Chapter 146 Section 11

About ten minutes later, the whereabouts of the two murderers were unknown. At 11:57, they were ingested again by the camera probe installed in the cafeteria.At this time, the sprinkler device of the automatic fire prevention system had put out the fire, and the two gas tanks were safe and sound. The Gunners return to the library.In the more than 20 minutes since they left, some teachers and students had already escaped through the broken glass door nearby. Between 12:02 and 12:05, as emergency crews approached the building under cover of police officers, trying to rescue the injured children, Eric and Dillon placed their guns on the library ledge, out of the way of the building. The special operations forces held off in an exchange of fire for about three and a half minutes.That was the last time anyone saw Eric and Dylan alive.

At some point later, Dylan Colebord, 17, and Eric Harris, just turned 18, killed themselves by pointing guns at their temples. From the first moment the gunshots sounded, parents, relatives and friends of the students rushed to Columbine Middle School one after another.There was no news report at that time, and the children who fled outside the school knocked on the houses of neighboring residents one by one to make phone calls.Almost every child made a 911 call after notifying their parents and family members, so that at a certain time between 11:30 and 12:00, almost all 911 operators in the Denver area were constantly answering calls from Columbine Middle School. Report.

At around 12 o'clock, major TV stations and radio stations across the United States interrupted their ongoing programs and verbally reported the news that shocked the whole country.After hearing the news, more and more people came, and the police had to evacuate all the people, including students, teachers and parents, to the nearby Humu Primary School.There, several enthusiastic parents began to sort out a roster of teachers and students in the whole school, and kept annotating all the survivors one by one according to the latest news. The police still don't know the exact time when the shooting stopped, because on the south side of the building where the perpetrators mainly attacked, the alarm bells rang loudly in the corridor, making it impossible for people outside to recognize the gunshots.It was also difficult for the police to determine the general location of the shooters from the numerous 911 calls. Some said they were in the library, while others said they were in the student cafeteria.Police didn't even know how many perpetrators were in the building at the time.

Police officers at all levels spent a long time developing a battle plan.Because of the uncertainty and urgency of the situation, the final decision was that special operations forces enter through the north entrance of the building, which was furthest from the shooting.The police officers were fully armed and carefully searched every inch of corridors, stairs, every classroom, storage room, bathroom, etc., carefully detecting the traces of the murderers and potential dangers, and at the same time helping children in danger.As Sgt. Aaron Simmons, one of the first men on the scene, put it: "We couldn't predict what awaited us at every turn."

The building was filled with gunpowder smoke, and it was in a mess. It completely lost the style of the school in the past.Fire sprinklers drenched the walls, ceiling and floors.The walls were littered with bullet holes, the carpet was charred in large swaths, and the floor was strewn with fired and unfired bullets, as well as detonators that exploded and that did not.In some places, nails and shards of glass from homemade explosives covered almost the entire ground. It took more than two hours for special operations forces to secure the entire building, and they arrived at the last stop on the scene - the library - at 3.22pm.The reading room was full of devastation, and it was a tragic situation for the rest of the life after a catastrophe.According to a later police report: "The window panes had overlapping bullet holes, fragments of explosives were everywhere...a detonator that had not yet exploded was embedded in the wall outside the library door."

It took the emergency personnel more than 30 minutes to find out all the children who were hiding everywhere, evacuate them to a safe area outside the building, and carry the wounded to the ambulance one by one.Despite the best efforts of the teachers and students in Science Room 3, Mr. William Sandel breathed his last breath on the way to the hospital. After all the living people were evacuated, the police sealed off the entire building.Because there are still many detonator bombs and other things that may explode at any time in the building, the police announced that no one is allowed to enter until the demining force disarms all detonators and removes all explosives.

Therefore, it was not until the next day after the tragedy that the bodies of the 10 victims and the two gunmen were carried out of the campus one after another. At some point, someone erected a row of 13 crosses on the hill in Clement Park, north of Columbine.On the horizontal axis of the cross, the names of the victims are neatly written in white paint.They are: William Sandel, Rachel Scott, Daniel Robb, Kyle Valasque, Stefan Curnow, Keisha Bernal, Eshaya Soules, Matthew Kechter, Loring Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Fleming, Danny Moser and Corey Dept. The lower end of the cross is inlaid with photos of the victims taken from the Columbine High School yearbook.After a while, the area around the cross was surrounded by colorful flowers, and people offered their ever-burning candles, or their favorite things, or the favorite things of the deceased, and there were also poems or eulogies written by children.Some people write inscriptions, leave messages, or wrap ribbons on wooden shelves to express their remembrance.

Here are the parts of the children's eulogy about the life stories of the victims: William Sandel - Mr. Shandel is a senior teacher with 24 years of teaching experience, teaching computer and business courses, and also served as the coach of the girls' basketball and girls' softball teams.In the first year he took over the women's basketball team, the team jumped from the original penultimate place to the first place in the 1997-1998 season. Mr. Sandel is married and has two daughters and five grandchildren.He was shot twice in the chest while directing the evacuation of the students in the corridor.

Rachel Scott -- The 17-year-old Rachel played the leading role in the students' self-written play "Smoke in the House".She is a frequent churchgoer and loves photography. After the shooting, Rachel's red Acura parked on the north side of the school was covered with flowers and cards.The car was often surrounded by crying and praying children. Rachel's 16-year-old brother, Craig Scott, was in the library when the shooting occurred.He survived by feigning death and later helping others evacuate safely.