LITTLETON, Colo.-
If they can find the money, Columbine victims will appeal a federal judge’s decision barring the release of information about teen killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold that they say could prevent future school shootings.
“If we can find a way to finance it, we are going to appeal,” Brian Rohrbough said Friday, the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. His son, Daniel, 15, was one of 13 people killed by the teen gunmen.
Rohrbough, Rich Petrone—Daniel Rohrbough’s stepfather—and Randy Brown, whose family warned the sheriff’s office about death threats against their son by Eric Harris more than a year before the massacre, held a news conference timed to coincide with the start of the Columbine assault at 11:20 a.m. on April 20, 1999.
They urged the Jefferson County sheriff’s office to release the so-called “basement tapes,” videos the killers made in which they talk about their plan, and for the school to release its own internal investigation.
U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock has sealed depositions given by the killers’ parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, and Tom and Sue Klebold, for 20 years.
Babcock ruled that although there is a legitimate public interest in the records, that interest is outweighed by other issues, including the possibility of copycat attacks. The depositions were given in a civil lawsuit by five Columbine families against the Harrises and Klebolds.
“I am absolutely convinced that the information here would have prevented other school shootings, most likely the most recent one,” Rohrbough said, adding he was encouraged by the apparent decision of Virginia authorities to make public information about their investigation of Monday’s Virginia Tech slayings.
Although the media have been criticized for showing the videotape made by Seung-Hui Cho, Rohrbough took a different tact. He said he would not have shown the tapes before the 32 victims had been buried, “but at some point it needed to be shown.
“This hurt those families, no doubt about it. The people got to see the murderer for being a murderer,” Rohrbough said. “Here, we saw people worship these two murderers and release everything they could.”
“When I saw that guy on TV he looked just like those two morons that did Columbine, those two, evil, little. … He could be their freaking brother,” Petrone said, breaking into tears.
Walking a thin line to avoid breaking a court protective order, Rohrbough gave a hint of what is in the depositions at one point when he said the official version of contacts between the killers’ families and sheriff’s deputies may not be complete.
Brown, whose son, Brooks, was threatened by Harris, said, “There is information in these files that will make you cry, that will make you angry and will make you sick to your stomach.”
The lawyer representing the Harrises did not return a call seeking comment. Franklin Patterson, who represents the Klebolds, said they would have no comment.
Sheriff Ted Mink’s office referred callers to his previous statements, in which he said release of the tapes could “be a strong motivating influence” in causing copycat attacks.
William Kowalski, the lawyer representing the Jefferson County School District, said everything gleaned from teachers about the case has been made public.
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