http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/columbine.report/index.html  

Columbine report faults police

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) -- A commission appointed by Colorado's governor to review the deadly shooting at Columbine High School concluded Thursday that it could have been avoided and also faulted the initial police response to the incident.

The report comes two years after the nation's bloodiest school shooting.

William Erickson, chairman of the Columbine Review Commission, criticized law enforcement officers for not heeding complaints about gunman Eric Harris. If they had, he said, the bloodshed could have been averted.

In addition, Erickson was critical of how law enforcement officers handled the April 20, 1999, shooting while it was in progress. Instead of going into the school and searching for Harris and Dylan Klebold, they set up a perimeter and waited "for the assault to end." Fifteen people died in the rampage, including the teenage gunmen, who committed suicide.

 DOCUMENT
Columbine Review Commission Report, May 2001 (from Colorado State Government)

"The procedures that have been developed now are that when you have a shooting of this type, your duty for law enforcement is to locate, contain and confine the shooters. That was not done in this instance," said Erickson, the former chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court.

Clues ignored
The report's recommendations, Erickson said, are designed to ensure "this won't happen again" and include encouraging kids to tell authorities about any threats.

"For nearly a year, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold worked on a conspiratorial plan to kill as many people as possible at Columbine High School," Erickson noted.

There were clues, Erickson said, that authorities ignored, including a Web site set up by Harris that contained threats to kill a fellow classmate, Brooks Brown. In addition, Harris and Klebold amassed an arsenal of weapons and bombs in the months ahead of their assault that killed 12 fellow students and one teacher.

The Columbine Review Commission, appointed last year, held 15 public hearings, reviewed 13,000 pages of documents and interviewed more than 140 witnesses to the shooting.

One of those who did not appear before the commission was Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone, who was in charge of the law enforcement response at Columbine. He told the commission that because of pending lawsuits by Columbine victims and families, he could not speak freely to the commission.

Other commission recommendations:
-- Statewide hot line for students to report threats.

-- Emergency crisis plan for each school.

-- Annual crisis drills to rehearse emergency plans at schools.

-- More police SWAT team members with emergency medical training.

Gov. Bill Owens said there is no specific timetable for these recommendations to be implemented.
 

Crying gull dern shame.
The coppers there seem to have been following orders. I wonder if the man calling the shots will be put up for public flogging.
Take that scene and compare it to the LAPD SWAT guys in shorts taking on the No. Hollywood bank robbers with F/A weapons and mucho ammo.

Police had dozens of well trained well armed officers just standing around afraid to enter the buildings.  Fear of the unknown, and afraid of getting hurt.

Worst case senero is to face well trained well armed mid-east (or german) terrorists with guns and real bombs that work.

They faced two dumb@ss kids with some guns, no training, and homemade bombs that were wired wrong.

Police F*cked up big time.

If that were the case then they should disarm the cops and arm the citizens. Give the cops brooms to clean up the mess afterwards.
LAPD`s motto is "To Protect and Serve"
They should change it to "To prosecute and swerve"

ALL of the lawsuits will be thrown out, just like the ones that were filed against the lapd for their (lack of) actions during the 93 riots.

This report is full of crap and I can prove it to you:

Within 48 hours of the shooting, Janet Reno came out and highly praised the Columbine law enforcement for their "brave and selfless" acts (or words like that).

OK, seriously, let's see how much this report gets from the press.  Anybody want to take bets that it doesn't show up as a major story on any news show (Fox News excepted) or the front page of any major newspaper and certianly not the Klinton News Network.  Unlike all the "calls" for gun control.

Merlin

Gee I love it how lawyers and other people who had never had to deal with a situation like this say "it should of been done like this". I easy to say what should of been done after the fact.

Six

Yet another argument why we don't need guns and that the police will protect us against any violent crime.