Lawman at school got report that teen was detonating bombs, talking of mass killing

By Charley Able, Ann Imse
and Kevin Vaughan Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers

©1999, Denver Rocky Mountain News

The sheriff's deputy stationed at Columbine High School received a report a year ago that Eric Harris was detonating pipe bombs and wanted to commit mass murder.

The "suspicious incident" police report obtained by the Denver Rocky Mountain News was sent to deputy Neil Gardner, said Jefferson County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Parr.

"It was sent to him, and he was aware of it, and nothing came of it," Parr said. "There was simply nothing else we could do."

The report was based on information that Columbine parent Randy Brown filed with the sheriff's office on March 18, 1998. It included printouts of Harris' Internet warnings that he was ready to kill.

"God, I can't wait until I can kill you people," read one of the postings contained in report. "I'll just go to some downtown area in some big (expletive) city and blow up and shoot everything I can."

Gardner could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The deputy was at Columbine April 20 when Harris and Dylan Klebold attacked the school with bombs and assault weapons. Gardner exchanged fire with one of the gunmen.

The rampage killed 12 Columbine students and one teacher. Harris and Klebold, both seniors at the school, then took their own lives.

Jefferson County schools spokesman Rick Kaufman said he did not know whether Gardner forwarded the report to anyone else at the school. But he added that such information about a student should be given to the school district.

The report is the latest in a string of warnings about Harris and Klebold that apparently were not pursued by school or law enforcement officials.

The two boys made a videotape for their drama class depicting a school massacre. Several friends of Harris said he was boasting as long as two years ago of his desire to blow up Columbine. Harris also used violent themes in a creative-writing class.

In one of the Internet postings mentioned in the suspicious-incident report, Harris said his friend VoDkA helped build and detonate pipe bombs. VoDkA is identified in the sheriff's report as Klebold.

"Eric Harris is the instigator," the report said.

Attached to the report is another complaint by the Browns dated April 11, 1998, that their son had received an anonymous, threatening e-mail.

That report says it was sent to John Hicks in the sheriff's investigations division. Hicks could not be reached for comment Thursday.

It was not clear whether either of the Browns' complaints were investigated.

Sheriff John Stone said Thursday he didn't know whether Gardner received the original report.

One problem is that a "suspicious incident" doesn't get the same kind of attention as murder or rape cases, Stone said.

"Those always take priority," he said.

The investigator assigned to the suspicious incident report was put on a high-profile homicide case about the same time -- the killing of two small children by their mother, Stone said.

The sheriff also said the department gets "tons" of reports on suspicious incidents -- about 60 reports a year on pipe bombs alone.

Asked whether the report fell through the cracks, Stone said, "I can't say that.

"This wasn't on my watch," said Stone, who was elected in November and took office in January, "and I don't want to do anything to be critical of the people here before me."

But the report that Harris and Klebold were building pipe bombs, he said, should have been taken seriously.

"That definitely should have raised a red flag," Stone said.

Randy Brown and his wife, Judy, say they met on March 31, 1998, with a sheriff's investigator who called Harris' violent Internet rantings the worst he'd seen.

The Browns also say the detective checked, during their meeting, to see whether Harris and Klebold had arrest records. They said the detective found that a person named Eric Harris had been arrested for breaking into a car.

The district attorney's office, which already had felony charges pending against Harris and Klebold for a vehicle break-in, says it never was told of the Browns' complaint.

One week after the Browns made their complaint, the district attorney's office decided to allow Harris and Klebold to complete a juvenile diversion program of classes and community service in exchange for expunging their records of the break-in.

Randy and Judy Brown said they became fearful of Eric Harris after he threw a piece of ice at the car windshield of their son, Brooks. They became alarmed after reading Harris' hate-filled Web pages.

On one, Harris wrote, "I don't care if I live or die in the shootout. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you (expletive) as I can." He specifically named Brooks as one of his targets.

The Browns say they called the Sheriff's Department repeatedly last spring to demand an investigation but say they don't believe one was done.

Brooks later made peace with Harris, and Harris warned Brooks away from the school moments before he began shooting.

Denver lawyer Scott Robinson, who reviewed Harris' Web pages, said the reports of building and detonating pipe bombs could have been used as probable cause to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant for Harris' house.

"That would have nipped this thing in the bud," he said.

Mark Miller, the officer who wrote up the Browns' complaint, treated it seriously. Miller noted that Harris wrote three times in the Web pages of "wanting to kill" Brooks Brown and that he "explained about making and detonating pipe bombs and using them against people."

Miller included the Web pages and their Internet address in his report.

The Columbine Community Courier, the weekly newspaper serving the area surrounding the high school, printed a story about the Browns' complaint shortly after it was made -- but didn't name anyone involved.

In its edition of March 25, 1998, the Courier headlined the report, "Classmate making death threats on Internet."

"A man reported that his son goes to school with a boy who has his own Web page," the story said. "Recently, the man told a deputy that boy has made death threats against his son on that Web page.

"The father downloaded and printed 10 pages in which the boy threatened his son three times. The boy also explained how to make pipe bombs and use them against people.

"The father said he was concerned about his son's safety and that he wanted someone to look into the matter. The case has been turned over to investigation."

Casey Ehmsen, Courier editor, said the paper didn't write anything further about the report.

"Normally, we would not do any more investigation or follow-up ... especially if police decide not to follow up or -- in this case -- even investigate," he said.

Judy Brown said she was frustrated when the Sheriff's Department didn't investigate and surprised that she never heard from the school.

She said she didn't bring the matter to the school's attention for fear of triggering Harris' wrath.

"I wanted to keep Brooks out of it," she said. "We were concerned when (the Courier) ran it, afraid that Eric would see it and be mad at Brooks. We were scared for Brooks' life."

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Davis said the department has received more than 1,100 leads in the Columbine case, 930 of which will be pursued and 600 of which already have been assigned to investigators. Between 8,000 and 10,000 pieces of evidence have been collected.

However, nine days after the worst school shooting in U.S. history, the parents of Harris and Klebold have not been formally interviewed.

"We're trying to set that up," said Mark Pautler, chief deputy district attorney in Jefferson County.

Staff writers Sue Lindsay and Lou Kilzer contributed to this report.