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The Columbine High School massacre or simply Columbine was a school shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Columbine High School ) The U.S. Postal Service designates "Littleton" as the default place name for addresses in the school's ZIP code; thus, the massacre was widely reported as having happened in the adjacent City of Littleton. The school actually lies a mile west of the Littleton city limit.〕 an unincorporated area of Jefferson County in the state of Colorado. In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and bombs rigged in cars. The perpetrators, two senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered a total of 12 students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, with three others being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide. Although their motives remain unclear, the personal journals of the perpetrators document that they wished their actions to rival the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as other deadly incidents that occurred in the United States in the 1990s. The attack has been referred to by ''USA Today'' as a "suicidal attack (was ) planned as a grand—if badly implemented—terrorist bombing." The massacre is reported as being "the deadliest high school shooting in US history." The massacre sparked debate over gun control laws, the availability of firearms within the United States and gun violence involving youths. Much discussion also centered on the nature of high school cliques, subcultures and bullying, in addition to the influence of violent movies and video games in American society. The shooting resulted in an increased emphasis on school security with zero tolerance policies, and a moral panic aimed at goth culture, social outcasts, gun culture, the use of pharmaceutical anti-depressants by teenagers, teenage Internet use and violence in video games. ==Preliminary activities and intent== In 1996, Eric Harris created a private website on America Online. Harris initially created the site to host gaming levels of the video game ''Doom,'' which he and his friend, Dylan Klebold, had created, primarily for friends. On this site, Harris began a blog, which included jokes and short journal entries with thoughts on parents, school, and friends. By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to cause mischief, as well as instructions on how to make explosives, and blogs in which he described the trouble he and Klebold were causing. Beginning in early 1997, the blog postings began to show the first signs of Harris's ever-growing anger against society. Harris's site attracted few visitors, and caused no concern until late 1997. Klebold gave the web address to Brooks Brown, a former friend of Harris. Brown's mother had filed numerous complaints with the Jefferson County Sheriff's office concerning Harris, as she thought he was dangerous. The website contained numerous death threats directed against Brown: Klebold knew that if Brooks accessed the address, he would discover the content and inform his parents, and likely the authorities would be notified. After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The investigator Michael Guerra was told about the website.〔 When he accessed it, Guerra discovered numerous violent threats directed against the students and teachers of Columbine High School. Other material included blurbs that Harris had written about his general hatred of society, and his desire to kill those who annoyed him. Harris had noted on his site that he had made pipe bombs. In addition, he mentioned a gun count and compiled a hit list of individuals (he did not post any plan on how he intended to attack targets). As Harris had posted on his website that he possessed explosives, Guerra wrote a draft affidavit, requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. He never filed it.〔 The affidavit was concealed by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and not revealed until September 2001, resulting from an investigation by the TV show ''60 Minutes''. After the revelation about the affidavit, a series of grand jury investigations were begun into the cover-up activities of Jefferson County officials. The investigation revealed that high-ranking county officials had met a few days after the massacre to discuss the release of the affidavit to the public. It was decided that because the affidavit's contents lacked the necessary probable cause to have supported the issuance of a search warrant for the Harris household by a judge, it would be best not to disclose the affidavit's existence at an upcoming press conference, although the actual conversations and points of discussion were never revealed to anyone other than the Grand Jury members. Following the press conference, the original Guerra documents disappeared. In September 1999, a Jefferson County investigator failed to find the documents during a secret search of the county's computer system. A second attempt in late 2000 found copies of the document within the Jefferson County archives. The documents were reconstructed and released to the public in September 2001, but the original documents are still missing. The final grand jury investigation was released in September 2004. On January 30, 1998, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stole tools and other equipment from a van parked near the city of Littleton. Both youths were arrested and subsequently attended a joint court hearing, where they pleaded guilty to the felony theft. The judge sentenced the duo to attend a juvenile diversion program. There both boys attended mandated classes and talked with diversion officers. One of their classes taught anger management. Harris also began attending therapy classes with a psychologist. Klebold had a history of drinking and had failed a dilute urine test, but neither he nor Harris attended any substance abuse classes.〔Jerald Block. ''American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry''. July 2007.〕 Harris and Klebold were eventually released from diversion several weeks early because of positive actions in the program;〔 they were both on probation. Shortly after Harris' and Klebold's court hearing, Harris's online blog disappeared. His website was reverted to its original purpose of posting user-created levels of ''Doom''. Harris began to write in a journal, in which he recorded his thoughts and plans. In April 1998, as part of his diversion program, Harris wrote a letter of apology to the owner of the van. However, around the same time, he furiously derided him in journal, stating that he believed himself to have the right to steal something if he wanted to.〔(Typed transcripts of Eric's journal ), ''acolumbinesite.com''.〕 Harris continued scheduled meetings with his psychologist until a few months before he and Klebold committed the Columbine High School massacre. Harris dedicated a section of his website to posting content regarding his and Klebold's progress in their collection of guns and building of bombs (they subsequently used both in attacking students at their school). After the website was made public, AOL permanently deleted it from its servers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Columbine High School Shooting Details )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Columbine High School massacre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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