Court upholds decision to keep Columbine depositions sealed:
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a decision that depositions given by the parents of the Columbine shooters remain sealed in the National Archives for 20 years.
Previously U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock ordered the depositions sealed after families of the victims among others had requested that the depositions be made public. The depositions were given by Wayne and Kathy Harris, the parents of Eric Harris, and Thomas and Susan Klebold, the parents of Dylan Klebold. They’re from a civil lawsuit that the family of Columbine victim Daniel Rohrbough filed against the killers’ parents.
In the new ruling attorneys argued that since the records were made by a court that they qualify under the Federal Records Act. The court disagreed stating the depositions should have been returned to the people who made them. If that had happened I’m sure they’d be nothing but ash by now.
Judge Babcock originally ruled that way stating that if the depositions were to be made public that would inspire a whole new generation of school shooters. I disagree. In case you haven’t noticed school shooters and would be shooters don’t need some depositions to find inspiration. You would need to erase the memories of Columbine and every school shooting since from everyone on the planet before they would no longer find inspiration. The private journals of both cowardly scumbag killers have been released and that didn’t cause an outbreak of shootings.
Conversely, I think it would benefit greatly if the depositions were made public. We could learn from the Harrises and Klebolds mistakes in their parenting techniques on how to tell if our children are on a dangerous path like those of the killers.
Now there will just have to be a 20-year wait for that knowledge. I still say if any school shooting deaths happen between now and then that the blood will be on the hands of Judge Babcock.
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