When Kids Kill Other Kids: A Sixteen-Year-Old Writes After Columbine

For the past three years, I have attended a small private school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school has a very liberal attitude as far as dress, school conduct, and curriculum are concerned. The other students tend to be, as I am, misfits in the world of public school. It was a welcome environment. It was a necessary environment as well. If I had not left my former public school, I might have caused one of the first of a recent rash of high school shootings.

When I first heard about the massacre in Littleton, Colorado, on 20 April, I was neither surprised nor shocked. Over the past two years, these tragedies have become commonplace. As the day of the shootings went on, more information about the Trenchcoat Mafia came to light. They were kids who were outsiders at Columbine High School. Not just outsiders but misfits who were teased by the more “acceptable” majority of the students: the football players, the future military recruits, the religious children who had a perfectly normal life in which they were not only accepted but embraced. The more I hear about how Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris listened to “goth” music and how they often cited lyrics from the industrial band, KMFDM, the more disgusted I became at how our country reacts to this sort of thing. It was not the music that caused this or the lack of metal detectors at the school. And even though the Nazism that these kids were reportedly involved in more than likely played a part, the real problem lies deeper.

I think the root of Eric and Dylan’s rage lay in how their peers reacted to them—the mocking and the teasing that they endured. Thirteen deaths weren’t caused because someone made fun of them once but because they were psychologically tortured by other students every day. When you are forced to live in a society that rejects you in all forms, all the time, and never lets you forget that you are different, in your mind the only solution to these problems is to rid these people of their lives. You have an immeasurable amount of rage inside of you that, no matter what you do, cannot be suppressed.

Dylan and Eric were friends only with others who were in the same situation. I, on the other hand, in my former school, eventually had no friends at all. I was the only one there who held my views. I had books and other objects thrown at me while walking down the hall and was constantly insulted because of my appearance and outspoken views, not only by students but also by some faculty. “Satanist! Faggot! FREAK!!” I went through this every day for two and a half years. There was no one in the school to go to for help or guidance. During my freshman year, I begged my father daily not to make me go to school, but to no avail. I began experiencing violent stomach pains, often going home from school early. I used this to my advantage, faking sickness at least twice a week in order to go home.

I began having violent fantasies about walking through the halls with a duffel bag full of guns, shooting whomever I saw as well as throwing grenades into classrooms. I have never been a violent person and doubt that I ever will be. I have been involved in only one fight, in which one punch was thrown, by the other person, of course. He was a kid much bigger than me, who had been taunting me for months, walking straight up to me in the hall and yelling things at me. I got sick of it and one day told him that he was nothing but a stupid redneck, and that if he wanted to hit me, he should just do it. That resulted in two scars on my face. He was suspended, but when he returned to school, the taunting got worse. I could find no solace. I felt that the entire world was against me, that I was the iconoclast to everything. When my feeling that violence was the only way out became all I thought about, I got scared.

The final straw of my last few days in public school was when I saw a much bigger kid brutally punch a much smaller kid for no reason other than to make his presence known. I was the only one willing to tell the principal and police who had done it. I was assured that no one would find out I’d ratted. Wrong. The next day, people I’d never met before came up to me asking why I’d ratted him out. I was hit in the head with a book in the hall. I complained to my guidance counselor, who told me to continue with my day. I then found a note in my locker with “Die fag” written on it. This was it. I told my counselor that if he didn’t excuse me to leave, I would leave anyway. I didn’t return to school for weeks, and when I did, it was only for three days before transferring. I am sorry to say that by that point, the only thing that prevented me from going on a shooting spree through the school was the lack of resources. I simply couldn’t get any guns. Otherwise, I can guarantee I would have carried it out.

I am sure that Dylan and Eric went through almost the same thing as I did. This has not been brought to the attention of the media in an adequate fashion. I don’t hear the television reporters and magazines saying “They shouldn’t have been teased” or “We should have cared for their needs.” This doesn’t happen in public schools. The purpose of public schools is to teach you what they think you need to know and get you out. If you don’t comply, they see this as a threat instead of a cry for help. Too often, the misfits in high schools are ignored or passed off as meaningless problems. The faculty doesn’t care about the welfare of a teen who wears all black and isn’t one of the popular, cooperative kids. That is where the problem lies: in the ignorance of the schools themselves. Schools shouldn’t wait until there is a violent act, extreme or not, to see warning signs. I have read short biographies of the students who were killed in Littleton and was amazed to see that they were exactly the kind of kids who put me through hell. Football players. Adamant Christians. Patriots. The normal kids. The ones who belong. All we ever read in a newspaper or magazine or watch on the news is how horrible it is that “these wonderful kids have been taken from us.” It is horrible, but never once will you ever read “Why were Klebold and Harris treated like that? Why did everyone make fun of them? Why couldn’t people accept them for who they were?”

This is why these shootings happen and will continue to happen. The one thing the media, the schools, and the government continue to overlook time after time: ignorance of the severe cruelty that such “good kids” are capable of. Too many children today are prone to violence or cruelty, and not enough people are aware of it. For such things to stop occurring, the parents, teachers, and children of this country must realize that if you constantly barrage and torment someone who is different from you, you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.

Although resentment still lies within me (and probably always will), I know that violence will cause nothing but more blame put on those of us who are antisocial. People aren’t antisocial because they want to be. People are antisocial because of how society made them be. No one should be shocked when these shootings happen. We should expect it. I don’t like the fact that this is true, but there is no other reality now. Never should someone say, “Why did this happen?  How could this have happened?” You can take the most peaceful, fun-loving kid, put him or her in a setting of being hated and tormented, and see how he or she turns out. It isn’t the security systems of schools that need to change but the environment. Acceptance of one another is the only way to avoid another Columbine.