‘Learn to ask ... to listen’: Columbine killer’s mom
The mother of one of the teenage killers in the infamous Columbine High School massacre says it took a tragedy for her to have any awareness of mental-health issues.
“I was an infant,” Susan Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, said Tuesday.
“I had no concept of any of this stuff .... My perspective now is very, very different.”
It has been 19 years since that bloody day in Columbine, Colo., which shocked students, parents and teachers across North America.
On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried out a shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of 12 fellow students and one teacher and wounded another 24 people.
The armed rampage ended with the two killers committing suicide.
“At the time, I was not aware that there were signs,” Susan Klebold said at the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts. “This is one of the reasons I speak .... No one put the pieces together.”
Klebold visited Windsor as the featured guest at a Breakfast of Champions event held by the Windsor-Essex County branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Before an audience of hundreds, Klebold described her reaction to the massacre, including months of denial, attempts to reach out to the families of the victims, being hated and blamed by her community, being named in dozens of lawsuits and — eventually — education on mental-health issues. “I think it’s helpful for people to hear a personal story rather than read about these terrible events in the newspaper or see them on TV,” Klebold said.
“As a parent, I did everything I knew how to do to raise somebody who was a morally responsible, caring, loving person. What I was not aware of was that Dylan was struggling. He was wearing a mask.” Klebold said it can be very difficult to distinguish between normal adolescent behaviour and pathological behaviour. “The thing we have to do as parents is learn to ask and learn to listen. Those were skills I thought I had — but I see now that I did not have them to the degree they were needed.”
As a former teacher, Klebold said she feels a need to learn from what happened and a responsibility to pass on what she has learned. Klebold said the Columbine massacre and her son’s part in it are things she lives with every day. “I’ve looked at this for almost 20 years. Like a Rubik’s cube, turning it every which way. Now I am more analytical ... I look for data.” One idea that Klebold does not consider an answer is guns for teachers — as U.S. President Donald Trump suggested in the wake of the high school shooting massacre that took place in Parkland, Fla., in February.
“I don’t believe that arming teachers is going to make schools safer. I believe that that’s going to make schools more dangerous,” Klebold told the audience on Tuesday.
Klebold pointed out that members of law enforcement are regularly trained in the use of firearms and there are still wrongful fatal shootings by officers.
She argued that it’s naive to assume school staff would be able to use weapons in a responsible manner, in the right context and the right state of mind.
“I think it’s a frightening idea.”