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Tag: Columbine Shooting

  • Sue Kelbold, Mother of Columbine Killer Dylan Klebold, Speaks Out For the First Time

    Sue Kelbold, Mother of Columbine Killer Dylan Klebold, Speaks Out For the First Time

    Sue Klebold, the mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold, spoke out about the 1999 killing that left 13 dead for the first time Friday in an interview with Diane Sawyer for the ABC show 20/20.

    Klebold told Sawyer that following the tragic shooting that left the community of Littleton, Colorado, and the country reeling, she couldn’t stop thinking about the victims and their families.

    “I just remember sitting there and reading about them, all these kids and the teacher,” Klebold said.

    “And I keep thinking– constantly thought how I would feel if it were the other way around and one of their children had shot mine,” she continued. “I would feel exactly the way they did. I know I would. I know I would.”

    Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris opened fire on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School, killing 12 students and one teacher. Another 24 were wounded before the killers took their own lives.

    “There is never a day that goes by where I don’t think of the people that Dylan harmed,” she said.

    “You used the word ‘harmed,’” Sawyer noted.

    “I think it’s easier for me to say harmed than killed, and it’s still hard for me after all this time,” Klebold added. “It is very hard to live with the fact that someone you loved and raised has brutally killed people in such a horrific way.”

    Klebold told Sawyer the tragedy changed her own perspectives about why she didn’t notice anything amiss in her son.

    “I think we like to believe that our love and our understanding is protective, and that ‘if anything were wrong with my kids, I would know,’ but I didn’t know,” she said. “And– it’s very hard to live with that.”

    “I felt that I was a good mom… That he would, he could talk to me about anything,” Klebold added. “Part of the shock of this was that learning that what I believed and how I lived and how I parented was– an invention in my own mind. That it, it was a completely different world that he was living in.”

    According to CNN, Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was paralyzed after being shot in the massacre wrote a Facebook post directed to the mother, saying “I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.”

    The interview, her first, coincides with the Feb. 15 release of Klebold’s new memoir, “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy.”

    The profits of Sue Klebold’s book will go towards research and charitable foundations focusing on mental health issues.

  • Katy Perry Speaks Out About Recent Mass Shootings

    The shooting that took place inside of a suburban Maryland mall yesterday is part of a growing number of similar incidents that have been happening all over the United States, and they all seem to follow a similar pattern: The shooter has been relatively young–usually a teenager–they took place in either a mall or a school, and police have a hard time determining what the actual motive is.

    Back in 1999 when the tragic events unfolded at Columbine High School, and 13 people where shot and killed, it was huge news and most people couldn’t believe this kind of shooting could happen in an area not usually associated with crime.

    Today, things are different, as a new story of a mass shooting seems to be popping up on the news weekly, almost to the point where many of us have become extremely desensitized to the acts.

    And one celebrity who’s noticing that, and choosing to speak out about it is Katy Perry, as the pop star took to her Twitter page yesterday and asked her followers this question: “Is anyone else really sad about the constant stream of shootings and how normal it’s becoming to see these headlines on a weekly basis?” she wrote. “Scared to go to the mall? Scared to go to the movies? Me too. When will there be actual change? How many more?”

    Perry also tweeted a kind word to the victims, as well as their loved ones, and said the shootings are a true embarrassment for her. Although she didn’t specify exactly what she was embarrassed about, it’s pretty easy to gather she was talking about the U.S. and its politics surrounding gun control. “You and I both know this is getting embarrassing,” she tweeted. “My heart goes out to all the victims and their families this week. I pray for change.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons