It was Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. I didn't know their names then, but I'd seen them around. My friends and I would move out of their way in the halls. They scared us.
As Eric and Dylan turned around, I saw that they had guns. I still thought it was a prank. I figured the rifles had to be paintball guns. Eric and Dylan had no expressions on their faces. They showed no emotion—not anger, not hatred.
Then, they opened fire. Bullets struck students on the sidewalk, in the parking lot, and on the hill. My friend Anne Marie was standing on the sidewalk right below them. It looked like they shot her in the stomach. She doubled over and then fell on her back. Her knees flipped to the side.
She didn't get up. She just stayed crumpled on the ground. That was what made me realize—oh, my God! It wasn't red paint on the ground. It was blood. Dylan were trying to get back at students who had mocked and bullied them during their four years at the Littleton, Colorado, high school.
Below, Melissa—who knows how it feels to be picked on—shares her ideas for how students who feel alienated can turn things around without violence.
She also tells the dramatic story of her escape from the shooting. I was terrified. I quickly ducked behind a white truck. I did not dare look up. Crouched behind a tire, I was scared to move an inch. Then, a silver cylinder landed about five feet from me. I could smell the burning and see smoke coming out of both ends, so I covered my head with my hands.
I didn't know it then, but it was a pipe bomb. I was concerned with getting to my classes on time, doing my homework and picking out my outfit for the day; I expected to eat lunch and go back to class.
When all that changed, I had a hard time understanding what was happening. School is supposed to be a safe place; I was supposed to go to class and take a test. It all seemed so innocent. In the aftermath, I was very hard on myself for the feelings I was experiencing and how I thought I should be acting. I was angry that so many of my classmates and my teacher lost their lives in an instant. I was alive, yet I was scared and anxious that everyone around me was hurting and still knew that we had to find a way to move on.
The reality is that the students who attended Columbine High School all had a shared trauma, even though we were all in different places that day. Over the years, I realized I had not really committed to understanding my own feelings, and how this event affects my day to day, even after all this time.
During and after the filming of my documentary, I began attending therapy. Professional help and my friends' reactions and validation allowed me to admit to myself I was a trauma survivor and that my feelings and actions are consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder.
By a. All their victims were chosen at random, it was later revealed. By noon, both shooters were dead after turning their guns on themselves. A previously obscure Denver suburb called Littleton was now the epicenter of a national tragedy.
Images of heavily armed SWAT teams descending on a school and the sight of students filing out with their hands up were burned into the national consciousness.
There was the unknown of where the shooters were during the entire time that it was being filmed, so I think people connected with Columbine more. New programs were developed to prevent bullying and help social outcasts after it emerged that Harris and Klebold, both gifted students, had been picked on for years. More than a decade later, Klebold's parents confirmed in a book that their son was an outcast and revealed that police told them during the shooting that he was a suspect.
Sean Graves , one of the survivors, has said in previous interviews that he knew the shooters but was not close to either of them. He said he was across the street from the school with his buddies when the bullets began to fly. Shot six times and left partially paralyzed, Graves became an inspiration to many when he climbed out of his wheelchair, leaned on a crutch and walked across the stage to collect his high school diploma in In anniversaries that followed, Graves would visit the spot where he was shot and light a cigar in memory of his friend, Danny Rohrbough, 15, who was killed there.
January - Klebold and Harris are arrested after stealing items from a van. After pleading guilty, they are sent to a juvenile diversion program.
March - Randy and Judy Brown, parents of student Brooks Brown, file a report with the sheriff's office stating that Harris had threatened to kill Brooks and had written on the internet that he would like to kill people.
April 20, - At approximately a. November 12, - Mark Manes is sentenced to six years in prison for selling a gun used in the murders to minors Harris and Klebold. April - Close to three dozen families of Columbine victims settle suits with the parents of the suspects and gun suppliers.
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