Parents of Columbine killer "not sorry"...

MrScott81

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Aug 31, 2001
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I guess some of the parents of the victims were upset that the parents didn't apologize for their son's actions...I don't think they were responsible at all...what do you think?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040516/ap_on_re_us/columbine_parents_4

NEW YORK - In their first interview since the Columbine High School massacre, the parents of one of the killers said they feel no need be forgiven and didn't realize their son was beyond hope until after he was dead.

"Dylan (Klebold) did not do this because of the way he was raised," Susan Klebold told columnist David Brooks in Saturday's editions of The New York Times. "He did it in contradiction to the way he was raised."


Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives.


The couple took issue with people who say they forgive them for what happened.


"I haven't done anything for which I need forgiveness," Susan Klebold said.


They acknowledged they missed signs that their son was in trouble. Klebold and Harris were in a juvenile diversion program for breaking into a van and stealing tools and other items in January 1998.


"He was hopeless. We didn't realize it until after the end," Tom Klebold said.


"I think he suffered horribly before he died," Susan Klebold said. "For not seeing that, I will never forgive myself."


The couple said they felt under siege after the shooting and never had a chance to grieve for their son.


Tom Klebold said they hope to understand someday why the shooting happened.


"We're not qualified to sort this out. People need to understand this could have happened to them," he said.


The Klebolds said their son was set off by the "toxic culture" of the school, where athletes were worshipped and bullying was tolerated.


Jefferson County Public Schools officials have consistently denied that bullying was tolerated or that athletes received special treatment.


The Klebolds' comments was criticized late Saturday by some of the victims' parents.


"I'm horrified," Dawn Anna, whose daughter Lauren Townsend was killed at Columbine, told The Associated Press. "I wanted an apology. I wanted a contribution to help us understand why it happened, so that it would never happen again. I didn't hear it."


Brian Rohrbough, father of victim Daniel Rohrbough, said he was outraged that the Klebolds likened the day of the shootings to a natural disaster in the interview with Brooks.


"This was murder," he said. "In my opinion, what went on in their home led to Columbine."

Brooks said the Klebolds agreed to the interview after an exchange of e-mails initiated by Tom Klebold, who was angered by Brooks' April 24 column. Brooks'column did not say when and where the interview took place.

In the April 24 column, Brooks had paraphrased an article in the online publication Slate that said Harris and Klebold yearned to become the most prolific mass murders in history.

The Klebolds' attorney, Gary Lozow, told The Denver Post the Klebolds had no plans to grant any other interviews.

In a story for Sunday's editions of The Post, Lozow related the first moments after the Klebolds learned of the shooting.

They had heard the gunmen may have been part of the Trench Coat Mafia, a loose group of students, including their son, who said athletes at Columbine bullied them.

"When early word came that the Trench Coat Mafia may be involved in the shooting, Tom ran downstairs to look for Dylan's trench coat, which he couldn't find," Lozow said.

"He was afraid Dylan might be involved. So he called me and offered to go to the school in hopes of negotiating with Dylan. It wasn't accepted."

Harris' parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, have never spoken to reporters.

After-hours phone calls to Times officials were not returned, and Brooks did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
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im with them they have no reason to feel sorry, yes their kids were a lil messed up but they didnt push them there or over the edge, it was the kids that did it and IMO they got what they deserved
 

MrScott81

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Originally posted by: ElFenix
they should be sorry for being sh!tty parents
I think as any other parents, they tried their best, but the kids were just insane. I don't think they could have done anything more than they did to prevent the incident.
 
Aug 27, 2002
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Originally posted by: ElFenix
they should be sorry for being sh!tty parents
at the least they should have had sent their kids to couseling for thier previous problems, it shouldn't have gotten as far as it did.
 

MrScott81

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Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
Originally posted by: ElFenix
they should be sorry for being sh!tty parents
at the least they should have had sent their kids to couseling for thier previous problems, it shouldn't have gotten as far as it did.
if you read the article you would have seen that they had gone to counseling...

Klebold and Harris were in a juvenile diversion program for breaking into a van and stealing tools and other items in January 1998.
 

MrCodeDude

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Jun 23, 2001
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I'm too lazy to look it up, but where did they get the guns? Didn't they get them from one of their households? Yeah, that's called sh!tty parenting. Leaving fscking guns open to your demented son and his friends.

Also, there was no such thing as the Trench Coat Mafia, that was all made up by the media.
 

DrPizza

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Mar 5, 2001
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I don't blame the parents one bit. And, despite what the high school says, I tend to believe that the students were bullied and that athletes were "worshipped." Not that there aren't schools where that isn't the case, but I have yet to see that. It's fairly universal that more attention is payed to the athletes than to the rest of the students, with, perhaps to varying degrees, the academically accelerated students.
 

MrScott81

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Aug 31, 2001
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Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
I'm too lazy to look it up, but where did they get the guns? Didn't they get them from one of their households? Yeah, that's called sh!tty parenting. Leaving fscking guns open to your demented son and his friends.

Also, there was no such thing as the Trench Coat Mafia, that was all made up by the media.
wrong.

Robyn Anderson, a friend of Klebold and Harris, bought the shotguns and the Hi-Point 9mm Carbine at The Tanner Gun Show in December of 1998 from unlicensed sellers. Because Anderson purchased the guns for someone else, the transition constituted an illegal "straw purchase." Klebold and Harris bought the TEC-DC9 from a pizza shop employee named Mark Manes, who knew they were too young to purchase the assault pistol, but nevertheless sold it to them for $500.
 

Originally posted by: ElFenix
they should be sorry for being sh!tty parents
How can you determine how they were raised?

I'm too lazy to look it up, but where did they get the guns? Didn't they get them from one of their households? Yeah, that's called sh!tty parenting. Leaving fscking guns open to your demented son and his friends.
:roll:
It's not like these were 6 year old kids that a gunlock would stop.
 

dxkj

Lifer
Feb 17, 2001
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they said they were sorry they missed the signs... so that requries forgiveness :)
 

Mill

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
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I'm conflicted about it. On one hand you realize that parents cannot 100% control there kids, but on the other hand there were signs that should not have been missed. Instructions for pipe-bombs, guns, ammunition, books on nazis and death. My parents never "searched" my room that I know of, but I knew they were familiar with the contents of it because my mother would put laundry up or whatever. I'm guessing these parents either ignored the content of Klebold's room, or actually let the little ass tell them they couldn't go in it. My parent's would have kicked me out if I did some stuff like that. They certainly share some culpability in my opinion. Naivety and apathy gets people killed all the time, and that's what probably happened here.
 

LongCoolMother

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Sep 4, 2001
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i cant say for sure. i can say that often times parents are responsible largely for their children's actions. in thsi case, i dont know enough details to know whether or not the parents were actually responsible.

it depends from case to case.
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
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Of course to a degree they were responsible for this. To pretend otherwise is to pretend that parents have no meaningful role in their children's upbringing, and that is not the case.

They may have thought they were being good parents and always tried hard, but it doesn't mean they were good. They shouldn't be held criminally responsible, because it's impossible to gauge how much of an influence they did or didn't have on these kids, and either way it's nothing that they could have consciously controlled, but surely the same genetic dispotisions of these killers would have manifested themselves differently with different parents. Perhaps in one household they'd have been nastier, and in another normal.

But yes, the parents have a say. Just as a parent is rightfully proud when their kid does something good, it also reflects upon them when the child is bad. You can't have it both ways.
 

FuZoR

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Sep 22, 2001
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why should they be sorry... cause they didnt know there sons are freaking crazy...

yeah whatever.
 

MrScott81

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Originally posted by: Skoorb
Of course to a degree they were responsible for this. To pretend otherwise is to pretend that parents have no meaningful role in their children's upbringing, and that is not the case.

They may have thought they were being good parents and always tried hard, but it doesn't mean they were good. They shouldn't be held criminally responsible, because it's impossible to gauge how much of an influence they did or didn't have on these kids, and either way it's nothing that they could have consciously controlled, but surely the same genetic dispotisions of these killers would have manifested themselves differently with different parents. Perhaps in one household they'd have been nastier, and in another normal.

But yes, the parents have a say. Just as a parent is rightfully proud when their kid does something good, it also reflects upon them when the child is bad. You can't have it both ways.

good points...i do think they are responsible to a degree, but I don't think they should apologize to the other parents. They've already gone through enough criticism from the media, etc., and endured their own pain and suffering. I just think that kids like them sometimes just cannot be helped past a certain point.
 

Mill

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
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Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
Also, there was no such thing as the Trench Coat Mafia, that was all made up by the media.

http://www.trenchcoat.org/oldindex.html

and, of course, the fallout:

http://www.trenchcoat.org
Hmm, who to believe, actual student there or some websites?

Read the Thread at Genmay.com

Bullsh!t. My friend used to live in Littleton, and he still has relatives there. Numerous times he told me that it did in fact exist. The fvcking PICTURE with the caption is in their yearbook. So the media bribed someone to change all copies of the yearbook? :roll: I trust someone on Genmay about as much as I trust a 14 year old kid. Oh wai...
 

Kadarin

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Nov 23, 2001
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brigden

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Dec 22, 2002
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The truth is, we can never really know the dynamic of the boys' family life, how they were raised, and if their upbringing had an affect on their mental state. Were these boys influenced by outside factors; were their actions shaped by media - games, music, etc. Were they genetically predisposed?

Were their parents at least partially responsible for their actions? I'm not sure. My parents have always done a good job; they raised me well, instilled proper morals and ethics, yet that had no affect on my decision to use cocaine, or abuse alcohol.