Tag: Dawn Anna

  • Dawn Anna

    Dawn Anna

    Dawn Anna

    Bully breakdown:

    Dawn Anna Townsend is the mother of Lauren Townsend, who was killed in the Columbine massacre. Recently, she spoke at a Pennsylvania high school, and she had some interesting things to say…

    “They hated everybody,” Townsend said about the gunmen who killed her daughter. “They hated her (Lauren Townsend) because she breathed and that she was in their way.”

    Townsend said one of the inaccurate reports that came out of the Columbine massacre was that the two murderers were retaliating against athletes who picked on them.

    “They (the killers) were the bullies,” Townsend said.

    Emphasis mine.

    And yet 6 years later, people are still holding on to that myth.

    She also had a lot of great things to say about bullying. The sad part is that I’m sure it fell on deaf ears.

    I remember when I was in school that every time we had some kind of speaker come in to talk to us about some problem, we spent the rest of the day making fun of the presentation. I hope today’s students aren’t like that, but I know that some things never change.

    Not to mention the fact that the reality is there always have been bullies and there always will be. That’s just an unfortunate fact of life. Therefore, it’s up to the schools to realistically do something about bullying. And the parents…

    Townsend also speaks with parents. She reminds parents that their children don’t need them to be their best friends, they need them to be parents.

    “When your child becomes older, then you become best friends,” she said, urging parents, teachers, and especially students, that ignoring suspicious activity in people could have dire consequences.

    “The warning signs are a road map,” she said.

    Emphasis mine.

    It’s just too bad that a lot of people won’t listen to a woman who is saying all the right things. The right things that used to be known as common sense.

  • No Apologies

    No Apologies

    A few weeks ago, a columnist named David Brooks for the New York Times wrote this column which is basically just him agreeing with this column by Dave Cullen.

    Mr. Brooks then started receiving E-mails from Tom Klebold, Dylan Klebold’s father, which led to this piece in Saturday’s New York Times.

    In it, the Klebolds refuse to apologize for what happened. Susan Klebold even goes as far to say, “I haven’t done anything for which I need forgiveness.” They also describe the day of the shootings as “a natural disaster” and the Klebold’s discuss the day as a suicide and not as a day when 13 random people were killed. Two quotes from the NY Times article jumped out at me…

    They believe that what they call the “toxic culture” of the school — the worship of jocks and the tolerance of bullying — is the primary force that set Dylan off. But they confess that in the main, they have no explanation.

    Yet, they didn’t kill any jocks, and I have yet to hear of the names of any jocks who allegedly bullied them. And then there was this…

    “I’m a quantitative person,” said Tom, a former geophysicist. “We’re not qualified to sort this out.” They long for some authoritative study that will provide an answer. “People need to understand,” Tom said, “this could have happened to them.”

    So it sounds like to me that they’re willing to let other people raise their child. People like Eric Harris. The impression I get is that the Klebolds are very self-absorbed. They must be to have missed obvious warning signs, which they regrettably admit…

    “He was hopeless. We didn’t realize it until after the end,” Tom said. Susan added: “I think he suffered horribly before he died. For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself.”

    Suffered horribly? At least he knew that he was going to die that day. 13 other people weren’t afforded such a luxury.

    As expected, parents of the true victims are not happy

    “I’m horrified,” Dawn Anna, whose daughter Lauren Townsend was killed at Columbine, told The Associated Press. “I wanted an apology. I wanted a contribution to help us understand why it happened, so that it would never happen again. I didn’t hear it.”

    Brian Rohrbough, father of victim Daniel Rohrbough, said he was outraged that the Klebolds likened the day of the shootings to a natural disaster in the interview with Brooks.

    The best quote to sum this all up also comes from Brian Rohrbough who said…

    “This was murder,” he said. “In my opinion, what went on in their home led to Columbine.”

    Now if only the Klebold’s would pull their heads out of the sand and realize that.