The eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy was marked Friday with sadness and anger that school violence continues.
A trickle of people visited crosses for the 13 Columbine victims in Clement Park adjacent to the school, which followed its usual practice of not holding classes on the anniversary.
“A time to remember, a time to hope” was again the message posted outside the south Jefferson County school.
Gov. Bill Ritter participated in services Friday morning at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver for the 32 students and faculty members gunned down Monday at Virginia Tech.
Since Columbine, Ritter said, Colorado has become “a place of healing; it’s a place of unity, a place of hope, because we got there together.”
Three longtime critics renewed their call for Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink and federal Judge Lewis Babcock to release all documents and videotapes related to the Columbine killers.
“I’m convinced (the Columbine files and tapes) would have prevented more school shootings,” said Brian Rohrbough, whose son Danny was killed at Columbine.
Noting the Virginia Tech massacre, Rohrbough asked, “How many people have to die? Will the next one be 60, or 600?”
“I feel like a failure,” said Rich Petrone, Danny Rohrbough’s stepfather. “We fight so hard. We tried everything we can to get this stuff out, and it happened again.”
Earlier this month, Babcock put a 20-year seal on testimony by the parents of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
Babcock said he was concerned the information, which covers the killers’ home lives, could create copycats.
A year ago, Mink expressed the same concern as he released nearly 1,000 pages of documents but withheld the so-called “basement tapes” and an audiotape recorded by the killers.
“The tapes are very, very disturbing,” Mink said at the time. On Friday, Mink said he remains “steadfast” in his decision.
Randy Brown, whose son Brooks was once friends with the killers and later had run-ins with them, said the tapes would help “find out why these boys want to kill. We need to understand them.”
