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

NewsWithViews.com ^ | June 12, 2003 | Larry Pratt

[fight_truth_decay]

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.

[discostu]

Hope you didn't think that was an insightful reply.

[zeugma]

Well, let's see. One has a bunch of fellows handy with body armor, weapons, and training.

To summarize in a single sentance: Enter the building and neutralize any threat.

Of course the problem with this, is it's hard to do with donuts and coffee in your hands.

[SJSAMPLE]

They had enough men, armor and weaponry to form a basic stack and enter the building. That much was evident. They had significant opportunity to enter, not from hindsight, but from the fact that they were NOT under fire at the entrance. One officer reported that he was shot at, but wasn't that the same officer who sprayed down the entire entrance area (where a dead student was found with 9mm wounds) and didn't hit anything? That same officer fired the majority of all of the shots with a 9mm MP5 FROM A HILLTOP and HIT NOTHING. Spray and pray that I can get from any gangbanger at the local shooting range.

Nobody wants them to rush in and be killed. But forming a stack and entering the building was their job and they waited until all firing had stopped (K&H committed suicide by then) before entering. The basic question comes to this: At what point was the risk acceptable to the SWAT officers / commanders? As evidenced by their (lack of) actions, NEVER. They waited until the scent was dead before trying anything proactive or offensive.

Their only measurement of success in this instance was that no officers were wounded. If that's "the right thing", then they can go home to their families. But they should stop by the station and turn in their gear, because anybody could have done nothing.

[Wolfie]

But...but...but...there were 2 kids...with guns...shooting and stuff. Much safer to wait outside till its all over.

[MEGoody]

"Enter the building and neutralize any threat."

Sounds easy enough.

How do you know where the 'threat' is?

How do you ensure the safety of the innocent kids in the building while you are neutralizing the threat?

How do you keep the perps from using the other kids as human shields?

How do you know that the perps don't have bombs they will set off as soon as they see a cop?

[SJSAMPLE]

"Assault rifles" at Columbine?
Name one. Shotguns and pistols. Mostly junk. How does that compare to LE carbines and MP5's?

Heavy arms? Now I know it's bullshit when one of their own apologists can't be trusted to use the correct terminology when trying to explain away their failures. Again, 9mms and shotguns. Wow. They were surely outgunned. Better stay home on this one, boys.

Gunbattle? Christ, now Davis is really piling it up. What gunbattle? One officer fired directed shots at what was presumed to be one of the shooters, K or H? This guy acts like it was Khe Sanh or something.

Students left that building telling the police who and how many killers there were. In an attempt to cloud the issue, Davis uses minority accounts that were immediately discredited by most witnesses.

"What happened in Littleton was unthinkable from a training perspective." Sure. I mean, SWAT never trains to enter buildings with multiple, armed assailants. If this is true, then SWAT only trains in scenarios where they know the layout, number, location and weaponry and NEVER enters the building if an officer is at risk.

Again, if setting up tape and barricading a building was their mission, then "mission accomplished." But, if using the training, tactics and weaponry of a highly-trained team to prevent the further loss of life was their goal, they failed miserable. They didn't save one life and most likely caused the death of the only adult casualty. I expect more from the "elite" than excuses and caution.

[zeugma]

So, sitting outside and eating donuts helped the situation how? ANY action would have been better than none at all.

[Space Wrangler]

If these are the tactics used by SWAT, then a re-vamp of tactics is desperately needed. The shooters were dead for 2 hrs before the cops made an entrance into the school. The teacher who was shot bled to death in that time. That is at least one life that could have been saved if the cops on the scene would have done their job. I consoder what happened at Columbine to have been dereliction of duty to the point of being criminal. Think about it this way: two dead gunmen held an entire police force at bay for 2 hrs when their job is to protect and serve.

I remember the day that it happened very well. Our best friends were giving birth to their son that day, and we were at the hospital awaiting the new arrival when the live shots started up. I can remember nearly yelling at the TV "What in the h&ll are they waiting on!!!!!!' The police waiting hours before making an entry was total disregard for public safety.

[HardStarboard]

All your "how do you knows?" are conditions that the Israelis encountered in the Entebbe raid to save the Jews held hostage in Uganda.

They pulled it off.....with only one causalty to themselves and none to the hostages.

Our large cities should have equally as well trained hostage recovery teams.

[discostu]

The entire thing from first shot to last was 25 minutes. You're trying to cast this like they spent hours out there with their thumbs up their butt while the little psychoboys raped and pillaged in the school. That's not what happened. Given a 5 minute response time (which is assuming a lot of speed, it was probably closer to 10 or 15 minutes) they were only out there getting organized and assessing the situation for 20 minutes before the situation ended.

Just because they weren't under fire from the entrance doesn't mean there isn't someone that can shoot AT the entrance from inside. You're piling on after the fact knowledge that they couldn't possibly have. Now we know they could have taken the entry way unassailed, then nobody knew that.

YOU want them to rush in and be killed. That is EXACTLY what you're demanding. They were waiting to figure out what the hell was going on. They heard gunfire, they heard explosions, they were getting hundreds of phone calls from inside the building. As it happened the gunfire and explosions stopped before they figured out the situation. That happens. And it's nobody's fault.

In most situations doing what you think they should have done would result in higher body counts as the SWAT team would get in a running gunfight with the bad guys with innocent by-standers in the way. That's why they don't do it your way, it would be stupid, it would be suicide, it would be murder.

The measure of success is that the police's actions caused no deaths. Given the speed of the incident and the suicide of the perps it's painfully obvious to anyone who isn't a blatant cop hater grinding an axe that nothing could have lessoned the death toll. But there are things that could have increased, like SWAT teams running in guns blazing like it's some Stalone movie.

[discostu]

The problem with that is entering an unkown situation results in deaths. Basically you want them to do what the FBI did at Ruby Ridge, yeah that worked great, or like the ATF did in Waco, another brilliant plan. There's 2000 kids administrators and faculty in the building, an unknown number of them are armed and shooting, the right thing to do is figure out what the hell is going on. The single sentence is: analyze, plan, act.

No one on this board is more disgusting than a cop hater. Your constant insults of the cops who did the best they could in the situation, a hell of a lot better than you possibly could have, is vile. Show me a picture of one with a donut in their hands. You're sick. You hate cops and nothing they do will ever be right. Next time you hear about a hostage situation go enact your plan, run in there guns blazing, then you'll learn, right before you die, why that's not how things are done.

[discostu]

Way to completely ignore the pipebombs. Of course you have to pretend they don't exist because if they do exist then your position is idiotic.

[stands2reason]

I get constantly amazed by how much some people just plane hate cops and will find fault with everything they do.

I can tell you for one, Houmatt is not one of those people. I've been on the other side of an LEO misconduct argument with him where he was just about alone standing up for the cops in question (Houston K-mart mass arrests) yet he's here on this thread questioning the LEO's actions. BTW, I don't "hate cops" either.

[TC Rider]

Hope you didn't think that was an insightful reply.

I stand by all three lines, especially the last one. Those armored men with their automatic weapons stood by while children were killed and a teacher bled to death.

Regardless of whether it was cowardice or policy, it was wrong.

To Serve & Protect = To Serve Doughnuts and Protect their own asses

If I had been a father of those kids on the scene they would have had to back shoot me.

Is that pithy enough for you?

[zeugma]

Well, let's see. At Ruby Ridge, there were no hostages being killed. Of course in that instance, there was the henious crime of Mr. Weaver having cut the barrel of a shotgun 1/4" too short. Guess that justifies shooting his wife in the head.

At Waco, they pumped lethal quanities of CN gas into an enclosed area with children present for 6 hours. I guess it is still o.k. to 'destroy the village in order to save it'. At the outset of that amazing display of federal power run amuck, they stormed a building occupied with men, women, and children whilst firing indescriminately into the building. Great tactics there. The entire situation was completely unnecessary, as they could have arrested Koresh the previous weekend as they were shooting with him at the local firing range.

Regarding the ad-hominem attack, it is the last refuge of a scoundrel with no real argument.

You are right in that I don't particularly care for most cops though, as they are, by and large, donut-eating tax collectors for the welfare state who grew up as your garden variety bully on the public schoolyards of this country. Most of them obviously can't read and understand the Constitution, or they'd be in a different line of work.

[SJSAMPLE]

K&H were dead after 25 minutes, but that doesn't mean the whole thing was over. It was considerably longer than that before the officers first entered the building. Meanwhile, a teacher was bleeding to death. There's the death that was avoidable, if not for the heroic actions of Columbine SWAT.

So inaction, at every level, even in the relatively short time period of 25 minutes, was preferable? You take the attitude that inaction was good, because the officers didn't accidentally shoot innocents and become liable.

Nowhere did I say that they should have "rush" into a funnel and meet their deaths ("guns blazing"). However, and AGAIN, they had the weapons, equipment and training to enter that building in a controlled stack and attempt to stop the carnage. And they didn't. They were waiting. Waiting for better intel. Waiting for better opportunities. WAITING FOR THE SHOOTING TO STOP.

Yes, they were getting "hundreds" of phone calls from inside the school. Care to guess what those callers were asking? Help? Get us out? We've got people bleeding to death? Sorry, I'll have put you through to my supervisor/site commander.

There were SOME cops who were ready, in 5 minutes notice. They stood at the doorways, ready to enter, and were told not to. "It's just not safe, yet."

Using the argument that a (possible) "running gun battle" would have been bad, as opposed to the cold-blooded executions that were definitely taking place seems a little out of touch. Putting murders on the DEFENSIVE is what it's about. Then there's less time and opportunity for them to continue their killing spree. Waiting and hoping that you won't incur liabilities along the way isn't.

It's not cop-hating to look at heavily armed police officers standing around, doing nothing, and wontering why.(hint: heavy isn't crappy tedc-9s and shotguns. HEAVY is select-fire 9mm MP5s and LE carbines. Heavy is body armor with ceramic and steel plates, not black dusters and ski masks.) Cop-hating isn't wanting the officers who have been trained, armed and PAID with taxpayer funds to actually perform the missions they trained for. And it's certainly not wanting an answer to all of the above.

There is the possibility that they could never have organized quickly enough for them to enter the building while K&H were still alive and shooting, even if they wanted to. That's a training and response issue that I can take in good faith. But how do you explain the HOURS that followed?

[Houmatt]

I had no idea. Praise God their life was spared.

[SJSAMPLE]

Sorry. I forgot to mention pipe bombs. The very same pipe bombs that I (stupidly) played with as a kid. Sorry. NOBODY died from the pipe bombs. Pipe bombs are slow, clumsy, sloppy, and relatively ineffective. The Unibomber showed that they only work when you hold them in your hands. They were a stupid, Hollywood fantasy of K&H that, amazing, fooled both you and the SWAT team. Maybe we should take away Columbine SWAT's MP5s and M4 carbines and give them pipe bombs?

[theFIRMbss]

>Those armored men with their automatic weapons stood by while children were killed and a teacher bled to death.
>"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."

In this case, facts speak
for themselves. The cops in charge
are scum. But I bet

many of the cops
who didn't go in the school
are more furious

with their commanders
than we are. And they will live
with their inaction

as long as they live.
(But we have to remember
that some of those kids

in the shooters' gang --
the "trench coat mafia" -- were
kids of FBI

parents. Local cops
-- or local cop leaders -- might
have been limited

in the way they moved
against earlier complaints.
The situation

was and is one big
nightmare. I don't see "justice"
ever happening...)

[zeugma]

Well, there ya go. I didn't know some of the kids involved were the children of feds. That kinda makes the whole situation make a =lot= more sense now.