WHAT WENT WRONG AT COLUMBINE (MASSIVE COVER-UP ACCUSATION)

Brian Rohrbough is the father of one of the victims at Columbine. In an interview I conducted with him for my talk show Live Fire, my listeners were informed of the continuing lawsuits pursued by Rohrbough to pry the information from the authorities who have engaged in a massive cover-up.

The killers were well-known to the school and the police as very dangerous characters. After stealing equipment from a van, they were reported to have made death threats against a student. The Sheriff denied that any such report had been made, but unhappily for the Sheriff, the father had kept a copy of the report on the official form used for that purpose.

Rohrbough said that other death threats had been made, as well. The police had recovered from the killers pipe bombs which had been reported to them.

A year before Columbine, a search warrant was drawn up to search the house of the killers but was never executed. For two years the Sheriff's department denied that there had been a warrant. It has now been revealed in court that the cops were lying. Rohrbough suspects that one of the killers' parents was close to someone in the Sheriff's department.

One of the killers was being medicated on a psychotropic drug. There is a line at many of the county schools in the cafeteria where the drugs are handed out. The schools get $1000 per year from the federal government for handing out the drugs that the parents pay for.

The Sheriff's department covered up the records of the juvenile diversion program that the killers had attended. The parents had described in documents for the program that the kids were angry. One of the killers answered questions on a form saying that he wanted to kill someone, wanted to kill himself and hurt as many people as possible. They wrote essays in a creative writing class where they described the joys of murdering innocent people. The only negative comment by the teacher who graded the paper was that you should not swear at people before murdering them.

In a class they produced a video depicting the blowing up of the school. The killers had been on the internet bragging about the bombs they built. They even put their names on the bombs.

Other video tapes were made by the killers bragging that they wanted to kill as many people as possible. They had a hit list, but that has not been released yet -- although Rohrbough is trying to get it in produced in court.

The school authorities reported concerns about the killers to the Sheriff department's school resource officer. The officer denied that he was ever told that information. This is one of the many lies that Rohrbough has uncovered in the over 30,000 pages of documents he has gotten out of the clutches of the authorities.

Rohrbough accuses the police of having been cowards. Most of the officers he hastens to add wanted to go in, but the first officers on the scene became cowards. They had a gun fight with the killers and ran to hide behind their cars instead of running into the school. Their cowardice soon became the orders from above, ultimately from the Sheriff himself.

There was about seven minutes before the killers killed anyone inside the school (two had been killed outside, including Rohrbough's son). Obviously, if the officers had gone into the building immediately, there is a great likelihood that many lives could have been saved.

It is now known that the police waited for three hours after they knew the killers were dead before they finally entered the building. This was the time during which a teacher bled to death in plain sight of the world.

Rohrbough has alleged that the county lied about 28 material facts. When he presented this in a case against the county, the judge said that the government is immune from criminal penalties when it lies. The county's defense, when they were caught lying, was to hide behind the doctrine of sovereign immunity which protects bureaucrats from liability for their misdeeds. As a result, they actually argued in court that they were not responsible for protecting the victims or the dying teacher.

As a result, Rohrbough's litigation has focused on freedom of information suits to obtain the documents which have exposed the government's lies.

The Governor's commission to investigate Columbine was on the verge of issuing a report saying that everyone in authority had done all they could when Rohrbough dug up the non-executed search warrant. The commission never did hammer the police for allowing two killers to roam the halls while the cops cowered outside.

The commission recommended two improvements. One was to improve communication technology between police departments and the Sheriff's office in the county. But Rohrbough has learned that the difficulty was solved almost instantly. The other recommendation was that troubled students not go to their diversion programs in the same car. That was all the commission could come up with!

Rohrbough lamented that there were no teachers or other adults with a concealed firearm in the school. He pointed to the case of Israel where teachers have been encouraged to arm themselves. Certainly, if the police are going to insist that they have no responsibility to protect victims from criminals, then it is unconscionable for the police and politicians to oppose people protecting themselves, including legalizing firearms for self defense in schools.

Rohrbough is of the opinion that the killers' accomplice who legally bought the guns for the killers had advance knowledge of the crime. According to her, she told the killers when she gave them the guns, "You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" She was not prosecuted for transferring firearms to persons ineligible to own them. Rohrbough suspects that she was not prosecuted because she played the politically correct game of testifying that if there had been a gun show background check she never would have bought the guns.

One good thing that has resulted from the revelations of official misconduct was the defeat of the Sheriff in the next election.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Larry Pratt has been Executive Director of Gun Owners of America for 27 years. GOA is a national membership organization of 300,000 Americans dedicated to promoting their second amendment freedom to keep and bear arms.

The GOA web site is: http://gunowners.org. Pratt's weekly talk show Live Fire is archived there at: http://gunowners.org/radio.htm E-Mail: ldpratt@gunowners.org

Pratt has appeared on numerous national radio and TV programs such as NBC's Today Show, CBS' Good Morning America, CNN's Crossfire and Larry King Live, Fox's Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC's Phil Donahue show and many others. He has debated Congressmen James Traficant, Jr. (D-OH), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Vice President Al Gore, among others. His columns have appeared in newspapers across the country.

Last attempt to reach you via logic.
Dead cops dont save lives-Cops who dont save lives because they fear death are not cops.
Crossfires do not save lives-Crossfires occur when cops ignore all that expensive training thay recieved.

I have to conclude you are entirely ignorant regarding reality and expectations of minimum competency in civilian police actions.

That being the case,may I tell you that in the real world, if you tried to assert police authority over my actions in a crisis situation, you would be a SSS casualty.(Shoot, Shovel, Shut up)

In the grand scheme of life, your best bet is to get out of the way.

I dont want your kind at my back, and you do not qualify to lead.

You're not trying to reach me via logic. You're trying to reach me via emotion. The logic supports me. Every police department uses the exact same procedure that was used at Columbine. It's the right procedure.

See you even admit it you just don't realize it. Here's your quote: Crossfires occur when cops ignore all that expensive training thay recieved. The expensive training you refer to says you don't rush into unknown situations involving an unknown number of armed asailants and an unknown number of panic stricken civilians running for the exits.

If civilian expectations are that the cops act like freaking Rambo and compete with the perps for body count then the civilians are stupid and doon't deserve to have their expectations met.

Actually if you tried to ignore police authority you'd be SSS. Bring a gun into a situation like that and ignore the baricade you get to join the list of perps.

In the grand scheme of life your best bet is to not do what you think is best because what you think is best is stupid and will result in massive bloodshed of innocent civilians. The only reason I'd cover the back of an emotion driven idiot like yourself is to make sure you're facing away from me so your path of destruction is going where I'm not, turn towards me and I'll kill you myself. People like you are a bigger menace than the bad guys, at least they're smart enough to know they're murdering people.

I don't consider myself a normal human being, normal human beings have lousy taste in music.

Coming from someone who's already said they're not a LEO of DOD are those supposed to be startling belittling revalations?

You're just mad because I used your own quote to show you were wrong. Must really suck to have a position so incredibly without defense that you prove yourself wrong.

Ah and now the final proof you're an overly emotional person, you use the PMS excuse. Every woman I've ever known that blamed PMS was just a bitch and too cowardly to admit it. I can respect people that can admit their foibles, people that make sorry excuses are beneath contept.

I'm having a great day, blowing apart idiotic arguments is fun.

This thread has been very interesting to read.

My take on Columbine is that students and teachers were exiting the building at multiple points, even as the first LEOs were arriving on scene.

The cell phone calls and intel from the adults and students at the school were voluminous, but not unintelligible.

Entry into the school building could have been made from any on the doors/windows that people were fleeing from.

Clearing of rooms or wings could have commenced from there.
There may have been roof doors which could have been accessed and SWAT teams could have entered in that way. Going in the front door was not the only option available.

Children were being summarily executed. There was no excuse to stay outside in the hope that better intel would become available. School layouts are not that mysterious. Central corridors with classrooms on two sides. Administrators,teachers, and students were available to help police co-ordinate info on layout, and to direct the first ones in on layout,direction,etc.via radio.

I don't buy that the SWAT teams had to wait for better info before they went in. It is their job to go in and mitigate the situation. You start SOMEWHERE and use scouts if need be to get the intel you need.

There was realtime info from kids inside as to where the shooters were. So you make your entry where they WEREN'T.
What's so hard about that?

There was no excuse for the inaction of the police and SWAT teams while children were being shot to death. None.
If they were too scared to do their jobs, they can become street sweepers.

To serve and protect? Or swerve and deflect? The commanders at the scene have much to answer for.

With roughly 2000 people in the building exiting isn't quick.

As soon as your intel is voluminous it becomes unintelligible. Some people are giving you information from 30 seconds ago, some from 2 minutes ago, some from 5 minutes ago, some from stuff they heard while running, and that's assuming they were all right at one point they won't be, some people are wrong always happens.

In hindsight we know entry could have been made, at the time they didn't know this. They didn't know how many shooter there were or where, your initial entry point needs to be where the shooters are. Going against the flow and entering where others are fleeing creates a whole extra set of problem, next movie you go to leave with the crowd and when you get to the door try turning around and going back, now imagine doing that when there are people inside shooting and your job is to stop them.

As far as I know they were working on clearing the building. There "may have been" a lot of stuff. Show me that there was a roof entrance that they not could safely use but KNEW they could safely use and we have a topic of discussion.

Yes bad things were happening in the building. That's why the SWAT team got called in the first place. Tragic incident is no excuse for stupidity, entering before the crowd was cleared and the intel was gathered would be stupid. Again, this is STANDARD procedure EVERYWHERE. You're arguing that a procedure that's been getting tweaked and perfected for decades should suddenly be ignored because the victims are kids. As for school layouts not being a mystery, spoken like someone that hasn't seem a lot of school layouts, sometimes there's one hallways, sometimes there's 4 hallways, God help you if it's an old school and has had additions those always seem to be done oddly (one school here in Tucson goes from 2 floors to 1, making a sort of split level with a thyroid condition, God help the cops if anybody takes that one over).

You might not buy it, but we're not discussing what you're buying. The simple facts are there. If they had the information and lack of civilians they'd have gone.

I already told you what's so hard about that, how do you know the information is good. The bad guys had just as easy access to cell phones as anybody, call the cops and lie, lure them into a trap. "Real time information" is only as good as your source, terrified teenagers aren't good sources.

For the umpteenth time: cops jobs aren't to rush blindly into a dangerous situation and get into a running gunfight with a bunch of civilians caught in the middle. Had they done that the death toll would be much higher and we'd BOTH be calling for their heads.

In general. The amount of scrutiny they go through for even drawing their weapon can be severe (check threads from earlier today where we have 3 seperate videos showing the cops were right to shoot and yet because SkyNews says the perp got shot in the back people are calling it murder), as such they kind of become experts in "alternate solutions". People forget that innaction can save lives and that hasty action can cost them, amazing given that half the people on this thread have mentioned two classic examples of the cops acting too soon and incorrectly for the situation (Waco and Ruby Ridge).

I know you have covered some of these topics previously in the thread, and I thank you for being patient enought to repeat them for me.

Where we differ, is that there is a sense of urgency when people are being slaughtered. You can't wait for perfect conditions to proceed. The cost of inaction far outweighed the cost of action in this case.

There were many adult sources of information for the police to rely on--principals,teachers,custodians, to help the police scope out the intel and prioritize it.Roof doors, hatches,HVAC ductwork, all represent opportunities for entry.

Waiting three hours to go in, while getting active calls from inside as to what is happening in local rooms/areas etc.. with wounded and dying people is not defensible, when you are trained, have the resources and have the manpower.

By process of elimination, areas of the school could have been entered and secured;that would have been better than just securing the perimeter and waiting while people are calling for help from the inside.

As for school layouts, there was enough people there with intimate knowledge of the layout to guide any entering cops via radio as to where they were and what lay ahead.

To do that ,admittedly, would take courage and fortitude. But when children are being slaughtered at point blank range and you know that,you go in. Period.

To do otherwise is to deny the purpose of the police--to serve and to protect.

The exiting was not necessarily pandemonium nor was it very long in time compared to the three hours they waited to go in. It happened in certain areas;in other areas, whole classes stayed where they were.They could have entered at points where exiting was over and started to clear the building or at least verify where the shooters were or weren't. Having all civilians out of the way before they could act was not an option.

First thing is to get useful intel. To get that you have to go inside. My view is that any action toward that end would be more helpful than harmful.

In some situations, you don't have the luxury of waiting until all the stars line up in your favor. When children are being slaughtered, you don't hesitate. Form a plan of action, start somwhere, and get the perps.

Waiting three hours because you don't know what you are going to face--well,then, who needs a SWAT team?

Urgency can't suplant intelligence, when it does people die. They don't wait for perfect conditions because they'll never exist, they wait for conditions when they feel they can be successful.

But again with many sources it has to be collated, while adults are usually better on this stuff than kids you've still got to filter out the old information and the just plain wrong information. Often for things like that having more people to talk to makes it worse, there's a certain percentage of people that are terminally confused and will wind up giving crappy information, you're going to encounter more of these people when there's 2000 witnesses than 20. And you can't tell they're full of crap until you finish listening to them.

You expect that somebody can just tell the cops how a school that holds 2000 people is laid out in any manner that's quick and useful? Not gonna happen. Assuming 30 students and a teacher per class that means a minimum of 65 class rooms, plus library, plus cafeteria, plus assembly hall, plus locker rooms, plus gyms, plus bathrooms, plus administrative areas, teacher lounges, storage, janitorial, electric and phone closets. You don't just tell somebody how a building of close to 100 rooms plus connecting hallways is laid out.

As for ductwork, get your head out of TV land. Standard building ductwork isn't big enough for anybody over age 12 to go through and probably not strong enough to hold up even a 12 year-old. And even if it was without the blueprints NOBODY knows how the ducts are laid out.

You don't secure areas by process of elimination. This isn'm minesweeper on a computer, go in the wrong doors get in a gunfight with dozens of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.

The exiting was necessarily pandemonium, scared people do not leave in an orderly manner. It probably was done in under 3 hours, then you still need to gather information and figure out how to enter.

No you need useful intel BEFORE going inside. Going in to get intel gets people killed. Intel first, then entry, then more intel, then expand entry, repeat those last two until the building is secured. That's how it works, doing it any other way gets people killed.

In ALL situations you must follow the proper procedure. Allowing the emotion of the situation to dictate how much of the rule book you follow makes it MORE deadly not less.

The DID form a plan of action, that's what they were doing. You just said with that sentence right there that they did the right thing.

You need SWAT because most perps that go on killing sprees don't make everybody's life easy by killing themselves after just a few minutes. Most of the time they hunker down for a seige. K&H were the exception that proves the rule.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

This sitation was unusual just because of the amount of real-time info that was available. Normally, you don't know what is going on. There were plenty of intel resources at hand, and commanders are trained to sort it out. There was a plethora of adult intel sources, teachers,principals and custodiams. They weren't nutcases incapable of giving directions, and with two-way radio they could have guided the SWAT team with relative ease.

Also,school buildings are not that difficult to comprehend. They have signs on the door to let you know what room you're in. They are usually wings connected to central cores with all-purpose areas. They have been building high schools likie this for forty years.A good fire dept. has people who have visited the building during inspections and have some idea of the layout. They were at the scene.It ain't rocket science.

You start where people have come out and move in. You isolate each area and try to get the killers in a box, and prevent them from getting to people who are still trapped.

What happened at Columbine was that no one went in. Kids were killed. And a teacher bled to death--hours after the perps shot each other(which is a lot of bull, but that's another story).

And the justification for this is what? A lack of intel? Screw that--get your butt in there and get the job done.
Otherwise, send all of the SWAT toys back to the store.

As far as ductwork, I've built buildings.I know whereof I speak. There are large ductworks areas that a man can fit into and there are roof hatches that can be entered.That the cops at Columbine didn't try a nuumber of opportunities to get in the building shows incompetence, cowardice or both.

I'm not buying what you're selling. You say going in without perfect intel gets people killed. I say, when people are getting massacred, get your butt in there,because you are bound to decrease the number of people killed by maniacs.

This wasn't a hostage situation. It was a mass murder. And you don't wait to put a stop to it.

But again in that kind of quantity real time information is nothing more than real time confusion. You've got hundreds of people spewing information at you, they're not going to all be right, and you've got to figure out who is and who isn't. Again adult source/ teen source DOESN'T MATTER. It's still TOO MANY sources and most of them have information that is OLD and USELESS, and some are just plain WRONG.

Oh please you're going to send a SWAT team in against an unknown number of armed perpetrators trying to navigate around hundreds of frightened people and they're going to be getting directions from some civilian radioing in?! Do you realize how amazing stupid that is? That's a recipe for disaster, just have the team open fire on the civilians coming out of the building the results will be the same and you'll save time, which would make you happy because your entire position is that amazing stupid ineffective homicidally dangerous action NOW is better than intelligent action later.

BWHAHAHAHA School buildings aren't that difficult to comprehend. When was the last time you were in a high school. Please. You're off in do-do land now. 100ish rooms! What's simple to comprehend about that. Oh that's rich they have signs. So when you're in the room with the sign that says Principle's Office exactly how do you get to the library? Schools are usually made by the lowest bidder, none of the schools I went to in two different states had the design you mentioned. Not one. That's right ALL fire dept have people that visited and have DOCUMENTED the layout, and only a complete moron would procede until those documents are on site and have been analyzed.

Well you're getting smarter. You've learned that all the people possible need to be out before you procede. You realize K&H were already dead by then don't you. And that the cops didn't know K&H were dead. Of course you don't just run in because people are out, there's still armed bad guys looking to shoot people and you don't know where they are and if they're staking out an entrance or which entrance that might be.

Great if you've built building then you know the ductwork travel system is a Hollywood myth. At best you'll get from the intake vent to the primary machines. You don't get to crawl around a hidden maze and sneak up on bad guys. Anywhere the badguys are likely to be found will have ductwork a few inches high and a foot or so wide. You know it, I know it, the SWAT team knows. Let's end that train of thought.

I don't care what you're buying. You're wrong. It's just that simple. The methods are there, have been getting perfected for DECADES, are used GLOBALLY and they say with no hesitation that anybody proposing what you're proposing should be sent home because they're hot heads thinking with their triggerfinger and not their brain and they're going to cost lives. It's not a matter of agreeing to disagree. Your methods are MURDER and if any one ever followed them they should be considered perps.

My friend, you are losing rational thought. Your position is that with so much intel, there was no way to prioritize it or to judge it's relative value. I maintain that is not that hard to do.

Perfect methods resulted in kids being murdered and a teacher bleeding to death. The SWAT team can keep patting themselves on the back for that one.

Here's the prime directive from my point of view: when people are getting massacred, you don't sit there and wait for the shooting to stop for over two hours and then go in.

And please, I have a lot of experience in buildings, construction, security, emergency situations involving thousands of people. What you are saying ain't holding water. Get a better bucket.

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