By April Washington
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Greg Zanis arrived at a hillside behind Columbine High School at dawn Sunday.

Just five days after he had put up 15 crosses to honor the Columbine dead, Zanis took down the remaining 13 crosses from the hillside at Clement Park.

Two were already gone, removed by a man whose son was killed in the April 20 shootings.

"(Zanis) drove up the hill where the crosses sat, took them all down and placed them in his blue pickup," said Mike Gentelmen, a park employee. "He wasn't happy. I guess he got a lot of flack."

Zanis, an Illinois carpenter, was traveling Sunday and couldn't be reached for comment.

Family members said Zanis removed the crosses to avoid further controversy, despite the urging of friends and family to leave the crosses in place.

"We drove 16 hours straight to put them up because someone asked us to," said his son, Chris Zanis, who helped his father erect the crosses. "The whole thing has caused problems, and he'd rather take them all down."

But Zanis' latest actions further fueled the controversy.

Brian Rohrbough, the father of slain student Daniel Rohrbough, accused Zanis of "adding insult to injury." On Friday, he destroyed the crosses erected for gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

"He should have left the 13 other crosses standing," Rohrbough said. "Instead of doing the right thing to honor the victims of those two murders, he comes back and tears down whole thing."

Rohrbough said he was outraged when Zanis erected a Christian symbol to honor the gunmen, who killed 13 and injured 21 before killing themselves.

"I question his motives. His agenda was to create problems," Rohrbough said. "To have their crosses mixed in with their victims' is completely evil."

Chris Zanis, 15, said his father's intentions were pure.

"It's his way of making us take a look at the violence happening," said Chris Zanis, whose father travels throughout the country erecting crosses for victims of violence.

Hundreds of people snaked around the park Sunday waiting to view the muddy hill where the 15 crosses once stood.

Some said the gunmen's crosses should have been placed on a spot away from those for their 13 victims.

"If they want to put crosses up for them because they were just two disturbed kids, that's fine," said Karen Albright, a 38-year-old Columbine alumna. "They were the ones who killed those people we came to mourn."

Rina Poitras of Alberta disagreed. She had hoped to place flowers on all the crosses.

"They should have left them all up, even the two boys who did the killing," said Poitras, 56. "They are victims, in many ways, of our violent society."

One bright spot lifted the cloud that dampened the day for many.

An unidentified man erected a large, wooden cross Sunday afternoon on a hill facing the mountains, near the spot where the 15 crosses stood.

"People don't realize what the cross means to the Christians who came to the park to remember and mourn," said Chris Odom, a 32-year-old Denver carpenter as he rubbed the new cross. "It's a symbol of forgiveness and healing."