Clinton, relatives among 40 hours of recently released calls

By Jeff Kass
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

As the Columbine shooting unfolded, people were literally willing to give their blood and asked the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office where they could make a donation.

President Clinton called and spoke for a few minutes with county Commissioner Patricia Holloway about how the community was handling the crisis.

"I just called to tell you I was thinking about you," Clinton said as he began the conversation. He talked about a previous visit to the Littleton area.

At the end of the night, Sheriff John Stone had some biting words for the two perpetrators.

"Little Nazi a———-," he said.

One woman called with some advice for the cops: Use bows and arrows against shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold because the arrows might pierce any armor they are wearing.

These and the other unguarded comments of people worldwide were recorded as they called the Jefferson County sheriff's 911 and nonemergency lines during the April 20, 1999, shooting.

The approximately 40 hours of recently released tapes provide a view of what key players and common citizens were thinking and saying as the crisis unfolded.

Several calls came from friends and relatives of Columbine teacher Dave Sanders, who would die at the school in the arms of SWAT team members.

Before SWAT arrived, students labored to keep the popular teacher alive and were in constant contact with police operators.

"He's still breathing; he's conscious," dispatchers are told by a third party relaying the information through a conference call with students.

"The wound is right out of his mouth, so they cannot put direct pressure there."

The callers add, "one pellet in the shoulder, one in the chest."

"He's doing a wonderful job," the dispatcher replies. "Do you have a blanket that can keep him warm, some coats?"

"He's already warm," they say.

"That's the beginning of shock," the dispatcher says.

The Sanders family would not learn of those heroic efforts until later. They were trying to find Sanders and made approximately a dozen calls to dispatchers throughout the crisis in the mistaken belief he had been taken to a hospital.

"This is Linda Sanders. I need to know where my husband is," begins one call late in the crisis.

"Who is your husband?" the dispatcher asks.

Linda sighs. "He was shot at Columbine High School! I know he was shot twice. Nobody knows where they took him. Please, help me find him!"

In her conversation with Clinton, Holloway tries to find a hopeful future in the tragedy.

"Well, the whole country's watching it with you," Clinton says. "I'm so sorry you're going through it. If there's anything we can do to help, we will."

Holloway responds: "Well, actually, hopefully, even though this is a terrible tragedy, maybe we can turn this into the very last that we have."

Clinton cites a handbook by the Justice and Education departments in the wake of school shootings, but adds, "(Columbine) may shake everybody so much that maybe it will be the last that we have."

Later, Stone weighs in on the conversation.

"You talked to Slick Willie? He called you up?" Stone says to Holloway.

"But John, he was really nice," she says. "I don't think anybody's taking this lightly."

A friend of the shooters, Chris Morris, also calls to tell police what he knows. But it might be too late.

"I've heard them talk about it once before," he says of gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. "I know them; I thought they were my friends."

Morris recounts the guns he believes the shooters are carrying, and concludes, "I thought they were kidding around."

Other information came from Blackjack Pizza, where the two gunmen worked.

"I'm not sure if you'll classify it as an emergency," says Chris Lau, the Blackjack owner, of his call.

After trying to explain how his call fits into the shooting, he spits it out: "Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were both employees of mine. Another employee said he knew the person who sold the guns to Dylan and Eric."

Later, it would turn out that employee Philip Duran did introduce the teen gunmen to Mark Manes, who in turn bought one of the guns for the shooters.

Many of the calls come from the media, desperately seeking information on a story that instantly riveted the world. Reporters, sweating on deadline, snag a sound bite from a dispatcher or are connected to a spokesperson. Others have to wait for a call back.

Some reporters seem to step over the line.

"Do you have an emergency?" a dispatcher asks.

"Yes," the caller responds. "I need the PIO (public information officer) please. This is Fox News; we're on (the) air."

At one point, officers joke about getting away from it all.

"Is it too late to plan a trip to Vegas?" one caller, apparently an officer, says as he calls in.

"No, I'm ready, right now," the dispatcher replies.

Many of the calls are simply odd.

"I hope that you take these little creeps out," says one woman. "I also wonder, if these kids, since they don't play ball, etc., are these kids homosexual?"

"That we don't know yet," the dispatcher says.

One caller apparently has a wounded student at home.

"I have a son at home ... who has been shot with a shotgun," says the caller. "I cleaned him up and showered him off."

The dispatcher replies: "You need to take him to the hospital."

Dale Todd, whose son Evan was shot and injured at Columbine, tells dispatchers about the suspects and crime scene. And he has another issue.

"If you have time," he says, "I'd like to file attempted-murder charges."

Stone briefly appears on the tapes. At one point, it is to get the keys to his car.

"The sheriff needs an extra key," the dispatcher says to another official, then spells it out slowly, as if she is embarrassed. "He ... needs ... a ... key ... to ... get ... into ... his ... car."

"Ha, ha," is the response, followed by a faint "This isn't the first time this has happened."

"I got that impression," the dispatcher says.

But at the end of the day, Stone sums it up: "Well, I've got to get some sleep."