Tear down Columbine school, officials say

DENVER • Columbine High School remains a “source of inspiration” for potential gun violence 20 years after a mass shooting there left 15 people dead and should be demolished, say officials in Colorado.

“School shooters refer to and study the Columbine shooting as a macabre source of inspiration and motivation, … and its lasting impact only seems to be growing,” said Jason Glass, superintendent of Jefferson County public schools in an open letter to Columbine staff, students, parents and residents of the surrounding Denver suburb of Littleton, Colo.

His proposal calls for placing a bond measure seeking $ 60 million to $ 70 million on a future ballot to pay for demolition of the school and construction of a new school to replace it just west of the current site.

Under the plan, the new campus would still be called Columbine High School, “honouring the pride and spirit the community has with the name,” and its school mascot and colours would remain unchanged.

The county Board of Education and administration are “in the very preliminary and exploratory stages” of discussing such a plan, and are seeking public feedback on the proposal, Glass said.

He cited numerous instances in which actual or would- be perpetrators of violence expressed a fascination with Columbine, including an 18- year- old Florida woman who shot herself to death in April after she sparked an extensive manhunt by travelling to Colorado days before the 20th anniversary of the 1999 massacre. Hundreds of schools in the area that had planned memorials were instead in lockdown as authorities searched for the woman.

In 2010, 29- year- old twin sisters from Australia, obsessed with the shooting, travelled to Colorado and shot themselves at a local gun range in a suicide pact. One of the women survived, and police found among their belongings a photocopy of a news magazine cover depicting the Columbine killers and their victims.

The Columbine rampage killed 15 people and at the time was ranked as the deadliest school shooting in U. S. history. Two high school seniors shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives in the bloodshed on April 20, 1999.