My biggest wish since last year is become some day a prestigious journalist. I have always been very interested in all the things which happen around the world so I believe this is the most important step to make my dream come true. However, I use to think that I still have a lot of things to learn because I realize that sometimes I don’t have enough knowledge of general culture or essential information. Nevertheless, I already know which type of journalism is the most suitable one for me: INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM. From my point of view, if I could work on it in the future I’m sure I would be the happiest person of the world. My favourite topics to investigate are:
-CRIMES (of any kind): I aaaaalways watch TV programmes about this; especially “CRIMENES IMPERFECTOS” and I also search for documentaries about it on web sites.
-DISEASES: Firstly, I would read and learn all the information about them and then I would begin my work. The disease that maybe I’m more interested in is CANCER, so I wish with all my own to be able some day to record a documentary with young victims or something like this. Then, I would try to earn voluntary donations from families and give this to doctors to help them in their investigations to find a final cure for cancer. I’m also interested in transmission diseases, uncommon diseases, mental diseases, etc.
-THE HARSH FACTS: On the other hand, I would like to do documentaries about the real world we live in. To get this, I would travel to poor countries or unsettled neighbourhoods. I would interview victims of mafia or clandestine groups as well. Besides, I would interview and try to help women who are victims of violence because, sadly, this is a very common fact in our society nowadays. I could also interview immigrants and show to people their culture and their habits, etc.
-CULTURES: One of my other biggest wishes is travel around the world. If I could do it while I’m working it would be wonderful. With my travels to other countries I would learn a lot of new things, such as new habits, food, or believes. I’d love to spend some weeks in each zone to do a great job.
Finally, I have to say that I love Hollywood’s world and all related to this. I hardly know all famous stars names, their movies, all the news about them...I adore all those things! Anyway, I just consider this liking to Hollywood a hobby. I wouldn’t like being a journalist specializing in this topic because I know a lot of things about paparazzi, scandals and all this stuff... and I don’t like it at all! I love to be aware of some things about famous stars world but honestly, I’m not made for this type of job!
Last week, I was watching a really interesting documentary about a massacre which took place in Columbine, specifically in Columbine High School, in 1999. After watching all the report, I was completely terrified about this fact. I couldn’t believe how two teenagers of my age could commit such an appalling crime. Following, I’ll summarize all the important facts as a piece of news.
Dylan Klebold (eighteen years old, right) and Eric Harris (seventeen years old, left) were two teenagers who went to Columbine High School. In 1999, they were already high school seniors.
Eric Harris was originally born in Wichita, Kansas, but he and his family were constantly moving because of his father job: he had a responsible post in the U.S. Air Force. This was the reason why Harris could never make friends and became a lonely and misunderstood child. Even though his mother was a homemaker, she and her husband didn’t worry about their son’s feelings very much.
For his part, Dylan Klebold had always lived in Colorado. His father was a geophysicist and his mother worked for the State of Colorado, administering training programs for the disabled. They were a very common family. During his childhood, Dylan’s best friend was Brooks Brown. However, they distanced themselves when Eric Harris moved to Colorado and knew Dylan Klebold there. Klebold wasn’t a little angel but Harris was a bad company for him.
Since they met they were up to mischief all day long. Brooks’ mother found out there were a lot of complaints in Jefferson Country Sheriff’s office about Harris: he stole computer equipment from a car, he broke Brook’s windscreen with a huge rock because he got angry with him, he was in possession of narcotics...So, she considered Eric Harris a very dangerous guy. Besides, Harris never liked Brooks and he was an aggressive person. Therefore, Brook’s mother was really worried about his son’s life. After finding out all this information, she contacted with Michael Guerra, an investigator of Jefferson Country Sheriff’s office. Guerra, during his investigation, discovered the macabre web site which Eric Harris created some time ago, in 1996. Firstly, he basically wrote jokes and his thoughts about parents, school, friends... but all their writings included insults and death threats. At the end of the year, he started writing in his blog instructions on how to cause mischief and on how to make explosives as well. Then, in 1997, his posts began to show the first signs of Harris anger against society.
When the investigator informed Eric Harris’ parents of this, Harris started attending therapy with a psychologist and did it during a year. Harris’ psychiatrist prescribed him anti-depressant Soloft to relieve his depression, anger and suicidal thoughts. He also suffered from restlessness and lack of concentration so he also took a similar drug for this: Luxox. When the police performed an autopsy of his death body they found out very high level of these drugs in Eric’s system. Now, doctors have discovered that those drugs side effects can be aggressiveness and deep depression.
It’s also important to emphasize the fact that both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wrote a diary expressing their feelings and thoughts. Harris talked about his robbery in his diary: he said that he wrote a letter to the owner of the equipment he had stolen offering apologizes. Following, he laughed at this fact saying that there was no regret in his heart.
Some months before the attack, both Eric and Dylan felt they must start their war against society. So, they needed to show their anger towards those they hated. Shortly after this decision, Harris stopped posting information about his evil plain in his web site. Until then, he just talked about the game Doom, as he did in the beginning. Nevertheless, he still dedicated a section on posting his progress in the collection of guns and in the building of bombs (used in the attack) as well. In those days, a friend of them Robyn Anderson (who was already adult) bought a rifle and two shot guns for them (1998). In 1999, they built plenty of improvised explosive devises of various designs and sizes with instructions from the internet. They also modified their guns in order to make them easier to conceal.
Finally, they decided to put their plain into action on Tuesday, 20th April, in 1999. Their attack took place in Columbine High School, in Columbine (Colorado). Everything began at 11:00 a.m. when Harris and Klebold arrived at Columbine High School in separate cars. From those spots, both of them had excellent views of the cafeteria’s side entrance and each one was covering a main exit of the school. Following, the pair set up a small fire bomb in a field near the school, at 11:14 a.m. They did it to distract the emergency personnel’s attention.
Firstly, when they got to the school again, Eric shot at Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo, a couple who was sitting on the field. Scott died instantly and Castaldo was critically wounded. After this, they shot to the students who were on the west entrance of the school or were just trying to escape from them. They injured a lot of them and they killed student Mark Taylor as well. Then, the pair threw some of their homemade bombs in the cafeteria, at breakfast time (the busiest time of the day) and following they used their guns to shoot everyone who tried to escape from their attack. At this moment, arts teacher Patti Nelson saw the pair shooting. She thought the pair were just joking or recording a violent video. So, she said “Knock it off!” and then one of them shot her in the shoulder. Otherwise, she was able to run away and she alerted the students. Following, she hided in the library. While she was trying to protect all the students who were hidden in there she called the police.
After calling the police, shooters entered to the library. There they threw another bomb which damaged many people in the room. There were more than 52 students in the library. Harris yelled everyone “Get Up!”, but when nobody stood up Harris said “Well, I’m going to shoot anyway!” They killed ten students and many more became injured. After this, they threw another Molotov Cocktail but it failed to explode. Next, they went to science area and threw a small fire bomb. After leaving science area, they threw two more bombs in the cafeteria. In their way to the cafeteria they saw a teacher trying to escape, so they killed him. He was the only teacher who died in the massacre.
Finally, shooters re-entered to the library and committed suicide: Eric Harris did it with a single shoot in his mouth and Dylan Klebold with a single shoot in his head. They died approximately forty five minutes after the massacre.
Police still keeps up their diaries and all the video tapes they recorded before the massacre. They all became essential information to know the causes of the terrible crime they committed and of their behaviour. In their video tapes they pretended to be serial killers, superheroes who looked for revenge, they were practising their shoots with their new guns...There was also a video recorded approximately thirty minutes before the attack. In this recording the pair was saying goodbye and apologizing to their friends and families. It’s necessary to emphasize that the reasons of this evil action were...
-Bullying: They both suffered from this form of abuse just because they didn’t join to any school group.
-Lack of affection and attention from their parents. If they had listened or worried about them they maybe wouldn’t ever done this attack.
-In the U.S. buy guns is always an easy job. Every adult person (eighteen years old or older) has the right to own one or two guns at least to “protect” his or her life.
-Their aggressive behaviour could be influenced by violent movies or videogames they watched.
-The use of anti-depressant is also a relevant cause of Eric Harris aggressiveness.
In short, this massacre became the worst tragedy in schools. However, I think that it was predictable and, of course, preventable. Sadly, police didn’t act when it was completely necessary. For example, they arrived at the attack when everything was over. Everyone complained about this because police could save some students and teachers from shooters at least.
