Six years after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a deadly rampage through Columbine High School, the killer’s parents are fighting to keep their “basement tapes” from public view.
Reporters have already seen and written about the Columbine “basement tapes” of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold showing off their arsenal and eagerly talking about their plan to attack their high school.
But the gunmen’s parents are fighting a newspaper’s request for public release of the videos, audio recordings and writings Harris and Klebold made in the months before they killed 12 students and a teacher in April 1999.
The Colorado Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday from The Denver Post, the parents and the Jefferson County sheriff’s office, which also opposes the release.
Forget about the legal issues regarding the Harris and Klebold families, the Denver Post or the Jefferson County sherrif’s office for a moment. I can’t see any benefit to releasing these tapes. Aside from then becoming hot tickets on the Internet and P2P file sharing networks, what purpose will they serve?
The videos will only prove what we already know. Eric and Dylan were troubled kids…really, really messed up in the head kids, and a terrible thing happened because of it. There is nothing new to ‘understand’ about these two.
That’s it, that’s all.
I think releasing the tapes is a must when it comes to discovering the reasons behind school massacres, behind what drives NORMAL kids to doing that kind of things.
i think yes they need to videos to be shown b/c it would help a great deal to alot of ppl who want it to be seen…
These video’s need to be released to the public. You’re right, no one will actually benefit from the tapes if they are made public. But no one will benefit if they are kept private either. I have been researching Columbine for since the day it happened looking at every angle, from the boys are heroes to the boys are monsters. There are so many unanswered question, uknown motives, and things that went wrong with their plans. Maybe releasing the audio and tapes will shed just a glimpse of light on this story. Hell, I think if we can go on 30 web sites right now and view crime scene photos of the boys leaned on book cases with their brains on the floor, we can see the damn tapes of when they were alive and planning this. And as for the parents… I don’t think they should be blamed. I don’t think the rest of their lives should be hell because of what their kids did. But I do think they are out of context when asking to keep the videos private. Their boys shot their privacy to hell on 4/20/99 (punt not intended). We are the public, this happened to the public, in a public school, and can happen any where else in the world at any given time 100 times greater. I’m not saying we can stop it if we view the tapes, I’m just saying the more we know about a subject, the better chances we have of protecting ourselves and families against it. And that’s why the audio and tapes should be released.
If they can relese Rapent Range and Hit Men For Hire than why not relese The Basement Tapes to?. I remember the tragic shooting at Columbine High School very well. The tapes are a source for the public to see that if the police had just seen what Eric and Dylan were planing to do they could have been stoped and the tragedy would never happened in the first place. If they are relesed to the public than mabey police will step in and stop another Columbine from happing here or any where in America.
I think that the video’s should be released just for our amusment.Me myself am entertained when I think of Columbine highschool.I’d love to see what drove them to the brink of insanity.
I think you’re very wrong. Those tapes are important, because Eric and Dylan were not messed up in the head. They were victims in their own right, hurt just as much as the ones they hurt. I’m not saying killing is right, but I can understand that they did it because it’s what they thought was right, not because they simply felt like it. I believe if those tapes were released, people would have the opportunity to learn more about Eric and Dylan, and stop putting so much reliance on the media. They were not troubled, they were simply not understood, because nobody had listened.
I completely disagree with the idea of keeping them private. Those tapes could be an extremely useful tool for parents, teachers and psychologists to help diagnose depression, schizophrenia and psycosis in order to prevent things like this from happening. It would allow them to help people like Dylan, Eric and Seung-Hui Cho (the Virginia Tech Shooter) before they commit these horrific tragedies. It has been 11 years since the tragic event and I believe the public is ready for these tapes to be released.