@ Strangers still show up at Columbine High every day

[redheadbaker]

People are fucking strange. This article is mostly about the guy whose job it is to protect Columbine and the other schools in its district. The 20th anniversary of the shooting is April 20th.

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/04/05/its-been-years-since-columbine-shooting-his-job-is-stop-next-attack/

LITTLETON, Colo. — Before the call came, John McDonald had finished his breakfast of Diet 7Up, put on his uniform and tucked his Smith & Wesson into its waistline holster. He made it to his office at Jefferson County Public Schools, where he is in charge of safety and security for a sprawling district that includes Columbine High School. On this morning, he even made it to his earliest meeting. And then his phone rang.

He knew as soon as he answered: The first school-shooting threat of the day had arrived.

...

Without McDonald giving an order, everything he had put in place to respond to threats was already in motion. More officers had been dispatched. Areas were being searched. His team and the local sheriff’s department would interview students, teachers and administrators until they felt certain there was nothing they had missed.

Because what McDonald had learned, what he had preached around the country was this: Every threat counts. Even vague, unspecific ones. Nearly all past school shooters gave some indication of what they were about to do. They bragged to friends, wrote it in an essay or made what seemed at the time like just a bad joke. The teenage Columbine shooters did so. The next shooter likely would, too.

...

With the anniversary approaching, the intense and sometimes disturbing interest in Columbine that has long festered on the Internet is spilling into the real world with greater frequency. Every day, multiple times a day, people show up at the high school wanting to see it, photograph it and get inside it. McDonald’s team usually stops them before they can even step out of their cars. Some explain that they just wanted to pay their respects to the victims. Others claim they are in love with the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed themselves inside the school. Some say they have been reincarnated with the shooters’ souls.

More than 150 of these strangers were showing up every month.

[pugz]

this is creepy AF

[CloudBee]

Had we not backed out of our dream home purchase last year due to some questionable behavior on the seller's side, DS would be enrolled at Sandy Hook for kindergarten this year.

While we were up there looking at houses (we have family in the neighborhood, which was a draw), we pulled into the Sandy Hook Elementary to both let DS stretch his legs, and to see "his future school". It was pretty sickening to see a slow but steady stream of out of state cars on a random Saturday afternoon. Really put a damper on our experience of being regular people just exploring what we thought would be our new community. It's as if they were treating the (new) school like a roadside pit-stop. It's not the world's largest ball of yarn, guys. It's a small community's worth nightmare, and location where they are trying to heal and normalize life again.

Over the course of a few weeks we stopped at all of the local elementary schools in Newtown. (Again, familiarizing ourselves with the town, giving DS a chance to run around between house viewings, etc.) Sandy Hook was the only school in town peppered with security cameras, security gates, swing gates in pickup lanes, and fenced off / gated playgrounds. You can't get close to most of the school building - even on weekends. And you can't step onto the playground without a security code for the gates.

My heart really feels for those who have been in the school system since 2012 (and beyond, honestly) and deal with this on a daily basis.

[mcsangel2]

IMO, both Columbine and Sandy Hook need to be demolished, and new schools built in different spots.

[fernweh]

It’s terrible that people make it a tourist spot. It’s hard to believe this was 20 years ago, it was kind of shocking when the article said that the people attending the school weren’t even alive when the shooting happened.

I was in 8th grade when this happened and it was the first really impactful thing that happened in my life that had a lasting I will remember where I was and what I was doing for the rest of my life.

[katie80]

Apr 6, 2019 12:57:02 GMT -5 CloudBee said:

Had we not backed out of our dream home purchase last year due to some questionable behavior on the seller's side, DS would be enrolled at Sandy Hook for kindergarten this year.

While we were up there looking at houses (we have family in the neighborhood, which was a draw), we pulled into the Sandy Hook Elementary to both let DS stretch his legs, and to see "his future school". It was pretty sickening to see a slow but steady stream of out of state cars on a random Saturday afternoon. Really put a damper on our experience of being regular people just exploring what we thought would be our new community. It's as if they were treating the (new) school like a roadside pit-stop. It's not the world's largest ball of yarn, guys. It's a small community's worth nightmare, and location where they are trying to heal and normalize life again.

Over the course of a few weeks we stopped at all of the local elementary schools in Newtown. (Again, familiarizing ourselves with the town, giving DS a chance to run around between house viewings, etc.) Sandy Hook was the only school in town peppered with security cameras, security gates, swing gates in pickup lanes, and fenced off / gated playgrounds. You can't get close to most of the school building - even on weekends. And you can't step onto the playground without a security code for the gates.

My heart really feels for those who have been in the school system since 2012 (and beyond, honestly) and deal with this on a daily basis.

I used to live north of Danbury (and did in 2012) and absolutely hated driving through Newtown after SH. It's such a beautiful place and seems like a great community but it made me so sad and I'd avoid it whenever I could. I can't imagine wanting to visit like as a tourist attraction. That is so terrible.

[lilibet]

This is so bad, I can't imagine what these communities go through having to deal with these individuals. Also the ones who say they're in love with the shooters, I can't imagine what the security people think having to deal with that and what they maybe wish they could say to these people. I can't imagine sending my kid to those schools either though, that would be hard.

I didn't realize it had been 20 years already. I hope no one tries to do anything that day.

I was in 8 grade too when it happened and it really made a big impact on me. There was also a shooting in Paducah not too long after Columbine and that was fairly close to where I grew up, we actually stopped in Paducah for gas while on vacation that summer and I remember thinking about the shooting.

A lot of my older coworkers think I'm weird for having a plan for a shooter at work (we don't have an office-wide plan) but I explain to them that I grew up with Columbine and I was in college in IL when the NIU shooting happened, so those things have always stuck with me.

[mcsangel2]

Apr 6, 2019 15:17:40 GMT -5 lilibet said:

A lot of my older coworkers think I'm weird for having a plan for a shooter at work (we don't have an office-wide plan) but I explain to them that I grew up with Columbine and I was in college in IL when the NIU shooting happened, so those things have always stuck with me.

They shouldn't think that...if your work hasn't already developed an active shooter plan/training, they should. I've worked at my office for almost 18 years now, and we had our first active shooter training last year. My eyes were like saucers when I realized what it was, but also....it's necessary now. Run - Hide - Fight.

[lilibet]

Apr 6, 2019 15:30:17 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

Apr 6, 2019 15:17:40 GMT -5 lilibet said:

A lot of my older coworkers think I'm weird for having a plan for a shooter at work (we don't have an office-wide plan) but I explain to them that I grew up with Columbine and I was in college in IL when the NIU shooting happened, so those things have always stuck with me.

They shouldn't think that...if your work hasn't already developed an active shooter plan/training, they should. I've worked at my office for almost 18 years now, and we had our first active shooter training last year. My eyes were like saucers when I realized what it was, but also....it's necessary now. Run - Hide - Fight.

Another coworker and I brought this up to a manager and they brushed us off. We have the yearly severe weather drills later this month and we were tying to explain how we should add an active shooter drill and they said it wasn't necessary. I'm trying to figure out how/to whom to escalate further.  We're a company/industry that tends to anger people, we need a plan.

The worst part is that they recently fired someone who they were afraid might be a risk and all the did was tell people at a certain level and up "just make sure not to hold the door for anyone" (you have to have badge access to enter). But they wouldn't even tell the whole office, so like 90% of the office had no idea of the threat, and they were the same level as the fired employee and totally would have held the door for him no question.

[Poeticxpassion]

This is so creepy. We drive by Columbine all the time as it’s in our neighborhood. It’s not a tourist attraction!

[miniroller]

Like most of you, I’m just incredibly sickened at how some of our fellow human beings behave, gah!! I would have never considered these schools a destination of “gawkers” & now that I know, I’m heartbroken for the affected families & communities, but also for my country that these people even exist.
I mean- who would have thought that we’d need to try & figure out how to deter traffic from former school massacre sights, & despairingly- this discouragement might only serve to further drive the “off-limit” rule-breaker seekers, ugh!
PDQ: I had a cousin kill himself on 4/20 of ‘98, so it was already a really bad day. This event certainly didn’t help on the one-year anniversary, but his mom always said it did make her realize how much worse her (already absolutely desperate) heartbreak could’ve been 😢

[pixy0stix]

Apr 6, 2019 14:28:52 GMT -5 mcsangel2 said:

IMO, both Columbine and Sandy Hook need to be demolished, and new schools built in different spots.

Sandy Hook was demolished. The new school was built in a new location albeit on the same property.

[litebright]

I am trying really hard not to cry after reading that article. This was my kids' school district, up until we moved to VA, and I had no idea that all of this was STILL going on in terms of the insane level of ongoing threats and a hundred+ people showing up in a month who are lookyloos. LOOKYLOOS FOR MASS MURDER. The story ends with two people who showed up in the MOTN at the school, took selfies by the entrance and said they were PAYING THEIR RESPECTS.

I am shaking, I'm so angry. My kids wouldn't have gone to Columbine -- the district is huge and we were like 40 minutes north of there -- but our elementary school got a new bullet-proof entry while they were there, and meanwhile we couldn't pass a bond issue to build desperately needed new schools despite multiple attempts and there were times when my kid's "field trip" for the year had to be within walking distance or an in-school visit/presentation, because there just wasn't the money and our PTO could only do so much. The sheer amount of resources that are mentioned in this article, going toward basic safety of students, is just mind-boggling and heartbreaking. Both because it is necessary, it really is and I realize that -- but it is also legit sucking up resources that are so, SO needed in other areas in that district. But what can you do? You have to keep kids safe, and any one of those calls could be the one that matters -- and they actually do sound like they're very on top of things. But the contrast between that spare-no-expense approach to security and how everything else has to be done on a shoestring or can't be done at all? It is so deeply, deeply fucked up. And if it's this way for Columbine, 20 years out, imagine what it's like for any district or college that has a high-profile shooting? That's decades of impact, on the district's resources and future teachers and students -- just a black hole of money that goes on and on and on.

The fact that they've had people show up claiming to be the killers reincarnated makes my blood run cold. Because those two didn't want to kill 13 people, they planned to to kill hundreds of people and the idea that someone might feel compelled to ... I can't.

[klingklang77]

I’m not sure what to think about this. It’s not a tourist attraction for sure. I think I’m a bit more emotionally invested in this. 

My cousin was there when the shooting happened (he hid under a table) and he knew the killers. He said he saw them a few days before and asked them what they were doing and asked if they were going to kill people (there was a game going on at the time, I think called annihilation). So it’s still raw to me even after all these years. Just getting that phone call from my mom saying he was in the school still gives me shivers.