The impact of Columbine is felt not only in terms of school safety and popular culture, but it also raises worries about student rights violations and excessive use of force in law enforcement methods.
[citation needed] On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher and injured 24 others.
[2] The shooting was the most covered news story of 1999, and third most followed by the American public of the entire decade, surpassing the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash and the Kosovo War.
[5] Several social science experts feel the zero-tolerance approach adopted in schools has been implemented too harshly, however, with unintended consequences creating other problems.
[7] Police departments have reassessed their tactics and have since trained for Columbine-like situations after criticism over the slow response and progress of the SWAT teams during the shooting.
The Pacifica CA Police Department has created a tactical playbook that gives planning and equips responders with strategic direction for coordinating responses between agencies when facing mass violence.
There has been widespread adoption of high-strength body armor and patrol rifles by police departments across the United States in response to the increased active shooter threat.
Dave Cullen has stated: "The active protocol has proved successful at numerous shootings...At Virginia Tech alone, it probably saved dozens of lives.
[20] According to psychiatrist Edwin Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth.
"[21] Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold.
[23] In 2015, journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before.
"[22][24] FBI former profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole said on CNN during the 20th anniversary of the massacre in 2019, and during the manhunt of Florida teenager Sol Pais, that she opposed the release of the Basement Tapes because of the call made by Eric Harris to other would-be shooters to "join him in infamy".
[26] Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) is a method of giving mental health services in the community under civil court commitment.
The AOT programs prioritize ensuring people stick with treatments and keeping safety within communities while offering a planned approach to support those with SMI.
A month after the massacre, Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia, had a shooting which Attorney General Janet Reno called a Columbine "copycat".
[28] A friend of Harris and Klebold, Eric Veik, was arrested after threatening to "finish the job" at Columbine High School in October 1999.
[31] In 2001, Charles Andrew Williams, the perpetrator of the Santana High School shooting, reportedly told his friends that he was going to "pull a Columbine," though none of them took him seriously.
He took his grandfather's weapon and his squad car, and drove to his former high school in Red Lake and murdered several students before killing himself.
[33] Convicted students Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik of Pocatello High School in Idaho, who murdered their classmate Cassie Jo Stoddart, mentioned Harris and Klebold in their homemade videos, and were reportedly planning a "Columbine-like" shooting.
[36] In a self-made video recording sent to the news media by Seung-Hui Cho prior to his committing the Virginia Tech shootings, he referred to the Columbine massacre as an apparent motivation.
"[38] In 2011, Tristan van der Vlis shot and killed six people in a shopping mall in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands before taking his own life.
[40][41] The Tumblr fandom gained widespread media attention in February 2015 after three of its members conspired to commit a mass shooting at a Halifax mall on Valentine's Day.
[42] In 2017, two 15-year-old school boys from Northallerton, England, were charged with conspiracy to murder after becoming infatuated with the crime and "hero-worshipping" Harris and Klebold.
[43] Randy Stair, the perpetrator of the Eaton Township Weis Markets shooting had a fascination with the Columbine High School massacre and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
The assailant wore a white t-shirt that read "Natural selection" and pants with black suspenders, which were reported as referring to Eric Harris.
The 2016 biographical film I'm Not Ashamed, based on the journals of Rachel Scott, includes alleged glimpses of Harris's and Klebold's lives and interactions with other students at Columbine High School.
[102] He references this censorship in "Rap God" (The Marshall Mathers LP 2, 2013) and repeats the line, saying it will not be censored this time because he was not as famous as when "I'm Back" was released.