IAMA Columbine High School Student, a Columbine Survivor’s Child, and am part of the first generation of kids of survivors to go to Columbine. AMA

Is there a sense of dread that surrounds the area or can everything be compared to the normal high school experience?

I've often wondered how things felt in the years following a catastrophic event and there is hardly one as infamous as that.

Everything is normal except for the expected bomb threats every year. we also take 4/20 off school every year and these past two years it has turned into a “Day of Service” where all the students help clean the community and such. We all remember, we all know our schools history, but it’s barely thought about until around April.

Thank you for such a well thought out response, you settled a question I've had for years.

glad I can help :)

Having been in in the Littleton area your whole life, I'm curious as to what age you first remember learning about the shooting and grasping on to what happened? You mentioned that the schools that feed into the high school prepared you - how did they present it? I would think that would be a rough subject to educate kids on.

probably ever since i was born. people will every now and then ask my mom to tell her story so i’ve known it my whole life. our schools just did the usual lock down drill and some teachers when we were older would talk to us about that day and what the community has learned and such. Those of us who have grown up in the columbine area know the history well and how to protect our lives.

Thanks for your reply. I can't imagine something like that being present and (normal...does it feel "normal?") for so long. It's really so sad that that's the case. My thoughts are with your community today.

yes it feels very normal every single day that there is not a bomb threat or some stupid shit happening.

Do other kids make jokes about the event?

yeah that’s inevitable. the tiny ones get ignored but teachers will come down on you hard if you make an offensive one. especially the teachers who were there protecting themselves and their students.

Can you give an example of what happens when someone crosses the line? What do teachers do, and how do the students themselves react?

Like if someone says something obviously morbid, like “The shooters didn’t get enough people” would be on the smaller side and “I wish I couldn’t helped the shooters” would be like what the flip. idk i can’t make them off the top of my head i’m not that messed up 😂 teachers would just sternly chastise them or if it’s serious enough they’d go to the office

Are there any rumored to be haunted parts of the school?

There’s ghost stories the teachers will tell here and there but the school is pretty much the opposite of haunted when you’re in it. It’s probably haunted in my opinion, but so much activity goes on that any paranormal happenings are usually just the football team up to their shenanigans again.

It’s probably haunted in my opinion

It's not. I promise.

don’t make promises you cannot keep. just because you don’t believe in ghosts doesn’t mean there might actually be

There’s ghost stories the teachers will tell here

Well that sounds extremely distasteful for staff to do if it's ghost stories about the victims of the shooting.

how is it distasteful if all they’re telling their students about was how the lights flickered one time or the room was not how they left it. it’s not the stories of their deaths it’s the stories of “paranormal” activities they experienced at this school.

Does your school and or staff pay more attention to bullying now? Is the student body any more inclusive than it used to be?

I didnt go to a normal high school so our bullying incidents were few and far between with our graduating class being only 150, but I wonder if Columbine is trying harder to stop kids from becoming outliers in the beginning

bullying isn’t really a problem at columbine because even the weird looking and acting kids can be popular there. it’s just who you decide to befriend and how likeable you are. most bullying is just personal fights that escalate too far. Trust me there are some weird kids at columbine (like there are at every school) but they are left alone. Everyone understands that they are human and bullying just looks bad on your part. bullying someone is a good way to be looked down on.

Did your mom know anyone who knew Dylan or Eric?

she knew them. not personally but she was told by a teacher to help them edit a video in a video class and it was the “Hitmen for Hire” video they made and when she told the teacher he did nothing. They made that the semester before the shooting, so when the shooting did happen, that teacher was never to be seen again.

What should he do anyway? It was school project, I think they get good grade for it. It's easy to judge him post factum but at this point of time assuming they gonna did school shooting because they make this video would be huge stretch.

i forgot to add: she clearly remembers they weren’t allowed to have gore or guns or anything

What’s the community’s overall opinion of Sue Klebold?

i can’t speak for the community: but i do know that everyone thinks she is NOT responsible for her son’s actions at all. i also think she seems like a nice nice lady

Hey unlimitedHolo,

I grew up in Durango and while that is pretty far from Columbine we are CO kids. I remember seeing the news on a lunch break at college about the shooting and it felt very personal to me. it still does. not to be indelicate but is your mom doing okay? I felt this hard as a fellow Colorado native, I cannot imagine being a survivor. I have a great deal of sympathy for the friends and family of those lost but a great deal more for those who survived. survivor guilt is nasty. does she talk about it? is she okay? (I guess your existence probably means they didn't ruin her life but ugh, I imagine every school shooting since is like lemon juice on a paper cut, just when you thought you were getting clear of it).

sorry to be wordy. this is one of those events that troubles me still...

don’t apologize for anything you just said i understand completely. :)

she is very open about it and it still makes her anxious today. like while sol pais was terrorizing littleton she was on a work trip and since their headquarters are like google fancy she got to hang out with a service dog. so yeah it still effects her but she has found healthy ways to process and deal with everything.

Did you mom give you any special instructions about how to get out of the school in the event of a repeat?

Nope. Every situation is different and the schools I went to (All that flood to Columbine, and were effected by Columbine) did a pretty good job at telling us to hide and pretend no one is here. They also made a video this year on what to do with a bunch of what if situations.

Getting out of a school in an emergency requires creativity, depending on where you are. The unpredictability of a school shooter makes it so there is no “textbook” way of getting out of any given room with x amount of obstacles.

"hide and pretend no one is here" - what do you mean by this?

that is our lockdown drill. we turn off the lights lock the doors get down low and hide.

I'm guessing the barcode is just your student ID, but I'd recommended maybe covering it up if it's anything more important. My phone's barcode reader can pick it up and read it.

What are your plans for the future?

the barcode is just for in school things like checking out library books and... that’s literally it. when we need ids to get into school events for stuff they don’t scan anything it’s just looking at it.

Thank you for asking about my plans that’s very kind :) I am going to the university of Northern Colorado to become a teacher. After that I’m not sure 🤔

Teaching sounds good! Good luck!

thank you!!

Have you heard any other details about Sol Pais's mental health or if she did indeed make threats against schools?

I did see in a news report that her parents thought she may have had mental health issues. Other than that I can only assume what everyone else does- that she was probably crazy.

My boyfriend, however, had seen her in person and talked to her on monday outside of his work, as she was in a rental car with some dude (clearly collaborating and arguing with her) and begging for money on the corner of the intersection right there. My boyfriend tried to antagonize her for begging when she clearly didn’t need to. She kept walking and none of them thought anything of it until the FBI called them saying she was there and all the news stories broke out.

And for the last part: We all know that someone actually planning to shoot up a school would probably be smart enough to NOT tell the police what they’re planning on doing and where, so everyone here is speculating that if she did call in a threat, she was at fault for getting herself manhunted. My boyfriend and I believe that the guy she was with shot her for being too much a liability. If she didn’t call in the threats though? The most probably is her parents realized what she was up to when she went missing and called the police, saying she may be up to no good. But I do know that she was collaborating with someone(s). The FBI are definitely hiding something about this whole fiasco, probably because it’s a lot bigger, enough to scare the community.

Did your boyfriend submit any of his observations to authorities? They haven’t acknowledged that she wasn’t alone even tho there are a few signals that she knew people around here & stuff

yes when the fbi called they told them everything. They know and if they don’t know they’re lying.

Did she seem erratic or mentally unstable when your boyfriend spoke to her? I'm just curious because a lot of emphasis seems to be placed on the fact she was in the middle of a psychosis (running naked in the woods etc). Whereas this would cast serious doubt on that theory.

she didn’t reply at all to my boyfriend she just kept her head low and walked past. If she was found naked, my boyfriend and I, being obviously qualified through watching bunches of crime tv shows, believe the guy he saw her with and arguing could have very well been arguing because she was dumb enough to call in a threat to get her manhunted, which leads to why her being naked is important. He killed her for being dumb enough to become a liability and didn’t want to be seen with her. Now she’s dead and everyone thinks she as alone and that now the threat is gone. Boy the threat ain’t gone cause I did go to school all last week knowing she wasn’t working alone and the FBI is failing to acknowledge that. They’re believing that he was just like an innocent uber driver or something but that’s the perfect cover up to get them to look the other way.

Thanks for your reply. I hadn't thought about it like that but it certainly changes the entire narrative. There is so much off with that whole case. I won't be surprised if nothing else is said on the matter but people need to start asking questions. I can't imagine how unnerving it would be to go to school/get on with your daily life knowing that's happening around you!

oh trust me everyone at columbine is posting about the facts they find that don’t add up and all this other stuff to try and add to the suspicion. by this point we know she wasn’t alone we are just wondering with the FBI won’t acknowledge it. I’ve even talked to Gadi Schwartz, a host of NBC’s Snapchat Story Stay Tuned. He asked a few questions, screenshotted then never replied and i tried calling the local news tip lines.

she was in a rental car with some dude

...

She kept walking

Was she I'm a car, or was she on foot? Your story makes no sense. It's also hearsay.

i see your confusion.... ok so she drove to this like shopping center where my boyfriend worked in this rental car with that dude. she got out, walked in front of my boyfriend’s work to the corner of the street light to beg for money with a sign, then while she was walking back in front of his work he confronted her and she said nothing. from there she sat in the grass by the sidewalk and this dude comes and yells at her while she’s curled into her knees. then they get back in the car and that’s the last hey saw her.

Is your mother active in PTO activities? Does she revisit the campus regularly if at all?

Pto? excuse my ignorance but pto in my mind means part time off 😅 she only goes to columbine for parent things, like graduation meetings, conferences, etc. every year her friends (they were close back then and still are now) go to the memorial and support each other and meet for lunch and chat. that’s their 4/20 plans every year

Parent Teacher Org

oh yeah no she never was in it. she would send me to school with my fundraiser money and support the school but my mom had me when she was 19 in 2001, so she was/is much younger than most other parents. plus all the parents in my schools pto were snobby and close minded and my mom probably wanted nothing to do with them lol.

How many of the teachers that were at the Columbine shooting still teach there? Is there any organized event where survivors retell their stories and answer questions from the student body?

there’s quite a few teachers still there. i even had quite a few of them, who even knew my mom aunt and uncle. those were the teachers i usually got an easy A in...

There was actually a first time ever columbine survivor meet up today like 5 hours ago at clement park that my mom went to that i was going to go to but I decided to sleep in instead. Other than that there are just the class reunions

Specially about your mom. Do the survivors keep in contact? I know a couple have shown up on reddit before. And has she ever communicated with the parents of the boys?

she doesn’t keep in contact really with anyone she wasn’t friends with. but she does keep in contact with this other girl she knew in high school who has a kid in my grade so they sit together at school events and such.

Where was your mom when everything happened? Did she hear/see the events or was she in a safer space?

she was in the foods room which is across the school from the commons/library. they heard the shots thinking it was the guys in weights dropping their weights right down the hall, and then a fire alarm went off and they left like it was a drill, but eventually injured people ran by saying to run and that people were shooting.

Do you know how the physical layout of the school has been changed since the attack?

yes. the library used to be above the commons, but now it’s just open space with painted echo reducers to make it look like your looking up into the sky from the trees while you eat. There was an entirely new library built in the west side of the school. Other than that nothing else changed.

Did your mom ever have second thoughts about sending you there? I’ve read a few suffer from PTSD and I wondered why some didn’t move away.

Also I read a lot about this in high school after we had Rachel’s dad visit our school in Texas to spread her message. And it really shook me to my core that I actually had nightmares about it. I have so much respect for the people like your mother who have come out the other end of something like this, strong.

no she knew how safe it had become and how safe it’s still getting. columbine is probably the safest school you could send your kid to in denver. She stayed with her mom since she was so young and just had me. she went to community college for photography but had to drop out cause of the chemicals they used could hurt her baby as she was pregnant with me at the time. so she just settled for an insurance job that she is absolutely thriving at now. we moved to an apartment and a town home close by but moved back into my grandmas to help my grandma out. we like it here and don’t really see a need to move.

That’s great to hear! I send y’all nothing but love and positive vibes ❤️

thank you 🥰❤️

Do many people go around parts of the school and say things like “this part of it happened here...” or drive by the houses of the people at that time and say things like “this is where they lived...” etc.?

no tourists are allowed on school property. i know people go to the old shooter’s houses. one of them is so close i could drive to it but i have no interest.

Do you or your parents still get harassed by gun nuts the same way Sandy Hook parents and kids do?

no

Does your school now advocate the "run, hide, fight" method?

no because i haven’t heard of that tbh. if the meaning is what it looks like then our school has hide and run flipped in priority. so like hide run fight as last resort.

What do you want to do after you graduate?

i’m going to college to be a teacher :)

Will you be a teacher in Columbine High School

maybe idk yet. I’d definitely like my coworkers :p

Is your mom's name Amanda? I met some kids at a church camp at CSU, they were all from Littleton and went to Columbine. We wrote letters back and forth for a year or two(before email was popular, haha), but we lost track of each other over time. I don't think she was at the school at the time, if I remember, she was at taco bell at the time.

no my moms name is Emily. We aren’t religious at all sorry haha. I don’t think she knows any amanda’s either

I went to chatfield, is there still a big rivalry?

yep

Which one is your parent?

https://imgur.com/BuPDYce

no clue. what year is that? and how did you get that.. now i’m not telling you even if i knew

Lol. I came across it years ago. That's the fall picture of the 1999 Graduating class, the shooters are top left. I've had a fascinating with Columbine for years, the way that it changed America and the signs leading up to the events that were ignored at the time. I don't glorify the shooters in any way, it's just one of those events you can't leave out when you tell the history of the US.

She graduated in 2000. she was a junior at the time of the shooting so she isn’t in that photo nor does she recognize anyone in it.

Do you ever look at your life and wish Harris and Klebold didn't miss your parent?

no i don’t ever wish that. even if i hated myself or my mom, my mom is a wonderful lady who’s life doesn’t deserve to be taken by some shits.