A terrible massacre took place on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in the town of Littleton, Colorado. Thoroughly prepared, two "outcast" students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold showed up at their school with two shotguns and walked through the library, classrooms and offices - in less than an hour they sent 13 people to the next world. Another 24 were shot. Two homemade bombs planted in the school cafeteria, fortunately, did not work. When the "plan" was completed, the teenagers put guns to their heads. As the investigators later found out (and 80 people worked on the case), the high school students were fans of neo-fascism and timed the attack to coincide with the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Many times they "simulated" their execution in computer games. Their "feat", alas, has become an example for mentally unstable teenagers. In the USA, in Europe, in Russia - all over the world.

In terms of the number of victims, this tragedy has never ranked first in the American anti-rating of mass massacres in educational institutions. Even in 1999, she was in third. It was later "displaced" by the terrorist attacks at Virginia Tech in 2007 and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. However, it was after Columbine that America shuddered. Firstly, everyone noticed an unhealthy trend, and secondly, there was someone, or rather what to blame: violent videos and computer games (teens loved Doom), weak parental control and free circulation of firearms.

Perhaps precisely because the tragedy was widely covered and exaggerated in the press (according to CNN, the funeral of the first victim of the massacre, Rachel Scott, showed the highest viewing rates in the history of the television company and even bypassed), it was Columbine that mentally unstable teenagers around the world wanted to repeat. .

Collage: Channel Five

"The Cloak Mafia"

In the United States, this phrase has become a household word for teenagers who want reprisals against those who tease them. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were part of this "hobby circle" even before its name acquired such a gloomy connotation.

“Denver school kids who survived the shooting say the two killers wore ski masks and raincoats and were part of a tight-knit group of loners known as the Raincoat Mafia. A photograph of this group was published in a 1998 album. At school, participants are described as obsessed with guns, the Nazis, the military, the internet, and the songs of Marilyn Manson. BBC newspaper the day after the tragedy.

Photo: schoolshootingsusa.weebly.com

Members of the "mafia" always wore black raincoats, regardless of the weather. Later, the “technically useful” side of the long-skirted clothing was also revealed - under it it is very easy to carry weapons to school. The Interest Circle united the outcasts of society, who were constantly bullied by school "stars" - athletes, players of football teams. After Columbine, the name became a household name.

Sea of ​​followers

A real wave of horror swept the Western world after the shooting at Columbine High School. The speed of repetition of aimless and merciless murders was also striking. Eight days later, on April 28, 1999, the first case of imitation occurred. 14-year-old Todd Smith Cameron used a 22-caliber semi-automatic rifle to open fire in the corridor of the Canadian school W. R. Myers High School and killed 17-year-old Jason Lang. Another person was injured. A child with a weapon was twisted by a physical education teacher. At trial, the shooter said he was inspired by the Columbine massacre. Cameron was sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2005 he was released. He immediately tried to hide from the authorities and was again arrested.

Exactly one month after Columbine, on May 20, 1999, 15-year-old Thomas Solomon Jr. fired at his Heritage High School. With a revolver and a .22 semi-automatic rifle, he wounded six people. But then he surrendered to the police. On November 9, 2000, the shooter was sentenced to 40 years in prison and another 65 years of probation. Solomon has also stated that he was inspired to shoot by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. In addition, he also referred to himself as a member of the "cloak mafia".

Further, on March 5, 2001, 15-year-old Californian Charles Williams, the son of a military and field doctor, stole a revolver and a semi-automatic rifle from his father to deal with the offenders at Santana High School. He killed two people and wounded 13. After that he was arrested. During interrogation, he admitted that he wanted to repeat Columbine. He has been serving a half-century prison sentence since 2002.

16-year-old Jeffrey Wise was much more determined. On March 21, 2005, before going to a showdown with schoolchildren, he shot his grandfather and his lady. At his school in Red Lake, Minnesota, he killed seven and injured five people. At the same time, he tried to copy the shooters from Columine. Since one of their victims was a Baptist, it was rumored that the shooters asked her if she believed in God, and allegedly this question was addressed to other victims. The FBI did not later confirm this information. As eyewitnesses later claimed, Wiz asked the same question to one of the students.

Do you want to play a game?

Developer Danny Ledonne was also affected by Columbine. And in 2005, he created the computer game Super Columbine Massacre RPG, completely repeating the massacre of 1999. Creepy shooter minute by minute simulates the day of the tragedy. The scenes are accompanied by real photos and videos from the scene. The goal is to shoot as many people as possible.

It was in this by no means harmless “shooter” that car mechanic Kimvir Gill, one of the followers of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, often played. On September 13, 2016, a Canadian with a rifle, sawn-off shotgun and pistol entered the building of Dawson College in Montreal and began firing left and right. As a result, he wounded 20 people and shot an 18-year-old student, and he himself got a bullet in a shootout with the police.

Just like Harris, Gill kept a “hate blog”, which no one looked at in time either. The man liked to wear military-style clothes and handled weapons well. He received combat training and was a member of a hunting club, which gave him the right to own a small arsenal. On his blog, he even published pictures with a carbine, with which he later went to shoot children.

Surpassed "teachers"

The massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg was carried out on April 16, 2007 by South Korean student Cho Seung-hee. The man started the massacre from the student hostel. With two pistols in his hands, he shot everyone who got in his way. Then he moved to the educational building. In total, he killed 32 people, wounded 25 more. He left a farewell video in which he mentioned "martyrs Eric and Dylan". In terms of the number of victims, this massacre became the second mass execution in the United States. In the first place - the terrorist attack at the elementary school "Beth" in 1927.

In the same way

One of the most recent shootings occurred on December 14 at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Although, after the investigation, the connection with Columbine was not directly discovered, 20-year-old Adam Lanza repeated the senseless actions of the "predecessors". Before heading to the slaughterhouse, Lanza shot and killed his mother. In elementary school, his targets were six- and seven-year-olds. He killed 20 kids, six adults, and wounded two more. In total, 28 people died in the massacre, including the shooter himself. As a result, in terms of mass, this case ranked third in the history of murders in US educational institutions.

It is also known about at least three prevented massacres, when the future killers could be calculated in advance.

"Russian Klebold"

In September 2017, Russia experienced the American tragedy 18 years ago. , which later hit the teacher on the head. Before the attack, a post appeared on the student's social media page “I delete my life 09/05/17”. According to one version, the student was bullied by classmates for being strange and wearing military-style clothes, and he could even come to class with camouflage paint on his face. He took the nickname not just speaking, but directly pointing to the "idol". Mike Klebold - indicated on his page on the social network. The 15-year-old "Ivanteevsky Strelka" is really called Mikhail, but no one paid any attention to the seemingly fictitious surname before the tragedy.

The student was detained by a special forces squad that arrived at the scene. A criminal case was opened against him under the article “Attempted murder”.

Video: Channel Five

Not virtual reality

Augmented reality glasses, super-clear graphics - technologies that are improving every year and ... help teenagers immerse themselves in a world of violence and murder, where, if something goes wrong, a new life will appear, and a difficult level can be replayed. It is generally impossible for teenagers to understand that the “next level” will be at best in a psychiatric hospital or a penitentiary institution. Yury Zinchenko, chief freelance psychologist of the Ministry of Health, in an interview portal iz.ru told how to work with teenagers stuck in their own world of illusions, formed by social networks, games and media.

“There are many pain points in the adolescent environment: a high level of aggression and senseless cruelty, suicidal behavior and the use of psychoactive substances, escape from reality into a fantasy world and computer addiction. Solving problems by attacking rather than finding a compromise is often promoted in movies and social networks. The reasons for such a crisis are the glorification of violence, the depreciation of human dignity and the fetish of personal success according to the principle “the end justifies the means”. The value of human life is significantly underestimated thanks to the same computer games, where a character can have ten or a hundred of them. It is foolish to expect that increased school security will save the situation. Conversations with teenagers that violence is bad are unlikely to have an effect either. It is necessary to correct the attitudes and behavior of children, to help them correctly express their position and emotions. But as long as we go into discussions about whether children need psychological support, who should do it and how, the situation will only get worse,” says Yuriy Zinchenko.

The "super predator" theory

In the 90s, the statistics of juvenile delinquency in the United States simply rolled over. Since 1983, the number of murders committed by teenagers with firearms has tripled. At the same time, since 1980, the number of victims of "street wars" has quadrupled. And this category of murders was the fastest growing. For the first time, the criminologist John Dilulio, professor of political science and social science at Princeton University, spoke about child killers in 1997. In the Weekly Standard, he published an article titled "The Rise of the Super Predators" in which he spoke of the dreaded "demographic crime time bomb." The political scientist assured that the "explosion" would occur as soon as the number of 14-17-year-olds with illegal inclinations reached half a million.

In response, the University of Pennsylvania criminologist Marvin Wolfgang objected to him. He conducted a study according to which only 6% of boys commit serious murder-related crimes. And, accordingly, by the year 2000, when, according to the theory of "super predators" in America, there should be at least half a million young criminals, there will be only 30,000 of them, that is, the same 6% of the total number of teenagers. Another crininologist, Mark Blumstein, attributed the rapid rise in homicides since 1985 to the emergence of a new drug, crack. According to him, the dealers hired countless teenagers, supplying them with both drugs and weapons. The theories were quickly forgotten, and the term from the loudest of them about "super predators" migrated to the political sphere.

Information about Columbine is still freely available on the Internet. The tragedy turned into a "heroic saga" for adolescents with an unformed psyche and destructive behavior. The “feat” is repeated at various intervals by the followers of an absurd cult, who are now rightfully called “super losers” and do not really remember the names of the successors of the gloomy story.

Aniya Bataeva

In modern US history, the Columbine massacre has a special place. The massacre arranged by two teenagers shocked the whole country. This event led to a public controversy surrounding violent video games and permitting the purchase of firearms.

The Columbine School in Colorado was no different from thousands of similar educational institutions throughout the country. Here in the last class studied friends Eric and Dylan. They were distinguished by their heavy character and strange habits. A few years before the Columbine massacre occurred, students found themselves in the police because of disorderly conduct and theft of a computer.

Young people clashed with their peers. Eric Harris went to see a psychiatrist because he was diagnosed with depression. He was taking medication that could have had a negative effect on his behavior. Friends ran a blog on the Internet, where they posted amateur videos related to the production of explosives and weapons.

A clear action plan has been developed

On April 20, 1999, Eric and Dylan planned an explosion at their own school. To do this, they secretly engaged in the production of various bombs for several months. According to their plan, they were to plant explosives in the school cafeteria and go outside. After the detonator worked, the shooters were supposed to open fire on students and staff who ran out in a panic. In total, friends were going to kill up to five hundred people.

If the bombs were homemade by Eric and Dylan, then they had to resort to trickery to get the weapons. None of the shooters had yet reached the age of majority, so they asked a friend who went to Denver to buy guns. The girl was unaware of the plans of Harissa and Klebold.

The beginning of a terrible day on April 20, 1999

On April 20, 1999, friends came to their school. They went to the cafeteria, where they quietly planted bombs with detonators, after which they hurriedly went outside. However, the explosion did not happen at the appointed time. At first, Harris and Klebold decided to wait a few more minutes for reassurance. However, when nothing happened after that, they switched to plan B.

It consisted in the fact that the shooters took weapons from their car and went to the classrooms to arrange a massacre. Thus began the massacre at Columbine High School. As Harris took his gym bag with him, he was greeted by a school friend who asked him why he missed class. Instead of a clear answer, Eric said to a friend: “I like you. Leave. Go home." A minute later, this guy heard the first shots.

The shooter's first casualties

The first victims of the shooters were a couple who were sitting on the lawn in front of the school. The girl died immediately from bullet wounds, and her friend later became disabled. After that, the shooters opened indiscriminate fire on the guys who were in sight. So three friends were seriously injured, who decided that the high school students were just playing them.

Subsequently, the massacre at the Columbine school was transferred inside it. The shooters entered the building from the back entrance. Once in the western wing, they began to shoot those who were in the corridor. The next targets were the students sitting in the classrooms nearby. One of the teachers went to the library, from where she called 911. Soon the police learned about the incident. The outfit went to the school.

When the police arrived, Klebold and Hariss were already inside the building. The officers managed to notice the shooters through the window, after which a shootout ensued. However, no one was hurt or injured.

Tragedy broke out in the library

At this time, friends were heading to the library. This is where they killed the most people. Their victims were 10 students. They all hid under tables when Dylan Klebold and his comrade entered the room. However, this did not save them. Here, the shooting at the US Columbine School was carried out to kill. The killers came close to their victims and shot them in cold blood. Teenagers mocked the wounded and dumbfounded peers, asking them tricky questions about the desire to die and faith in God. The shooters were clearly enjoying themselves. According to surviving eyewitnesses, Klebold and Harris were constantly laughing and joking with each other.

In addition, the comrades took carbon dioxide bombs with them, which they decided to use directly in the library. One of them was thrown under the table where a school student was hiding. Some of the victims were fired as many as a dozen shots. When the friends left the library twenty minutes later, 12 people had already been killed in the school. Another teacher bled to death and died some time later. Thus, Klebold and Harris took the lives of 13 people. The list of the dead appeared in the media just a few hours after the tragedy.

Friends move to the dining room

The shooters descended into the dining room, where the failed bombs were still stored. Eyewitnesses recalled that while still in the library, one of the friends said that they would blow up the school anyway. Apparently, they went to the dining room to finally activate the explosives stored there. Surveillance cameras were working in the room, which recorded the guys in the last minutes of their lives. The comrades puzzled over how to detonate the bombs. They had a Molotov cocktail with them, which was produced in the garage in preparation for the attack on the school.

Harris threw the bottle at the place where the bombs were kept. Friends hurriedly left the room, expecting an explosion. It happened, but its power was not at all as deadly as the schoolchildren had hoped. A security camera recorded the moment the cafeteria was on fire, following the explosion of a fireball from a bomb.

The killers laid hands on themselves

In the meantime, an evacuation of students was organized on the street, who were injured even before the shooters were in the building. The police developed a plan of action. Special forces arrived on the scene. The situation was aggravated by the fact that no one knew the exact number of attackers on the school. Initially, the police believed that they were dealing with an organized terrorist attack in which a dozen people took part.

When the friends left the cafeteria, they headed back up to the top floor. From there began the last skirmish with the policemen who were on the street. Friends fired until they had almost no bullets left. Then the shooting at the US Columbine school ended, Hariss and Klebold went to the next room, where they committed suicide.

School storm

After the noise at the school subsided, the police still decided to storm. Special forces and sappers were sent there. The latter took up the library, where there were several failed bombs. They needed to be neutralized in the first place, as they interfered with the evacuation of the wounded and the removal of the corpses. Soon, the sappers were informed that explosives were also stored in the teenagers' car. They were also disposed of, and no one else was hurt. It turned out that the shooters did not take with them all their ammunition. Explosives and ammunition were found in the car.

However, when SWAT was in the building, it became clear that the shooters had already been finished. Their bodies were found nearby in a burning room on the top floor. Apparently, Eric Harris left behind a Molotov cocktail that crashed and started a fire. This was evidenced by the smoke detector signal, which worked a minute after the death of teenagers. Suicides fired shots in the mouth and temple. Death for them came instantly.

Together with the names of the shooters, the list of the dead includes 15 people. In memory of the victims, a memorial complex was built in the city. At the time when the shooting at Columbine School had just happened, it was the third largest such incident in US history by the number of victims. We are talking about massacres in educational institutions. However, it was this case in Colorado that became world famous.

The reason for this was the work of the then media. Soon there were dozens of reporters from various television channels and newspapers near the school. The tragedy also resonated with the international community. It was the journalists who drew the attention of every American to what happened in an ordinary provincial school. The society demanded the results of the investigation by the responsible authorities.

Since that April day, the whole world has known that the Columbine School exists. The year 1999 remained in the mass consciousness associated with this tragedy. The word "Columbine" has become winged. Unfortunately, similar incidents of shootings in US educational institutions, including schools and universities, continue to be repeated.

In 2007, a similar tragedy occurred at Virginia Tech when 33 people died. A few years later, gunfire broke out at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It killed 28 people.

Investigation results

When the names of the shooters became known to the police, investigators immediately went to their homes. They feared that important evidence would be destroyed. That did not happen. The investigation continued until January 2000, when details of what had happened were made public. Until that moment, various conspiracy theories of what happened were popular in the United States. For example, teenagers were considered religious fanatics who staged a massacre at the Columbine School. The year 1999 was generally full of scandals related to various totalitarian sects.

Public outrage

After the details of the life of two shooters from Colorado became clear, there were several media scandals. Investigators found Harris' diaries, where he described in detail his impressions of the computer game Doom. In this shooter you need to shoot at numerous monsters. Many Americans accused the game of promoting violence. In addition, the public criticized several groups that teenagers listened to. Rammstein musicians from Germany were especially persecuted. They were known for their provocative entourage on stage.

In addition, the lyrics of their songs often touched on the topic of violence, hatred and intolerance. Members of the group denied all accusations and condemned the shooters. A similar campaign was waged against Marilyn Manson. This American performer was noted for having prepared a special publication in the press, in which he talked about the causes of the tragedy. In addition, the musician wrote two songs dedicated to what happened at the Columbine school.

There was a heated discussion about the sale of firearms. In the aftermath of the tragedy, several states introduced laws prohibiting or restricting such trade. American law has a number of features. General federal regulations do not apply in such matters. Each subject of the state decides in its own way whether to allow or prohibit the sale of weapons. The same rules apply to the regulation of the death penalty, etc.

On the morning of September 5, at school No. 1 in Ivanteevka near Moscow, 15-year-old student "9A" Mikhail P. attacked computer science teacher Lyubov Kalmykova.

As the students of the school told Novaya Gazeta, the incident occurred at the third lesson in the classroom on the second floor. Mikhail P. entered the office after the bell rang, shouting: “I came here to die!”

The prosecutor's office confirmed that the teenager hit the teacher on the head with a kitchen hatchet.

“Then the teenager began to blow up home-made firecrackers in the classroom and opened fire with pneumatic weapons,” an Interfax source told the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Ksenia Mishonova, Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Moscow Region, told Interfax that classmates closed themselves in the laboratory during the attack, several people jumped out of the window and received bruises and fractures.

As a result, according to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region, four people were hospitalized: a teacher in intensive care with a severe head injury and three students - their bruises and fractures - a consequence of a jump from a window on the second floor of the school.

Ð ð ðurba ¾ððices ðºitary official ð³ðices ðèorn ð¾ðµ ð ð² ð ð ðµð²ð ° ° ° ð ñ ðitaryº 9 ð ð ð ð¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿arch ел в ÑÐºÐ¾Ð»Ñ Ñ ÑÑавмаÑиÑеÑким пиÑÑогѾРÑаÑдами, еÑÑÑ Ð¿Ð¾ÑÑÑадавÑие деÑи и ÑÑ Ð¸ÑÐµÐ»Ñ pic.twitter.com/KX2v8Ctxbe

— Press Focus (@Press_Focusnik) September 5, 2017

"Accumulated over three years": bullying, aggression, camouflage, berets

On September 5, on the page of Mikhail P. "Vkontakte", the status is indicated: delete my life 09/05/17 (delete my life 09/05/17).

Michael was seriously fond of weapons. For at least the entire last year, most of his messages have been devoted to weapons: their varieties, devices, and applications. If you scroll through the message feed of a schoolboy, you get the feeling that nothing but weapons really interested him at all. Some messages are devoted to the topic of death.

The students of the first Ivanteev school, whom Novaya Gazeta managed to contact, said that Mikhail was extraordinary and aggressive. “He walked around in berets and camouflage pants, although he wore glasses,” said Semyon L., who was in the class a year younger than Mikhail.

Mikhail's relationship with schoolchildren is confirmed by the words of his sister, as well as another school teacher. The first says now: “Yes, he did it, because he had accumulated over three years ... His classmates, they hurt him in every possible way, and it annoyed him.” Teacher: "He shouted something like: I've been waiting for this for three years, but I don't know him long enough to explain it somehow."

Mikhail has only 4 friends. Together they share a video filmed back in April 2017, where a student brings a gun in a musical instrument case to class and kills a physics teacher he doesn’t know. The video was filmed in a Russian school.

Screenshot of the page with a video about the murder of a teacher by a schoolboy

Even earlier, in February of this year, Mikhail makes a repost of similar content. There is no violence yet. The message in another: “when the class started talking about shootings in schools” - everyone looks at me. For Michael? Repost it comments: "vital".

Screenshot of the post by Mikhail P., who fired at the Ivanteevskaya school Dylan Klebold

The community that Mikhail is reposting this time is called "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold / VoDKa and Red". It is dedicated to the tragedy at the American Columbine School.

"Columbine"

USA, 1999. Two high school students, having obtained weapons (a shotgun, a semi-automatic pistol, gas cylinders), staged a massacre at the Columbine School.

13 people were killed and 26 wounded. Harris and Klebold committed suicide.

Criminal case adjusted for age

The detained teenager will be accused under the article "Hooliganism". The student will have to undergo a psychiatric examination - the media report that he has already been seen by a psychiatrist.

School number 1 Ivanteevka. Photo: Sergey Savostyanov / TASS

school shootings

In February 2014, a high school student, taking his father’s gun and rifle, broke into school No. 263 in the Moscow district of Otradnoye and shot geography teacher Andrei Kirillov. When the police arrived at the building, the teenager opened fire, wounded the senior sergeant and shot the ensign. The high school student was persuaded to surrender by his father, he contacted his son several times by phone, and then entered the school with the police, wearing a bulletproof vest. The arrest was carried out by SOBR soldiers.

At first they said that a 15-year-old schoolboy who was going to the medal had a conflict with Kirillov. But then, in an interview with Izvestia, the attacker himself said that he was going to die, he was "interested in what will happen after."

In 2016, the Moscow District Military Court released the attacker from criminal liability and sent him to compulsory psychiatric treatment.

Our selection presents cases of school massacres committed by teenagers. Cruel and pointless..

On the morning of September 5, a monstrous incident occurred in Ivanteevka, near Moscow: a 9th grade student burst into the computer science office with a cry: “I came here to die,” after which he attacked the teacher, hitting her on the head with a kitchen hatchet. The crazy teenager did not stop there, he opened fire from a traumatic pistol and began to scatter smoke bombs around the class. His frightened classmates, trying to escape, jumped out of the windows.

The offender was captured by school security and handed over to the arriving police. The teacher and several students who received fractures while jumping out of the window were hospitalized, now nothing threatens their lives.

It was possible to find out that the student had been preparing for the attack for a long time. According to his social media page. net, he was keenly interested in mass murder and was a fan of Dylan Klebold, a teenager who staged a brutal massacre at Columbine High in 1999.

Why is this even happening? Why do apparently well-off teenagers grab weapons and go to kill their teachers and classmates?

Perhaps we can answer these questions if we recall the most resonant mass killings in schools.

February 3, 2014. School No. 263, Otradnoe, Moscow, Russia

Tenth-grader Sergei Gordeev, armed with a rifle and a carbine, burst into the geography classroom and killed teacher Andrei Kirillov with two shots.

When the police arrived at the school building, Gordeev opened fire on the police, as a result of which senior sergeant Sergei Bushuev was mortally wounded.

Gordeev was detained and taken to a pre-trial detention center. At trial, his lawyer insisted that the teenager was mentally ill:

“He thinks that he invented all of us, that now he will close his eyes, and all those who are not interested in him will disappear. He told his own mother that she was his illusion.

According to the lawyer, his defendant committed the murder in order to prove the theory of solipsism - a doctrine that claims that the whole world around us exists only in your imagination. Gordeev also planned to commit suicide.

By a court decision, Sergei Gordeev was declared insane and sent for compulsory treatment to a psychiatric hospital.

April 20, 1999. Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, USA

One of the worst massacres in US history took place at the Columbine School.

At 11:10 a.m., two heavily armed high school students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold parked in their cars outside the school building and planted two timed bombs in the school cafeteria.

The youths planned to wait for the explosions on the street, and then shoot all the people running out of the building. Schoolchildren hoped to destroy about five hundred people in this way, but the bombs planted in the canteen did not work. Then the frustrated criminals burst into the school and started shooting at everyone who fell into their field of vision. They killed one teacher and 12 students, the youngest of whom was 14 years old. More than 20 people were injured. After the massacre, the killers committed suicide: each shot himself in the head.

Harris and Klebold come from wealthy, respectable families. Both were not popular at school and were addicted to computer games. As follows from their personal diaries, they began preparations for the massacre in the year of the tragedy.

December 14, 2012. Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, USA

This crime is especially horrendous because young children were its victims.

In the morning, 20-year-old Adam Peter Lanza shot dead his sleeping mother, armed himself with several pistols and rifles from her weapons collection, got into his car and drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School.

At 9:35 a.m., he burst into the building and shot children and teachers for 11 minutes. Then, hearing that the police were approaching, he shot himself. This happened between 9-46 and 9-53.

The victims of the 10-minute massacre were 26 people: 20 children aged 6 to 7 years and six women. The headmistress and school psychologist were killed while trying to stop the killer, 4 teachers died trying to save the children and covering them with their bodies.

dead children

The motives behind the brutal massacre remained unclear. Adam Lanza was born into a prosperous family, his mother was a teacher and collected weapons. It was on her that all the weapons from which her son shot at his victims were registered. Adam was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism, which, however, is not characterized by aggressive behavior. He was distinguished by increased anxiety, was fond of computer games and did not eat meat, not wanting to be the cause of animal suffering ...

March 11, 2009. Albertwil-Realschule College, Winnenden, Germany

A former student of the school, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer fired his father's pistol, which killed 15 people. At first he acted in the school building, and then moved to the streets of the city, where he killed several more people. Once surrounded by police, Kretschmer shot himself.

The motive for the brutal crime was the refusal of the girl whom Kretschmer was courting to meet with him. This girl studied at the school where the massacre took place, and was one of the first to be killed.

November 7, 2007 Jokela Lyceum, Tuusula, Finland

18-year-old student Erik Auvinen staged a gun shooting at his school. 8 people were killed: 6 students, a school principal and a nurse. After the massacre, Auvinen fled to the men's room and shot himself in the head.

On the eve of the tragedy, Auvinen posted a video on YouTube titled "Massacre at Jokel School - 11/7/2007". The film contained photographs of the school and of Auvinen himself with weapons, as well as excerpts from amateur videos of Klebold and Harris, who staged a massacre at the Columbine school. Auvinen was a quiet and shy teenager who was bullied by his peers, while he himself bullied elementary school students. The killer was fond of computer games, was interested in weapons and wanted to leave a memory of himself. He hated gays, single parents, and couples in love. He began planning the massacre back in March.

March 24, 1998. Jonesboro School, Arkansas, USA

On that fateful day, Jonesboro School students 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Johnson Mitchell opened fire on children in the schoolyard. The weapon was stolen by Mitchell from his own grandfather. The shooting killed four children aged 11 to 12 and a teacher who shielded the students with her body. More than 10 people were injured.

students and teacher killed in shooting

Police arrived at the scene and arrested the teenage killers.

Golden and Mitchell were never able to explain what was the motive for the crime. According to some reports, they were fond of the occult. The criminals received 8 and 10 years in prison and are currently at large.

March 21, 2005. Red Lake School, Minnesota, USA

16-year-old teenager Jeffrey Weese shot 9 people and then committed suicide. Jeffrey's first victims were his grandfather, a retired police officer, and his girlfriend. Having dealt with them and armed with two pistols and a shotgun that belonged to his grandfather, Wiz went to his school, where he killed seven more people: five students, a teacher and a security guard. According to eyewitnesses, during the murders, Wiz did not leave a smile on his face.

After a shootout with the arriving police, the teenager locked himself in one of the offices and shot himself in the head with a shotgun.

Wiz was a quiet and shy boy who was bullied by his classmates. He did poorly in school, was obsessed with computer games, and admired Hitler. 4 years before the tragedy, his father committed suicide. After some time, Jeffrey's mother, suffering from alcoholism, died in an accident, so the grandfather, with whom Wiz was in conflict, was raising the teenager.

In a school near Moscow in Ivanteevka, a teenager opened fire with a pneumatic weapon, frightened by the shooting, the children jumped out of the windows. Three children and a computer science teacher, who is in intensive care after being hit with a hammer, were injured.

At a school in Ivanteevka near Moscow, a student of class 9A opened fire in the classroom with a traumatic pistol, TASS reports citing a police source. School number 1, where the shooting occurred, was evacuated. "A police cordon was set up around the building, people in helmets took all the children out of the school outside," the source said.

"Today, in one of the schools in the village of Ivanteevka, Moscow Region, a student born in 2002 scattered smoke bombs in the classroom and fired a shot from a pneumatic weapon. Four people were hospitalized," the Interior Ministry said.

Pistol, axe, firecrackers

The case of hooliganism

Mayor Elena Kovaleva on Instagram wrote that there was no shooting at the school. "During the conflict, no shots were fired, as well as the use of firearms. There was a slight fire, which was eliminated before the arrival of fire crews. At the same time, in order to prevent an emergency, children were evacuated," she explained.