Columbine High School massacre

The Columbine High School massacre occurred on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, United States, when two teenage students, Eric Harris[?] (born April 9, 1981) and Dylan Klebold[?] (born September 9, 1981), planned and executed a shooting rampage, killing 12 other students and a teacher, before committing suicide. It is sometimes argued that one of the shooters killed the other, and then himself.

In the aftermath of the shooting, there was a great deal of debate about what provoked the killers and whether anything could have been done to prevent the crime.

One of the most inspirational individual stories of the massacre is that of Cassie Bernall[?], a junior at Columbine. She was murdered by the gunmen in the school's library. Reportedly, she was asked by one of the assailants if she believed in God, and her simple response was "yes." She has since been exalted as a martyr by many. Her tale is retold by her mother, Misty Bernall, in the the book She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall[?]. Accordind to Mrs. Bernall, her hope for the book is "that [Cassie's] 'yes' inspires others to take their faith more seriously."

The massacre was one of the subjects of the film Bowling for Columbine, a documentary about violence in the US.

See school massacres.

External Links

• Category at ODP (http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Violence_and_Abuse/School/Incidents/Columbine_High_School/)