by Jeff Kass
The press release also noted that Guerra briefed the Columbine High resource officer, sheriff’s deputy Neil Gardner, about the Browns’ information. “Deputy Gardner, with this knowledge occasionally engaged Harris, and Klebold, along with several of their friends and associates in light conversation. Deputy Gardner made no observations of inappropriate behavior and has stated that both Harris and Klebold treated him with appropriate respect,” the release stated.
Following standard procedure Gardner, like other officers who fired weapons at Columbine, was debriefed the day of the shootings. Yet he did not recognize a photo of Eric Harris shown to him at the command post. “So you really don’t know this kid at all?” the interviewer asked. “I had never dealt, I had never dealt with Eric Harris,” said Gardner, who at one point called him “Scott.”
In the confusing aftermath, maybe Gardner forgot he had checked on Harris and Klebold, as stated in the press release. Yet no one seems to have reconciled this discrepancy.
In yet another twist, the Denver Post published an article on Gardner one week after Columbine. He said he knew of Harris and Klebold, but didn’t know them personally. “They had never been disrespectful to him,” the Post reported.
“There are certainly kids in the school that scare me more than he [Eric] would have,” Gardner added.
On May 1, 1999 the Rocky Mountain News reported that Gardner had discussed the Browns’ report with a Columbine High dean. But Kiekbusch would not give a name. The next day, the News wrote that Gardner shared limited details with the two deans, but they were not given a copy of the police report. “Academically, these were two very good students, so it didn’t raise a lot of red flags,” said Jeffco Public Schools spokesman Rick Kaufman.
Jefferson County turned to other agencies throughout Columbine for extra manpower, but Guerra was taken off the case. And he wasn’t the only one. The others included Hicks and Grove, who had also been brought in on the Browns’ report back in 1998. That prompted Guerra to wonder why the bomb experts—in a crime involving dozens of bombs—were removed. “I was told it was a shooting, not a bombing,” he said.
Hicks says Kiekbusch told him not to respond to the school. Instead, he “watched the events on television and took notes.” It was one or two days after the shootings that Hicks realized he had crossed paths, so to speak, with Eric Harris before Columbine.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Cheryl Zimmerman tells yet another story. According to her report, Hicks helped execute a search warrant on Klebold’s home. Hicks checked two computers on the main floor and seized three from Dylan’s room. A notation on Zimmerman’s report reads: “See Sgt. Hicks’ report for details.” Another report says that three days after Columbine, on April 23, Hicks helped interview Harris and Klebold’s buddy Zach Heckler. But there are no reports from Hicks.
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As the one-year anniversary approached, along with the deadline to sue the sheriff’s department, victim families asked police if they could view the official report on the shootings, which was still unreleased. The sheriff said no, and gave any number of reasons: It wasn’t done, a case against a gun supplier was pending, etc.
The families then filed an Open Records Act lawsuit. They won, and the first eleven thousand pages of raw police reports were made public in November 2000. Another fifteen thousand-plus pages would come in the following years. But no one, at least outside the sheriff’s department, knew exactly what was in the evidence vault. The sheriff was engaged in a game of public records charades.
In April 2001, nearly two years to the day after Columbine, CBS News (doing a segment for 60 Minutes II) and victim families knocked loose Guerra’s draft affidavit after joining forces in a lawsuit. The sheriff department’s response showed that they would just never learn that information would continue to emerge no matter how much they tried to stop it.
The department claimed that the draft had not been kept secret and was openly discussed in the days after Columbine. Spokesman Mike Julian specifically said the sheriff revealed the existence of the draft in a late April 1999 news conference.
In fact, few knew the draft even existed, and no newspaper in America had ever reported on it because it had never before been disclosed. The official report released on May 15, 2000 gives only a possible—and even then inaccurate—reference to the draft when it says, “Further investigation [of the Browns’ report] was initiated but no additional information was developed.” The same criticisms of the April 30 press release could be leveled against that sentence: The sheriff talked in doublespeak that served to cover up evidence rather than reveal it.
The draft also confirmed that the Browns actually met with Hicks—in what seemed to have been a dig at the Browns, the sheriff had long denied a face to face meeting occurred.
Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas was now on the hook too for keeping silent about the affidavit. He had at least a few reasons as to why he had never mentioned it. He alternately said he thought it had been publicly revealed, or that it was up to the sheriff’s department to release because it was their investigation. He also said the draft was too weak to convince a judge to approve a search warrant. It was an attempt at good PR for the cops. They didn’t do anything bad because they didn’t have enough information to search Eric’s home in the first place and prevent Columbine.
In fact, Eric’s web pages threatened two crimes: Possessing pipe bombs and going after Brooks Brown. That alone could justify a judge’s signature. The probable cause was admittedly thin, but close.
And a little more investigative elbow grease might have shored up the draft. Investigators could have added more website information—something Eric had provided plenty of. Or they could have indicated the distance between the Harris home and the pipe bomb found in the field.
Not a lot of work to get a search warrant, especially once the affidavit was already drafted. Not a lot of work to prevent Columbine.
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The draft affidavit had been flushed out. But on July 24, 2001, I filed a five-page Open Records Act request for “documents or other material from deputies John Hicks, John Healy, Mike Guerra, Deputy [Neil] Gardner and any others on the complaints by Randy and Judy Brown regarding Eric Harris.”
I also requested “videotapes, writings, photos, cassette recordings, newspaper articles, and computer files created, or related to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris taken from their homes, Columbine High School, cars, and any other locations. Also, any transcripts, summaries, or photos of the videotapes, recordings, writings and computer information.” The idea was that if some items themselves were not releasable, for whatever reason, at least a summary might be available.
The request also sought, “Any and all Jefferson County emails regarding the Columbine shooting, including emails surrounding the investigation, and other post-shooting events.”
Assistant county attorney Lily Oeffler, who was at the secret meeting and later went on to become a Colorado state judge, wrote back representing the sheriff. In months of letters back and forth, Oeffler said a judge had already declined to release documents seized from the homes of the killers but she did not cite any specific orders. Regarding the Browns, she wrote, “Reports and related documents regarding the Browns’ complaint against Eric Harris regarding the Internet have been released.”
Oeffler also stated that “many items to include videotapes, writings, photos, cassette recordings, and computer files have been returned to their owners. Some materials responsive to your requests have already been released in the materials.”
She made it seem like case closed. But in 2003, under scrutiny from the attorney general’s office and the command of Ted Mink—a new, more open, sheriff—the department released the Rampart Range target practice video. More videos came in 2004, including the “hitmen for hire” tape. In 2006 nearly one thousand documents that provide some of the most intimate portraits of th
e killers—their diaries and Wayne Harris’ journal—were released in response to a lawsuit by the Denver Post. Much of it was taken from the homes of Eric and Dylan.
And there were even more documents related to the Browns. They were in the county attorney’s office.
Any Columbine emails from the sheriff’s office remain secret. Or maybe destroyed. Oeffler said it would be “virtually impossible” and might take “thousands of hours” to retrieve them.
When the Rocky Mountain News requested them, the county said it would cost over $1 million to find the emails and even then, there was no guarantee any would be released. The News declined to pay the fee.
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On June 28, 2000 investigator John Hicks, denied promotion and shaken by the handling of the Columbine investigation, left the department and gave a binder to fellow investigator John Healy. Healy actually says he got the binder in 1999 and ended up putting it in his home office. Then in October 2003, the self-described pack rat was ordered by his wife to clean out some of his “old junk” because guests were coming over in three days. He found the binder. Inside was the “missing” 1997 report that Aaron Brown had filed at the Southwest Plaza regarding Eric Harris.
Then Attorney General Ken Salazar was already helming the Columbine Task Force when Sheriff Mink asked him to investigate what happened with the 1997 report. It led to the most honest investigation to date concerning the events surrounding Columbine and prompted the grand jury proceeding. Guerra, Grove, Hicks, and a host of other police finally opened up through the remarks they made to attorney general investigators.
The most uncooperative (and least helpful) witness appears to be former sheriff John Stone. Investigators met with him at 9:00 a.m. on February 11, 2004 in the office of his new employer, the private investigations firm Business Controls Inc. Stone told investigators that he was not sheriff when Guerra undertook his draft affidavit for a search warrant, which was true. But he also said he “has no knowledge about it.” A stunning admission, if true, given that its public disclosure came when Stone was sheriff and that it was a key part of whether Columbine could have been prevented.
Stone, a Republican, also claimed Attorney General Ken Salazar, a Democrat, was after him only for partisan reasons. “He [Stone] expressed the opinion that our investigation was politically motivated, and he was visibly angry about this investigation and the way he was treated by the press regarding Columbine,” the investigators wrote.
Stone stood out among the other interviewees for not allowing his interview to be taped. “We were unable to ask Stone any questions or have any meaningful dialogue regarding our investigation due [to] his apparent state of agitation,” investigators added. Stone declined comment for the Rocky Mountain News, calling me a “horse’s ass.”
Shortly after the attorney general’s investigation wrapped up, News gossip columnist Penny Parker did a piece mentioning that the Browns had spotted Stone working in the bakery department at a Costco. Parker contacted Stone. “I’m working a holiday job, what’s the big deal?” he told her. “I just want to be left alone.”
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Something else was missing—the sparse summaries of how officers spend their time, known as DaFR’s (pronounced “daffers”), or Daily Field Activity Reports. Daily Supervisors Reports, or DaSRs, serve the same purpose for supervisors. The county had failed to turn any of them up under numerous Open Records Act requests filed by me and other media.
But attorney general investigators, writing five years after Columbine, noted that, “Copies of some DaFRs and DaSRs for the year 1998 had been sent to the Jefferson County Attorney’s office by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office in mid-1999. These included DaFRs and DaSRs for Investigator Michael Guerra, John Hicks, Glenn Grove, Randy West and Jim Pritchett.” The investigators added that “these documents had been kept at the offices of the County Attorney and had not been released to the public.”
The sheriff’s department retained its own copies of the documents, but had never before released them. The sheriff also purged the originals, although investigators concluded that they had been properly destroyed under the records retention policy. But why would the sheriff withhold, then destroy, such key documents related to the state’s biggest criminal investigation?
One report survived. Sgt. Jim Prichett’s DaSR from May 1, 1998 indicated that Guerra worked on the Harris affidavit that day. It is also the last recorded day Guerra worked on it.
But investigators could not find Guerra’s DaFR for May 1, and his entire “investigative file” containing his work on the search warrant was also missing. That’s when investigators took the Columbine case to a statewide grand jury. It convened on August 6, 2004. In September 2004, the grand jury released its decision not to indict anyone, noting it did not have enough evidence of a crime. But it did release its findings.
Kiekbusch, the grand jury noted, had asked his assistant to locate the Guerra file and a related file by checking the computer network and physical records. The assistant thought the logical thing would be to contact the officers involved. Yet Kiekbusch told her to keep the query secret from them. When the assistant told him she could not locate the files, he seemed “somewhat relieved.”
Kiekbusch told the grand jury he had nothing to do with any missing files or documents and “cannot specifically respond to the conclusory statement that for some unknown reason an assistant thought he appeared ‘somewhat relieved.’”
But the grand jury concluded, “The absence of these particular files is troubling . . . because the open space meeting focused on these documents and at the press conference there was no mention of them. The absence of any file that should have been located in Records, the working file and the associated electronic files is also troubling.”
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The feds, many of whom assisted in the Columbine investigation, had their own disclosure difficulties. The Secret Service, dedicated to protecting the U.S. president and other national and international leaders, wanted to transfer its method of “threat assessment” to school shooters after Columbine. But its May 2002 “Safe School Initiative” is vague, and the Secret Service concluded it could draw no profile of school shooters.
The Secret Service was also secretive about its research. The agency issued an interim report on school violence in October 2000 that noted, “For each incident, researchers reviewed primary source materials, such as investigative, school, court, and mental health records and answered several hundred questions about the case.” The following month, on November 10, 2000, I sent a four-page Freedom of Information Act request seeking the research related to Columbine.
Money was the first obstacle. The Secret Service denied a fee waiver, saying that the information requested would not significantly help the public understand how the agency conducted its investigation. The Secret Service added that I could not prove that the information was not primarily in my commercial interest (although journalists are often given that exemption). The agency noted I was still entitled to two hours of free search time and one hundred free pages of documents. After that, we would have to reopen discussions. That letter was dated April 2, 2001. I was almost five months into the process.
In December 2001, eight months later, I was still paperless and contacted the Secret Service. The agency said they had sent out a letter in August, which I never received. They then faxed it to me. “A search for files responsive to your request is being conducted,” the letter said. “When the results of the search are known, you will be notified.” I had now been waiting one year and one month.
In January 2002, the Secret Service told me, “Your files have been assigned to a processor for review.” After numerous follow up calls, I was asked to clarify my request. So in a letter dated September 6, 2002 I told the Secret Service I did not want any newspaper articles they might have used in their research. I figured I could find relevant articles myself (if I hadn’t al
ready), and striking them would speed things along.
The next month, on Nov. 27, 2002, I spoke with Secret Service liaison Reginald Hudson. He said he thought I only wanted court documents related to the Secret Service work on school shootings, and that I never clarified that I wanted all supporting documents (except newspaper clippings). Two years out, the Secret Service had now failed to understand the basic request, let alone fulfill it.
On December 16, the Secret Service wrote back saying they indeed understood the full scope of my request. But they still hadn’t produced any documents.
A March 19, 2003 letter finally brought documents relating to my original request, after two and a half years. As originally stated, I received one hundred pages. They were from a variety of court cases, some with names blocked out, and mostly provided boilerplate information such as the defendant “knowingly caused the death” of the victim.
The Secret Service also said it had expended twenty-four hours of search time looking for documents; it had taken two and a half years to squeeze in three full work days. The first two hours of search time were free, as originally noted. But the letter, signed by Secret Service liaison Latita Huff, noted that the other twenty-two hours were charged at the hourly rate of the employee making the search, plus sixteen percent. I owed $774.62. Federal rules require, as pointed out in Huff’s letter, that the agency inform a requestor when the fees exceed $250. At that point, the requestor must pay up front to complete the processing. So I informed Huff that I should have been told of the fees when they hit $250, or before, not slapped with a bill after the fact. I never heard from Huff, nor the Secret Service again. Admittedly, I never got anything useful out of them either.
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The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms played a significant, direct role in the Columbine investigation, and much of their work was referenced in the first eleven thousand pages released by the sheriff’s office. I sent the agency an FOIA request on February 3, 2001. With no word as of May 14, I spoke with “disclosure specialist” Marilyn LaBrie. The agency’s reply, she said, had been sent to the wrong address. It was then faxed to me. The letter indicated that nothing could be released because any information “could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings.” I wrote back to them noting that the Columbine investigation had already been “exceptionally cleared.” And the two criminal cases—Manes and Duran—had been resolved.