Cullen claims that Eric Harris was a swaggering ladies’ man and confident social king. This assertion is ludicrous.

Cullen writes that Eric “got lots of girls” and had sex with a 24-year-old woman named Brenda Parker. He even quotes Parker in his book. The truth is that Parker had no connection to Harris or the tragedy; she was a “fangirl” who sought attention by making up stories. She has *zero* credibility.

Eric tried to get a date to the prom; he failed. He asked several girls, all of whom turned him down. He finally convinced a girl he met at the pizza place where he worked to spend a couple of hours at his house on the night of the prom; they watched a movie. She declined to attend the after-prom party with him, so he went alone.

Harris was fairly short (5’8″) and very skinny, with a deformed chest due to his pelvus excavatum. As his body language in the following video (recorded in a hallway at Columbine and shown in a documentary about the massacre) demonstrates, he was no match for the larger boys he encountered on a daily basis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZix8_7f_lY

In his final journal entry, Eric wrote:

“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t — say, “well thats your fault” because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh — nooo.”

Does that sound like someone who was confident and socially successful?

…

Cullen perpetuates the long-standing myth that Dylan was a sad little emo follower who was totally led by Harris.

The truth is that Dylan wrote about going on a killing spree before Eric.

On Monday, November 3, 1997, Dylan wrote in his journal:

“[edited] will get me a gun, ill go on my killing spree against anyone I want. more crazy…deeper in the spiral, lost highway repeating, dwelling on the beautiful past, ([edited] & [edited] gettin drunk) w. me, everyone moves up i always stayed. Abandonment. this room sux. wanna die.”

He wrote “*my* killing spree”, not “*our* killing spree”.

…

Those who have seen the basement tapes have said that, on them, Dylan appears far more eager and enthusiastic than Eric.

On the tapes, Eric apologizes to his family; Dylan does not.

On one tape, Eric is seen alone, tearing up when he thinks about his friends back in Michigan. He even turns the tape off so he will not be captured crying on camera.

If he truly was a pure psychopath, as Cullen claims, is it likely that he would have cried while thinking about old friends?

…

Cullen writes that Dylan had doubts about “going NBK” – NBK was the killers’ code word for the massacre – *during* the attack. One wonders how he came to this conclusion.

At the school on 4/20, Dylan was the one who seemed to be enjoying himself. Eric was subdued in comparison.

At one point, Dylan saw one of his victims writhing in pain.

“Here, let me help you,” he said – and shot the boy in the face.

Was that the action of someone who had doubts about what he was doing?

…

This is not the forum for a thorough debunking of Cullen’s claims. The bottom line is that the book, while useful in some respects, is *not* the definitive, myth-busting account it purports to be.

Read Mr. Cullen’s book, but also read Columbine: A True Crime Story” by Jeff Kass; “No Easy Answers” by Brooks Brown; “Comprehending Columbine” by Ralph Larkin; and as many other books as you can find. Read the killers’ journals and other writings (www.acolumbinesite.com is a good starting point). Read the documents (*very* begrudgingly) released by law enforcement over the years.

Keep an open mind and remember that the “truth” is always very elusive.

This looks much different, like Going Postal. Without depth, flesh and deeper questions/conclusions, treatment of these events seems like little more than gawking at an accident scene.

Lex, I have to admit I tuned out most of the school shootings early on, too. They just seemed like nothing I could do about them . . . I don’t know. But as soon as I met the individuals–the survivors–the day this happened, and all that week, it turned my head around.

I know the media tries to humanize victims by doing little 30-second TV vignettes on them, and 800-word profiles, and I appreciate the intent, but that never worked for me as a viewer/reader. I found out that the kid liked peperoni pizza, but didn’t feel I knew him. I didn’t really connect to those things, as a rule.

That experience as a news consumer helped me figure out what I wanted to do with this book. I wanted you to get to know a smallish group of people pretty well, instead of a vast multitude of people just momentarily. I hated leaving most people out, but I hope it worked that way.

(Shit, did I just answer a question nobody asked? hahaha. You just got me thinking. I was in the same boat ten years ago, and that guided a lot of my thinking. You can decide whether it worked, but that’s why I made those choices.)

If you’d like more “ink,” I’d be happy to write an additional feature if you have time to do a phone interview next week. If you want to set something up, drop me a line at cmackows@sbu.edu.

The book is doing quite well (8 weeks on the NY Times list), but I’m eager to get the word out further.

(FYI, GM is publisher of the local press that put out Kass’ book. He (GM) posts that on every blog that mentions my book, presumably after he gets his google alert. Interesting approach. There is also a conspiracy theorist who may stop by, though he seems to have gotten tired of doing it every day.)

Dave – thanks for dropping by. I’ve said repeatedly, and for years, that your coverage and much of what we got from Westword were the only reliable reporting on Columbine. Your work was Pulitzer-worthy, and I hope your book does well for you.

I’m so glad you highlighted some of the stories of the victims and survivors, especially Patrick Ireland. I really want to give the reader several different windows into this event, because people in the center of it experienced it in completely different ways.

I appreciate the time you put into this review, and your help in spreading the word.

“Mr. Kass, whose tough account is made even sadder by the demise of The Rocky Mountain News in which his Columbine coverage appeared, has also delivered an intensive Columbine overview. Some of the issues he raises and information he digs up go unnoticed by Mr. Cullen.” –Janet Maslin, New York Times

“A decade after the most dramatic school massacre in American history, Jeff Kass applies his considerable reporting talents to exploring the mystery of how two teens could have planned and carried out such gruesome acts without their own family and best friends knowing about it. Actually, there were important clues, but they were missed or downgraded both by those who knew the boys best and by public officials who came in contact with them. An engrossing and cautionary tale for everyone who cares about how to prevent kids from going bad.” —–Ted Gest, President, Criminal Justice Journalists