violent media raise their kids, the shootings won't disappear.
"You wanna know why there has only been three school shootings in Quebec? It's because the people here don't have the balls to do it, as much as they want to ... as much as they plan it all ... make `hit lists' and just wish they had the guts that Eric and Dylan had ... you know ... the real victims of Columbine! They are looked up to by many bullied high school students ... and many believe that the bullies got what they deserved on April 20th, 1999.Welcome to my world. I get e-mails like this all the time.
"Kimveer will be greatly missed by the people who actually understood him ... the people who don't have their heads up their asses."
Investigators say Castillo was obsessed with Columbine. During a search of the Castillo home on Lipps Lane in Hillsborough, deputies found a diary entitled "Mass Murders and School Shootings of the 20th and 21st Centuries," as well as directions to the homes of the Columbine school shooters.I apologize to the family for giving them grief at a time like this but what did they think this obsession could lead to?
Eyewitness News has learned that the Castillo family knew of this obsession, saying Alvaro Castillo identified with the deep depression of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, but never anticipated it could lead to violence.


