School's Main West Entrance example essay topic

Columbine With every generation, there is some sort of tragedy that can alter ones life. Through the events that occurred on April 20, 1999, people have become suspicious of anyone that displays signs of oddness, such as; withdrawal from friends, change in physical appearance, or anyone who is an outcast. On this infamous day in history, two Columbine high school students fatally shot 12 of their peers, one teacher, and wounded 24 others before they took there own lives. It is not clear why they chose this day, but it may be because this was the 110th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday. What happened on this day was a tragedy that affected not only Columbine, but the whole country as well.

At 6: 15 a. m., on Tuesday, April 20th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold arrived at the local bowling alley for their early morning class. The class was Bowling, and they never missed it. Dylan wore a shirt with the label 'Serial Killer' in the front, but the shirt had been seen before and nobody thought anything of it. Neither of them gave any indication of what they were planning to do that day. They acted as they would " ve acted on any regular day at school, except that after class ended, they left the bowling alley, and did not return to Columbine as they were supposed to until 11: 10 a.m.

At 11: 10 a.m. both shooters pulled into parking spaces belonging to other students. They did this to position their cars strategically near any law enforcement that would respond. In their cars were bombs, set to explode a while after they entered the school. The shooters were both armed with sawed-shotguns, 9 mm pistols, TEC-9 Uzis, grenades, breaching charges, pipe bombs, propane tanks, and other flammable gasses. The plan was to detonate two backpacks full of explosives in the middle of "A" lunch.

Their initial plan of attack was not a shooting, but to wait outside the cafeteria for the bombs to explode and then shoot anyone who attempted to escape. The bombs had enough explosive power to take out the entire cafeteria and bring the library above crashing down. Each shooter returned to his car to wait until the bombs exploded so they could proceed with their plan, which was to kill at least 500 students. When the cafeteria bombs failed to explode, Harris and Klebold met up near Harris' car and armed themselves and then proceeded toward the cafeteria. They went to the top of the west entrance steps, the highest point on campus.

From this vantage point, the cafeteria side entrance was at the bottom of the staircase, the school's main West Entrance was to their left, and the athletic fields to their right. At 11: 19 a. m., a witness saw Eric Harris yell 'GO! GO!' At that moment they pulled out their shotguns, aiming them at Rachel Scott and Richard Cast aldo, who were sitting on a grassy knoll to their left (next to the West Entrance of the school) eating lunch. Both were hit and critically injured.

After the initial shots, one of the shooters shot Scott again, killing her. It is unclear which one shot first and which one killed Scott. The media was quick to respond and soon there was uninterrupted news broadcast of the incident around the nation. Everybody was in an uproar. How could this have happened? Weren't there any signs?

These were two reticent, normal kids that just killed 13 people. Everyone was pointing fingers and blaming other people. In truth, no one could have seen this event manifesting. This sort of thing had never happened in this magnitude before. Today, the name "Columbine" Still has an air of death and loss lingering about it, as does the school. Since this event schools have gotten tougher on security.

Some large schools have even seen fit to install metal detectors at their main entrances to sense any possible guns or munitions coming into the building. I do not have to walk through a metal detector to get to my locker. Moreover, the country has not forgotten, but learned from the events on that infamous day in the spring of '99.