Steven Curnow

Cullen and others dispute the theory of "revenge for bullying" as a motivation. While acknowledging the pervasiveness of bullying in high schools including CHS, Cullen claimed they were not victims of bullying. He noted Harris was more often the perpetrator than victim of bullying. In a fact check published on April 19, 2019, on the eve of the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Gillian Brockell in The Washington Post underscored that, contrary to the popular view, their attack was not revenge for being bullied.

Soon after the massacre, music students at CU Boulder raised money to commission a piece of music to honor Columbine. The university band turned to Frank Ticheli, who responded by composing the wind ensemble work An American Elegy. The following year, the Columbine band premiered the piece at CU Boulder's concert hall. As of 2019, Ticheli's sheet music publisher estimates An American Elegy has been performed 10000 times.

The 2016 biographical film I'm Not Ashamed, based on the journals of Rachel Scott, includes glimpses of Harris's and Klebold's lives and interactions with other students at CHS. The 1999 black comedy, Duck! The Carbine High Massacre is inspired by the Columbine massacre. The 2003 Gus Van Sant film Elephant depicts a fictional school shooting, but is based in part on the Columbine massacre. The 2003 Ben Coccio film Zero Day was also based on the massacre.

Since the advent of online social media, a fandom for shooters Harris and Klebold has had a documented presence on social media sites, especially Tumblr. Fans of Harris and Klebold refer to themselves as "Columbiners." An article published in 2015 in the Journal of Transformative Works, a scholarly journal which focuses on the sociology of fandoms, noted that Columbiners were not fundamentally functionally different from more mainstream fandoms. Columbiners create fan art and fan fiction, even cosplaying the pair, and have a scholarly interest in the shooting.

A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people...charged with Columbine-style plots." A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties.

In 2015, journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before."

The Tumblr fandom gained widespread media attention in February 2015 after three of its members conspired to commit a mass shooting at a Halifax mall on Valentine's Day. In 2017, two 15-year-old school boys from Northallerton in England were charged with conspiracy to murder after becoming infatuated with the crime and "hero-worshipping" Harris and Klebold.

Klebold walked down the steps toward the cafeteria. He came up to Lance Kirklin, who was already wounded and lying on the ground, weakly calling for help. Klebold said, "Sure. I'll help you," then shot Kirklin in the face with his shotgun, critically wounding him. Graves—paralyzed beneath the waist—had crawled into the doorway of the cafeteria's west entrance and collapsed. He rubbed blood on his face and played dead. After shooting Kirklin, Klebold walked towards the cafeteria door. He then stepped over the injured Graves to enter the cafeteria. Graves remembers Klebold saying, "Sorry, dude."

Harris, at the west entrance, immediately turned and fired ten shots from his carbine at Gardner, who was sixty yards away. As Harris reloaded his carbine, Gardner leaned over the top of his car and fired four rounds at Harris from his service pistol. Harris ducked back behind the building, and Gardner momentarily believed that he had hit him. Harris then reemerged and fired at least four more rounds at Gardner (which missed and struck two parked cars), before retreating into the building. No one was hit during the exchange of gunfire. Gardner reported on his police radio, "Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me." By this point, Harris had shot 47 times, and Klebold just 5. The shooters then entered the school through the west entrance, moving along the main north hallway, throwing pipe bombs and shooting at anyone they encountered. Klebold shot Stephanie Munson in the ankle; she was able to walk out of the school. The pair then shot out the windows to the east entrance of the school. After proceeding through the hall several times and shooting toward—and missing—any students they saw, they went toward the west entrance and turned into the library hallway.

The shooters walked into the library, towards the two rows of computers. Disabled student Kyle Velasquez was sitting at the north row. Klebold fired his shotgun twice at Velasquez, fatally hitting him in the head and back. The shooters put down their ammunition-filled duffel bags at the south—or lower—row of computers and reloaded their weapons. They walked between the computer rows, toward the windows facing the outside staircase. They – especially Klebold, began shouting and speaking to all the students in the library.

According to this theory—used by Dave Cullen for his 2009 book Columbine— Harris had been the mastermind. He had a messianic-level superiority complex and hoped to demonstrate his superiority to the world. Klebold was a follower who primarily participated in the massacre as a means to simply end his life.

There is also evidence to suggest the attack was supposed to have occurred on April 19—the date of the Oklahoma City Bombing, but the attack occurred on April 20. Harris needed more ammunition from Mark Manes, which one had to be 21 years old to get from K-Mart, and Manes did not get it for him until the evening of April 19. Manes asked if Harris was going shooting that night; Harris replied that he would the following day. In 2001, K-Mart announced it would no longer sell handgun ammunition.

—Michigan State Senator Dale Shugars' concerns on the influence of Marilyn Manson on his teenage fans.

First and foremost, KMFDM would like to express their deep and heartfelt sympathy for the parents, families and friends of the murdered and injured children in Littleton. We are sick and appalled, as is the rest of the nation, by what took place in Colorado yesterday. KMFDM are an art form—not a political party. From the beginning, our music has been a statement against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others. While some of the former band members are German as reported in the media, none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever.

—Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Youth Violence Senator Jeff Sessions testifying before the Senate on the Columbine tragedy, 1999.

As the shooting unfolded, Patti Nielson talked on the phone with emergency services, telling her story and urging students in the library to take cover beneath desks. According to transcripts, her call was received by a 9–1–1 operator at 11:25:18 a.m. Fifty-two students, two teachers and two librarians were in the library. A bomb was thrown down the library hallway by Harris. At 11:29 a.m., according to reports, Klebold entered the library first, followed by Harris just a few seconds later.

Despite this, Marilyn Manson were widely criticized by religious, political, and entertainment-industry figures. Under mounting pressure in the days after Columbine, the group postponed their last five North American tour dates out of respect for the victims and their families. On April 29, ten US senators (led by Sam Brownback of Kansas) sent a letter to Edgar Bronfman Jr. – the president of Seagram (the owner of Interscope) – requesting a voluntary halt to his company's distribution to children of "music that glorifies violence". The letter named Marilyn Manson for producing songs which "eerily reflect" the actions of Harris and Klebold. Later that day, the band cancelled their remaining North American shows. Two days later, Manson published his response to these accusations in an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone, titled "Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?", where he castigated America's gun culture, the political influence of the National Rifle Association, and the media's irresponsible coverage, which he said facilitated the placing of blame on a scapegoat, instead of debating more relevant societal issues.

The 2009 film April Showers, which was written and directed by Andrew Robinson, who was a senior at CHS during the shooting, was based on Columbine. The 2013 film Kids for Cash about the kids for cash scandal detail it as part of the "zero-tolerance" policy in the wake of the Columbine shootings.

Many impromptu memorials were created after the massacre, including victims Rachel Scott's car and John Tomlin's truck. 15 crosses for the victims and shooters were also erected on top of a hill in Clement Park. The crosses for Harris and Klebold were later removed as it caused controversy. A permanent memorial began planning in June 1999. Designing took three and a half years and included feedback from victims' families, survivors, the high school's students and staff, and the community. A groundbreaking of the memorial occurred in June 2006. The Columbine Memorial opened up to the public on September 21, 2007.

In November 2007, Pekka-Eric Auvinen imitated Columbine with a shooting in Jokela in Tuusula, Finland. He wore a shirt which said "Humanity is Overrated" and attempted to start a fire inside the school but failed.

In December 2007, a man killed two at a Youth with a Mission center in Arvada, Colorado and another two at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs before killing himself. He quoted Harris prior to the attack under the heading "Christianity is YOUR Columbine".

Harris and Klebold kept journals, which were released to the public in 2006. In the journals, the pair would eventually document their arsenal and plan of attack.

The bomb squad disrupted the car bomb. Klebold's car was repaired and, in 2006, put up for auction.

On February 26, 2004, thousands of pieces of evidence from the massacre were put on display at the Jeffco fairgrounds in Golden.

In 2004, the shooting was dramatized in the documentary Zero Hour. In 2007, the massacre was documented in an episode of the National Geographic Channel documentary series The Final Report.

On October 21, 2003, a video was released showing the pair doing target practice on March 6, 1999, in nearby foothills known as Rampart Range, with the weapons they would use in the massacre.

In 2002, the National Enquirer published two post-mortem photos of Harris and Klebold in the library. Klebold's gun was underneath his body and so unseen in the photo, leading to speculation that Harris shot Klebold before killing himself. However, some of Klebold's blood was on Harris's legs. . Also, just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Patrick Ireland was laying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Underneath the scorched film of material was a piece of Harris's brain matter, suggesting Harris had shot himself by this point.

During the supporting tour for Holy Wood, Manson appeared in Michael Moore's 2002 documentary, Bowling for Columbine; his appearance was filmed during the band's first show in Denver since the shooting. When Moore asked Manson what he would have said to the students at Columbine he replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them. I would listen to what they have to say and that's what no one did."

After the massacre, many survivors and relatives of deceased victims filed lawsuits. Under Colorado state law at the time, the maximum a family could receive in a lawsuit against a government agency was $600,000. Most cases against the Jeffco police department and school district were dismissed by the federal court on the grounds of government immunity. The case against the sheriff's office regarding the death of Dave Sanders was not dismissed due to the police preventing paramedics from going to his aid for hours after they knew the gunmen were dead. The case was settled out of court in August 2002 for $1,500,000.

Michael Moore's 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine focused heavily on the American obsession with handguns, its grip on Jeffco, and its role in the shooting.

In April 2001, the families of more than 30 victims received a $2,538,000 settlement in their case against the families of Harris, Klebold, Manes, and Duran. Under the terms of the settlement, the Harrises and the Klebolds contributed $1,568,000 through their homeowners' policies, with another $32,000 set aside for future claims; the Manes contributed $720,000, with another $80,000 set aside for future claims; and the Durans contributed $250,000, with an additional $50,000 available for future claims. The family of victim Shoels rejected this settlement, but in June 2003 were ordered by a judge to accept a $366,000 settlement in their $250-million lawsuit against the shooters' families. In August 2003, the families of victims Fleming, Kechter, Rohrbough, Townsend, and Velasquez received undisclosed settlements in a wrongful death suit against the Harrises and Klebolds.

In 2001, Charles Andrew Williams, the Santana High School shooter, reportedly told his friends that he was going to "pull a Columbine," though none of them took him seriously and played it off as a joke. In 2005, Jeff Weise, an American Indian who wore a trench coat, killed his grandfather, who was a police officer, and his girlfriend. He took his grandfather's weapon and his squad car, and drove to his former high school in Red Lake and murdered several students before killing himself. In an apparent reference to Columbine, he asked one student if they believed in God.

Several former students and teachers suffer from PTSD. Six months after the shootings, Anne Marie Hochhalter's mother killed herself. Greg Barnes, a student who witnessed Sanders get shot, committed suicide in May 2000. In 2019, survivor Austin Eubanks died; he was injured during the shooting and heavily medicated, leading to an opioid addiction that he overcame and later spoke publicly about. He was 37.

On May 4, a hearing on the marketing and distribution of violent content to minors by the television, music, film and video-game industries was held by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee heard testimony from former Secretary of Education (and co-founder of conservative violent entertainment watchdog group Empower America) William Bennett, the Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, professors and mental-health professionals. Speakers criticized the band and its label-mate Nine Inch Nails for their alleged contribution to a cultural environment enabling violence such as the Columbine shootings. The committee requested that the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice investigate the entertainment industry's marketing practices to minors. After concluding the European and Japanese legs of their tour on August 8, the band withdrew from public view to work on their next album, 2000's Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) as an artistic rebuttal to the allegations leveled against them. Manson appeared on an April 2001 episode of The O'Reilly Factor, where he once again denied that the band's music was responsible for Columbine. Bill O'Reilly argued that "disturbed kids" without direction from responsible parents could misinterpret the message of his music as endorsing the belief that "when I'm dead [then] everybody's going to know me." Manson responded:

In 2000, youth advocate Melissa Helmbrecht organized a remembrance event in Denver featuring two surviving students, called "A Call to Hope." The library where most of the massacre took place was removed and replaced with an atrium. In 2001, a new library, the HOPE memorial library, was built next to the west entrance.

In 2000, federal and state legislation was introduced that would require safety locks on firearms as well as ban the importation of high-capacity ammunition magazines. Though laws were passed that made it a crime to buy guns for criminals and minors, there was considerable controversy over legislation pertaining to background checks at gun shows. There was concern in the gun lobby over restrictions on Second Amendment rights in the United States. Frank Lautenberg introduced a proposal to close the gun show loophole in federal law. It was passed in the Senate, but did not pass in the House.

The first documentary on the massacre may have been the TLC documentary Lost Boys in 2000. The 2002 Michael Moore documentary film Bowling for Columbine won several awards. Also in 2002, A&E made "Columbine: Understanding Why".

On April 20, 1999, a school shooting and attempted bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. Ten students were killed in the school library, where the pair subsequently committed suicide. Twenty-one additional people were injured by gunshots, and gunfire was also exchanged with the police. Another three people were injured trying to escape the school. At the time, it was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. The crime has inspired several copycats (see Columbine effect) and "Columbine" has become a byword for mass shootings.

In December 1999, before anybody else had seen them, Time magazine published an article on these tapes. The victims' family members threatened to sue Jeffco. As a result, select victim families and journalists were allowed to see them, and they were then kept from the public indefinitely for fear of inspiring future massacres. The tapes have since allegedly been destroyed. There are only transcripts of some of the dialogue, and a short clip recorded surreptitiously by a victim's father. The pair claimed they were going to make copies of the tapes to send to news stations, but never did so.

On Tuesday morning, April 20, 1999, Harris and Klebold placed two duffel bags in the cafeteria. Each bag contained propane bombs, which were set to detonate at 11:17 a.m., during the "A" lunch shift.

Over the next two years, Guerra's original draft and investigative file documents were lost. In September 1999, a Jeffco investigator failed to find the documents during a secret search of the county's computer system. A second attempt in late 2000 found copies of the document within the Jeffco archives. Their loss was termed "troubling" by a grand jury convened after the file's existence was reported in April 2001. It was concealed by the Jeffco Sheriff's Office and not revealed until September 2001, resulting from an investigation by the TV show 60 Minutes. The documents were reconstructed and released to the public, but the original documents are still missing. The final grand jury investigation was released in September 2004.

In August 1999, students returned to the school, and principal Frank Deangelis led a rally of students clad in "We are Columbine" shirts.

The shooting was planned as a terrorist attack that would cause "the most deaths in U.S. history", but the motive has never been ascertained with any degree of certainty. Soon after the massacre, it was thought Harris and Klebold targeted jocks, blacks, and Christians. Both sought to provide answers in the journals and videotapes, but investigators found them lacking. In a letter provided with the May 15 report on the Columbine attack, Sheriff John Stone and Undersheriff John A. Dunaway wrote they "cannot answer the most fundamental question—why?" On May 3, 1999, an issue of Newsweek was dedicated to the massacre, with the cover asking "Why?" in large print.

Harris and Klebold were both fans of the German rock bands KMFDM and Rammstein. Harris's website contained lyrics from both artists, such as KMFDM's "Son of a Gun", "Stray Bullet", and "Waste", as well as translations for the songs done in German. In the same blog post which threatened Brown, Harris wrote: "I'll just go to some downtown area...and blow up and shoot everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame." The last sentence is a quote from the KMFDM song "Anarchy". As above, Klebold wrote in Harris's yearbook "My wrath for January's incident will be godlike," and he wore a shirt saying "Wrath" during the massacre. "Wrath" and "Godlike" are songs by KMFDM. On April 20, 1999 KMFDM released the album Adios. Harris noted the coincidence of the album's title and release date in his journal "a subliminal final "Adios" tribute to Reb and Vodka. Thanks, KMFDM... I ripped the hell outa [sic] the system". He quotes Godlike. KMFDM's frontman Sascha Konietzko responded to the controversy with a statement:

A permanent memorial began planning in June 1999. A permanent memorial "to honor and remember the victims of the April 20, 1999 shootings at Columbine High School" began planning in June 1999, and was dedicated on September 21, 2007, in Clement Park. The memorial fund raised $1.5 million in donations over eight years of planning. Designing took three and a half years and included feedback from victims' families, survivors, the high school's students and staff, and the community.

The first copycat may have been the W. R. Myers High School shooting, just eight days after Columbine, when a 14-year-old Canadian student went into his school at lunchtime with a sawed-off .22 rifle under his dark blue trench coat, and opened fire, killing one student. A month after the massacre, Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia had a shooting which Attorney General Janet Reno called a Columbine "copycat". A friend of Harris and Klebold, Eric Veik, was arrested after threatening to "finish the job" at CHS in October 1999.

In a self-made video recording sent to the news media by Seung-Hui Cho prior to his committing the Virginia Tech shootings, he referred to the Columbine massacre as an apparent motivation. In the recording, he wore a backwards baseball cap and referred to Harris and Klebold as "martyrs." Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, had "an obsession with mass murders, in particular, the April 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado."

Harris's site attracted few visitors and caused no concern until March 1998. Harris ended a blog post detailing murderous fantasies with "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown"; a classmate of his. Brown claims that Klebold gave him the web address, in an effort to warn him of Harris's threats of violence against him. Others suggest that it was in fact discovered by Brooks' brother Aaron Brown.

After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County (Jeffco) Sheriff's Office. When investigator Michael Guerra accessed the website, he discovered numerous violent threats directed against the students and teachers of CHS. Guerra wrote a draft affidavit, requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. The affidavit also mentioned the discovery of an exploded pipe bomb in February 1998 and a suspicion of Harris being involved in the unsolved case. The affidavit was never submitted to a judge and therefore, went ignored.

On January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold were arrested for breaking into a van parked near Littleton and stealing tools and computer equipment. They would subsequently attend a joint court hearing, where they pled guilty to the felony theft. The judge sentenced them to a juvenile diversion program. As a result, both delinquents attended mandatory classes such as anger management and talked with diversion officers. They both were eventually released from diversion several weeks early because of positive actions in the program and put on probation.

Nearly a year before the massacre, Klebold wrote a message in Harris's 1998 yearbook: "killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops!! My wrath for January's incident will be godlike. Not to mention our revenge in the commons." The commons was another term for the school cafeteria.

When an economics class had Harris make an ad for a business, he and Klebold made a video called Hitmen for Hire on December 8, 1998, which was released in February 2004. It depicts them as part of the Trench Coat Mafia, a clique in the school who wore black trench coats, extorting money for protecting preps from bullies. They were apparently not a part of the Trench Coat Mafia, but were friends with some of its members. They wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre, and the video seemed a kind of dress rehearsal, showing them walking the halls of the school, and shooting bullies outside with fake guns.

On November 22, 1998, their friend Robyn Anderson purchased the carbine rifle and the two shotguns for the pair at the Tanner Gun Show, as they were too young to legally purchase the guns themselves. After the attack, she told investigators that she had believed the pair wanted the items for target shooting, and that she had no prior knowledge of their plans. Anderson was not charged. Three days before the shooting, Klebold attended the high school prom with Anderson.

In April 1998 (a year before the shooting), Harris wrote a letter of apology to the owner of the van as part of his diversion program. Around the same time, he derided him in his journal, stating that he believed himself to have the right to steal something if he wanted to. By far the most prevalent theme in Klebold's journals is his wish for suicide and private despair at his lack of success with women, which he refers to as an "infinite sadness." Klebold had repeatedly documented his desires to kill himself, and his final remark in the Basement Tapes, shortly before the attack, is a resigned statement made as he glances away from the camera: "Just know I'm going to a better place. I didn't like life too much."

They were avid fans of the movie Natural Born Killers, and used the film's acronym, NBK, as a code for the massacre. In February 1998, Klebold envisioned a massacre with a girl like in the film, writing "Soon...either ill commit suicide, or I'll get w. [redacted girl's name] & it will be NBK for us." In April 1998, Harris wrote "When I go NBK and people say things like "oh it was tragic" or "oh he is crazy!" or "It was so bloody." I think, so the fuck what you think that's a bad thing?" In Harris's yearbook Klebold wrote "the holy April morning of NBK". Around February 1999, he wrote "maybe going "NBK" (gawd) w. eric is the way to break free." In Harris's last journal entry, he wrote "Everything I see and I hear I incorporate into NBK somehow...feels like a Goddamn movie sometimes."

Harris worked at a fireworks stand, and had received several fireworks as a result. The mascot of Columbine High School (CHS) is the Rebels, and they called the sneaking out "Rebel Missions". Harris and Klebold adopted the nicknames "Reb" and "Vodka", respectively. Beginning in early 1997, the blog postings began to show the first signs of Harris's anger against society. By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to make explosives. Harris wrote: "the first true pipe bombs created entirely from scratch by the rebels (REB and VoDkA)... Now our only problem is to find the place that will be 'ground zero'."

Klebold had already been writing down his thoughts since March 1997. As early as November 1997, Klebold mentioned going on a killing spree.

In 1996, 15-year-old Eric Harris created a private website on America Online (AOL). It was initially to host levels (WADs) Harris created for use in the first-person shooter video games Doom and Doom II, as well as Quake. On the site, Harris began a blog, which included jokes and his thoughts on his family, friends and school. It also detailed Harris sneaking out of the house to cause mischief and vandalism, such as lighting fireworks, with his friend Dylan Klebold and others.

The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. During this time, he attended Ken Caryl Middle School, and Harris met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased a house south of CHS. His older brother attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder.

In the late 1990s, Marilyn Manson and his eponymous band established themselves as a household name, and as one of the most controversial rock acts in music history. Their two album releases prior to the massacre were both critical and commercial successes, and by the time of their Rock Is Dead Tour in 1999, the frontman had become a culture war iconoclast and a rallying icon for alienated youth. As their popularity increased, the confrontational nature of the group's music and imagery outraged social conservatives. Numerous politicians lobbied to have their performances banned, citing false and exaggerated claims that they contained animal sacrifices, bestiality and rape. Their concerts were routinely picketed by religious advocates and parent groups, who asserted that their music had a corrupting influence on youth culture by inciting "rape, murder, blasphemy and suicide".

Harris and Klebold often wore black baseball caps. As was typical in the 1990s, they wore them backwards. Harris wore a KMFDM cap, and apparently did not wear it during the massacre. Klebold's cap had a Colorado Avalanche logo on the front and a Boston Red Sox logo sewn onto the back.

Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Wichita, Kansas. The Harris family relocated often, as Harris's father was a U.S. Air Force transport pilot. His mother was a homemaker. The family moved from Plattsburgh, New York, to Littleton, Colorado, in July 1993, when his father retired from military service.

Dylan Bennet Klebold (/ˈ k l iː b oʊ l d / ; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was born in Lakewood, Colorado. His parents were pacifists and attended a Lutheran church with their children. Both Dylan and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with the Lutheran tradition. As had been the case with his older brother, Klebold was named after a renowned poet – in his case the playwright Dylan Thomas.