To add onto the Cassie story, you know Evangelicals could have latched onto the other girl who actually did say yes. It could have been like, "See? She didn't denounce Christ, and so Christ saved her life". But the version where Cassie more or less chooses to die for God makes her a martyr. And that's why they prefer it. They prefer the story where someone is victimized for their faith, not saved by it. Because it plays into the wider persecution complex.

@cthulhutheendless1587

4 ай бұрын

I also feel like the family of the girl who lived wouldn’t want their daughter to be re-traumatised every time Evangelicals trotted her out as an example of their faith. She probably had lots of PTSD after that day and didn’t want to be a public spectacle.

@bird2793

17 күн бұрын

Reminds of of a line from *Angela's Ashes* (paraphrased): "So I'm supposed to be a martyr for my faith, and I'm also supposed to be a martyr for Ireland... Does ANYBODY want me to live?!"

I remember a school assembly where the parents of "the girl who said 'yes'" came and told us her 'story', including showing scans of her journals--just thousands of kids looking at this girls most private thoughts hand picked by her parents by how well what she wrote fit their narrative, right down to showing us her doodles, full of eyes crying blood and stars. They turned extremely normal doodles into phrophetic visions of her own death, down to counting how many tears or blood drops there were drawn on each page. It was sick. I know they're trying to process a terrible loss, but they were not doing it in a healthy way, they were profiting off their child's death, if not monetarily then in attention and adoration, and turning a normal girl into a prophet of her own 'inevitable' demise. It never sat right with me.

@cthulhutheendless1587

4 ай бұрын

I had the same assembly. The dad spoke at my school and a teacher sitting next to me audibly gasped and had to leave the auditorium halfway through. Walking out, I heard people discussing that Cassie was “in on it” with the shooters, her diary doodles seemed too prophetic to be coincidence. That was the weird, conspiratorial message we were left with. Not a belief in God. Not a martyr’s story. We were invited to speculate about why Cassie forecasted the exact number of victims.

@extrasupercoolbeans

3 ай бұрын

I remeber they came to our school too. They didn't even make us feel like we knew Rachel. Never spoke about how she had helped make the school play, or about her hobbies or interests. It was super weird, and uncomfortable.

@mj.l

Ай бұрын

@@extrasupercoolbeans anything to avoid discussing america's gun culture, and shoe-horning in some evangelical bullshit in there

Forgive my ignorance, but I had no idea those tiktoks were based on a story that came from Columbine, I thought it was just Evangelicals being weirdos. I mean, it's still gross knowing they had inspiration, maybe even more so knowing what it is.

1:13:10 actually yes in my freshman year when Stoneman Douglas happened my chemistry teacher had the school shooting talk with us and he said and I quote “there’s a lot of sharp things in here. There’s a lot of glasses here; there’s a lot of pencils and pens , there’s a lot of instruments, use them.”

@lilith6072

3 ай бұрын

horrifying

@alexv6068

Ай бұрын

yup, 2017 i was in high school here in las vegas after the mandalabay shooting by that one old white guy... we got the "fight or flight" training scenario where some chubby cop showed us a video of some kids acting out a school shooter scenario. fake blood and literal "crisis actors" with some bs lecture at the end of "see something, say something". which got me (trans ftm) a free pass every week to the deans by groyper white boys... no mention on how our republican state govt blocked bans on even bump stocks after the massacre

As a recovered member of the evangelical cult I so bought into the she said yes story. I had a shirt from 2000 that said "yes I believe in God." Smaller print on the back around the collar it said "she said yes". I wore it until it had holes in it lucky for me so did my faith since I'm so freaking queer.

I’m glad you addressed some of the criticism of Dave Cullen. Among those who have extensively studied the topic, Cullen is largely considered a joke at best. Author of Comprehending Columbine, Ralph W. Larkin, summarizes the issues well via Temple Press: “[Cullen’s] book contains numerous problems, the first of which is that Mr. Cullen goes well beyond the facts of the case to produce an almost novelistic approach to the shootings. He gives Eric Harris a sex life that that has no verification; he gives them emotions that are impossible to know; he attributes sophisticated knowledge of architecture to the two shooters in the placement of the bombs for which there is no evidence. Worst of all, he ignores an existing trail of evidence of rampant bullying at Columbine High School, eyewitness evidence of public humiliations of Klebold and Harris by members of the football team, and statements of the boys both before and during the assault of their intentions to target the so-called jocks. Their videotapes and their writings were obsessed with gaining retribution against jocks. Instead, Cullen, who was heavily influenced by FBI profiler Dwayne Fusilier, labeled Harris a ‘psychopath,’ and Klebold ‘a depressive,’ and attributed the shootings to their mental disorders. This is psychological reductionism at its worst.”

@morbidsearch

4 ай бұрын

It's cursed how he shares a name with that Irish KZreadr who's so far right that he called Sargon of Akkad a Marxist.

@EmoBearRights

Ай бұрын

​@@morbidsearchI guess it's a relatively common name especially for those who idealise the wrong people.

I really wish the "mental health" discussion was put to rest regarding school shooters. The issue here is not feelings of the killers... its their beliefs. They believed that their "pain" was more important that the lives of their peers. The issue is not a lack of therapy its their entitlement.

@ZijnShayatanica

5 ай бұрын

Entitlement can still be addressed by mental health professionals - there are many causes beyond just being a generic asshole. It's important to advocate for mental health resources, even w/o the risks of mass shootings. However, I agree to an extent - several ideological shootings have been handwaved as a "mental health" problem.

@redmaple1982

5 ай бұрын

@@ZijnShayatanica But muderous entitlement is not a matter of feeling. It is a belief/value. The issue is not a lack of therapy the issue is indoctrination.

@ZijnShayatanica

5 ай бұрын

@@redmaple1982 While compassion cannot always solve the problem, extending a hand to children who've been radicalized stands a chance of combating the indoctrinated beliefs. When someone's been taught that society is a matter of "us VS them" that can only be solved through violence... That cannot change in a vacuum. As a first choice for harm reduction, especially for children, they need to have resources which provide the tools for perspective-taking & broadening their worldview. At least as a start. That's within the purview of mental health assistance - therapy tackles the beliefs which guide our behaviours... While it won't fix everyone, it's not like it's an egregious suggestion to make & it's myopic to assert that it won't help anyone.

@redmaple1982

5 ай бұрын

@@ZijnShayatanica radicalization actually proves my point. Full deradicalization may come after an energy intense and patient process of deprograming but more often than not deradiclaization happens after a somone is recipient of their ideology's cruelty, a moment of disgust inducing contradiction, or when connection to an ideology comes at the expense of somthing the believer values deeply. Short of attacking the root problem (male entitlement) and the key enabler (lax gun laws) the only way to deal with this issues is consequences specifically for violent/sadistic behaviors.

@ZijnShayatanica

5 ай бұрын

@@redmaple1982 You hit the nail on the head, especially concerning the triggers of a breaking point - those are common themes I've seen in ex-cult members, ex-fascists, gov't whistleblowers, & others who've turned away from enabling a shitty system they previously upheld.

I was an obviously depressed 7th grader that got kicked out two weeks later in the panic that swept the nation. The pulled me out of science class and the principal screamed at and integrated me. I was an A student. My mom brought me to school the next day. The gym teacher stopped me at the door and took me to a room with all three principals of the whole school sat across from me while my parents were called back to the school. Most of it was terrible, but I remember my dad really stood up for me that day. I think there were three of us that got kicked out. One of the kids sued. Like I already knew I was a weirdo but damn. The thing I really remember is my Dad standing up for me. The next year my science teacher was one of the principals and highway from quiet kid to little shit. I can't remember his name but I appreciate him. For years after other kids would ask if their names were on my list and I would tell them," I don't even know what you're name is." That top line must have been across the page and down the side, but I never saw it. I also remember them running dogs through the school for drugs.

@mj.l

Ай бұрын

that's so fucked up. i'm sorry. this is what education in a crumbling police state consists of.

In an age where school shootings are horrifically normalized in the US, I really appreciate how choked up you (all) get over this and your dedication to presenting the facts and respecting the victims.

At my school, there were three levels of emergency drills besides fire drills. Lockout - there is an active threat in the area surrounding the school, no one comes in or out of the building. Shelter in Place - non-threatening emergency in the school building (ie. medical emergency) where the halls needed to be clear but there was no threat to other students. Lockdown - active shooter drills, as described in the podcast. I'm 24, so I've never lived in a pre-columbine world. We had a bomb threat and evacuation in elementary school. A shooting threat in high school that resulted in two students being suspended and banned from the graduation ceremony. And a handful of "joke" bomb threats that were common enough that I don't remember how many there were. "joke" as in, someone thought it was funny to write "bomb" on the bathroom wall. Teachers had plans on how to barricade their rooms, pushing filing cabinets in front of the door and using fire extinguishers as weapons. And this is all normal in schools now. We had a cop in our high school, just sat at a desk by the main office all day. There were a few who would rotate duty, probably around the different schools in the district. I felt more nervous knowing there was an armed cop in the school than secure.

I teach in an elementary school. We are mandated to hold shooter drills at least once per semester. Hide, run, or fight. In that order. That's what I have to teach 7 year olds. (Babies, you have full permission to use scissors or desks, to bite or claw or kick. Survive is the only goal.) I also tell them that I will make sure they are safe, but I know that's a lie. My dead body will only slow down a gunman. I was in high school in 1999. I remember the fear, the threats, the constant reference to bullying as the cause. The middle schoolers at my school have never known a different fear-free environment. At least 2 lock downs per year, some semi-real (bomb threats from assholes, etc) and most were drills, have made 12 year olds block off the fear and switch to sarcastic coping mechanisms. I don't blame them. I cry for their stunted childhoods.

@Spamhard

2 ай бұрын

I did wonder. My thoughts when I heard the "turn off lights and hide against walls and under tables" drills was like. Shooters are going to know this. They can only get fooled by this for so long before they just check simple hidings spots before moving on. There comes a point where 'fight' has to be added. It sucks and should never have to be anyone's responsibility in the first place. Especially not kids, and especially not teachers who are underpaid already. Sadly it's already been proven that the cops paid to actually protect these kids with their lives will turn tail at the first threat of violence and let others die because of it.

I'm 32. Virginia Tech Happened when I was either a sophomore or Junior in HS. Columbine I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Outside of random speakers at assemblies, there were never shooter drills (in my region of the country). Split custody father of a kiddo that will be 14 in a couple of months. I've been through a lot of life, but I don't think I've ever cried harder than 4 or 5 yrs ago after I dropped her off the first time she explained to me what they do during shooter drills.

i remember being told as a kid that we might be asked whether we love christ at gunpoint and that we should always answer yes regardless of consequences ah the joys of growing up evangelical

I remember my bullies saying that I was super creepy because I was nonverbal and goth and one day i would probably snap and go psycho from all the bullying... they were pretty stupid looking back on it

Was born in 1995 and was too young to really remember the Columbine shootings when it happened. I do remember Columbine being this justification for any measures the schools wanted to take. "Why do you want us to report if our classmates talk about violence?" or "why do all of the windows and doors have to be locked?" or "why do you have to stop class to search our bags when we've done nothing wrong?" Thankfully I made it through my public school years without incident except for one. There was an armed robbery at the bank down the street from the school. The thieves had drove off in the direction of the school, then crashed nearby, and continued their escape on foot. We were told it was possible they had run into the school and would try to hold students hostage so we had to huddle in place with desks shoved against the classroom entrance, in the dark, with no talking, waiting until they gave us the thumbs up for over three hours. I remember the fear at first, all of us being totally quiet and still. Then it would be so long we'd get bored and start to talk again or play on our phones before someone would hear footsteps, or claim they heard a voice in the hallway, or that they saw a gunman through the window, and all of us would dive under our desks again, waiting for it to be over. Some students were crying or trying to avoid panic attacks and kept asking the teacher if this was real or if this was just a drill, and when we would finally know. The teacher couldn't tell us anything except to be quiet. Thankfully it ended without anyone in the school being injured or killed but it did shake me up at the time. I remember spending the next few weeks thinking about how many back and side entrances the school had, how easily it would be to hop the fences or break a window, imagining escape plans if the shooter came in during my english class or walked through the back entrance of my chemistry lab. Sometimes I think the effect it has had on American childrens psyches is the worst thing of all, that we all have to be vigilant little detectives, thinking about all the ways someone could sneak in and kill us every day that we're supposed to be learning.

@QuikVidGuy

7 ай бұрын

Locking the windows is sick, considering one of the survivors escaped through a window and the killers didn't use them

In my school district, the active shooter training is different for kids and staff. Kids are taught to Run, Hide, Play Dead. Run to safe location if you can, Hide if you can’t run, Play Dead if you can’t hide. The staff are told Run, Hide, Fight. Fight with the goal of unaliving the shooter, and never hesitate.

Thank you, Hoots, for your diligent research and the sacrifice of your sleep. Thanks to all three of you for a respectful summary of these events. I was in high school when it happened; 14yrs old. The stark contrast from my school experience to my kiddo's is absolutely chilling.

In 10th grade biology, I passed out when we as a class were doing fetal pig dissections. My teacher called the office to have them call my mom to pick me up. For reasons unknown, instead of calling my mom, I was shuffled by school administration still delirious to the office. Once there, I was sat down and interrogated by the school resource officer demanding to know if I had been huffing something. In class. In front of 30 other students and 2 teachers. I wasn’t taken to the nurse or even asked if I was ok. Nothing says serve and protect quite like interrogating a 15 year old girl who passed out in class!

Grew up in the Denver suburbs, I was in 8th grade when it happened. The Cassie story was huge as I was also evangelical at the time, church youth groups ran with this myth so hard. A very popular shirt/bracelet/patch people wore said "Yes, I believe in God."

I fucking HATE the Dave Cullen book. It's a good source of information (particularly the JeffCo cover-up) but the absolute nuclear levels of conjecture kill the entire book for me. Journals should never be used to diagnose someone. Especially when A) you're not a doctor and B) your diagnosis is a made-up law enforcement concept intended to sell you on the death penalty. God, I hate this POS book.

When I was in seventh grade, the Rachel's Challenge organization (named for Rachel Scott) came to my school to talk to us. I believe others in the comments have already mentioned it, though this was definitely Rachel and not Cassie. They spoke to us with the thesis that bullying and social isolation were the root causes of the shooting. They also mentioned the April 20th birthday theory, but my memory of the event is hazy so I can't say for sure if they directly stated it was a fact or not. It was a very somber and unsettling few days at school, as they were educating us on the massacre in detail leading up to the event, and this was only a few years removed from when it happened. A lot of the students were clearly affected by the presentation and were trying to make good on the lesson by being nicer to each other, but the vibe was very odd. It felt like we were being nice for the sake of not "causing" someone to come in and kill us all one day. I don't want to seem like I'm shaming a grieving family, especially when the overall goal of encouraging kids to be nicer to each other is definitely noble, but I do think that the extent to which the misinformation permeated was dramatic because a lot of these incorrect ideas were being presented as fact to hundreds of kids in a public school in one of the biggest cities in the country almost a decade after the fact.

A respectful keeness to hear your continued work and I wish the three of you a kind and easy week

I was a big fan of the band Flyleaf back when I was a cringey little "Christian emo" and they had a song called Cassie that completely had me convinced this is what happened. To be fair, it was actually an ok ish song. But the message was if it boiled down to it, you should always be ready to die for God. Anyway I bring this up to point out how fundamentalist Christians co-opted this tragedy and turned it into religious propaganda that was being used on me a decade after it happened. I personally only knew about Columbine through the lens of this kind of narrative growing up.

@Iris_1217

7 ай бұрын

Oh man, I remember that one. I remember hearing it in someone's car. I thought it was weird back then. I remember one framed it as her basically "pulling the trigger" herself which has... unfortunate implications. Now that I have a fuller understanding of the context, the idea of profiting off of that is just... gross. As a former "Christian emo" turned anxious agnostic, I'd like to believe any god worthy of worship would give people a free pass to lie to save their own lives. But, yeah, they wanted religious propaganda to try to "rally the troops" while also making it look like they were being targeted for abuse and persecution way more than the groups they were actively persecuting. I don't know. It feels a little weird when people profit off of tragedy that... involves them, but only really *happened* to someone they were related to.

Active shooter trainings do actually now go by the protocol of "run, hide, fight," in order of availability. This is more recent, but I have had this training at multiple jobs and in high school. They do instruct students to fight against an active shooter, but only as the absolute last result, because it's such a risky move.

The part about how they thought things would actually change after recent shootings is so heartbreaking, I wish lawmakers would take these deaths seriously and work to keep kids safe. This was a really good series and Hoots did a great job presenting, as a non-American it was very enlightening.

So. I'm Canadian. I live in Barrie (2 ish hours from Toronto). Born in 1999. We had "Code Red" in Elementary School (Kindergarten-Grade 8). This was in case there was an intruder, someone suspicious or had previous history with attacking the school. We had to hide, be quiet, the Teacher turned off the lights & Locked the door. Sometimes the closest student had to. If you were in the hallway you were supposed to duck into the closest classroom but that wasn't practical cuz the door was closed immediately. Attendance was taken after the school was safe. That was my experience with "Shooter Drills". They were "Code Red".

I'm sure someone already mentioned this, but at least by the time I was in high school they did change the advice to " Run. Hide. Fight." Meaning run away if you can escape, if you can't escape, hide. And then if it comes to the shooter coming in, fight with whatever you have.

This is so wild because I remember being taught that you have to be prepared to die for Jesus (thanks to the She Said Yes book). I remember that rhetoric being everywhere at around 12 years old. The evangelical martyr complex was SO PREVALENT post-Columbine. It still is.

We had lock down drills my entire life in Canada since the early 2000s several times a year. I don’t remember a time where the students weren’t aware of the threat of shootings

We had our own school shooting in Germany when I was in High School. I can't remember anything changing about school security, but there was the obligatory discussion about video games in the media and a whole scandal because our resident shitty newspaper published the last name of the shooter, which is usually a no-go for criminal cases.

I'd say that its not only Sue Klebold's choice to open up and theorize about what aspects of her son's mental health were unknown to her, that might have caused him to become a violent mass murderer, that makes Dylan seem less responsible. It was also the Harris' questionable choices before the shooting. While Sue and Tom were missing the signs because their eldest child was abusing drugs and couldn't handle both struggles, or were less attentive than Sue remembers/chooses to remember. Wayne Harris was already keeping a diary about his son's behavior and choices. When the shooting was happening, he called 911 to say that he believed his son was "involved somehow". Yet, according to the Browns and others who spoke shortly after the shooting, the Harrises were very fond of the old adage "boys will be boys" and Eric is being judged by a society that doesn't understand how having all these weapons and acting out on the internet is not that bad. Kathy and Wayne Harris might be more private and less interested in sharing their thoughts, but they can also be quiet(er) than Sue because what they have to share is less appealing and wouldn't frame them as hapless, uninformed parents like the Klebolds, but as parents who actually knew something was going on with Eric and ended up defending the indefensible.

a lot of teachers through my time in middle and high school had their own unofficial plans for fighting back should a gunman enter your particular classroom. Teachers had baseball bats, kept fire extinguishers ready, and announced intentions to brandish chairs. My middle school choir teacher ten years ago suggested that we all grab something to throw to help disorient. otherwise it was literally like you were supposed to hide and make all the classrooms look empty. its been this way so long that would-be gunmen know and expect this.

There's always misinformation in the "legacy" - but I think a *big* part of the myth of the "bullied goths" was the fact that school shootings weren't commonplace in 1999. We (meaning "we" as the country, not like me and the boys or anything) were grasping for a reason for this horror... now it's like "welp, there's another one" and we (again, more the media than those of us who were in school or had kids in school, who still live in horror) barely notice. Same reason video games and Marilyn Manson were to blame. I mean, Brian is a [I'm not sure I can say what he is without KZread shutting down my comment] Very Bad Man who [allegedly I guess] did Very Bad Things, but he didn't do Columbine. Nor did whatever violent video games there were in 1999 like Doom or whatever. We needed to make a myth to comprehend the reality. Tale as old as time.

@VinceWhitacre

7 ай бұрын

Also I was briefly married at 23 to a school teacher (now that we're not married she's a lawyer, I'm just made of good decisions) and her union was being screwed by the board (tale as old as time...) and this little weasel man was the district's PR stooge and I hated his little punchable face. I saw that face on the news the next year. I guess he didn't stick in the job, he decided taking the PR job at the Jefferson County School District would be a step up. And that was weird, because I didn't like the weasel-man, because he spoke for the ahole school board and slandered the teachers (tAlE aS oLd...) but at the same time... somebody had to be in front of the cameras after the massacre, and you don't wish that on anyone.

@VinceWhitacre

7 ай бұрын

And yes, workplace active shooter WBTs are also ludicrous.

@VinceWhitacre

7 ай бұрын

Newton and Parkland are also especially grotesque with vultures (nah that's unfair to vultures) mosquitos like Al3x j0nes and his toadies calling them false flag or the survivors and parents "crisis actors." I am a DP abolitionist... but man, never have I so wished a civil case was eligible for the chair.

@lyokianhitchhiker

Ай бұрын

I’ve heard outside of taunting their victims during the shooting, most of the cases where Eric & Dylan were the bullies themselves were more retaliatory than anything. It’s just that between bully victims standing up for themselves being seen as demonizable, the fact that their retaliation methods against bullying involved giving the bullies a taste of their own medicine, & the fact that that the people reporting them for bullying were either the people bullying them or someone who had vested interest in taking the bully's side, it’s easy to see why people think they themselves were the bullies. There’s also the fact that as far as the shooting itself, don’t forget that none of the people they planned on killing were killed by them due to what planning they put into the shooting going out the window - the shooting being their backup plan & their plan A failing as epically as it did certainly not helping there. The fact that some of the people they actively let live were the sorts of people who people think would've been high school bullies was a case of "because you were nice to me".

@lyokianhitchhiker

Ай бұрын

@@VinceWhitacreI can relate

Okay, as a teacher who spent her entire childhood in post-Columbine public schools and then now is being trained on the lockdown/active shooter protocols, allow me to go real in depth on how these work and the problems I’ve spotted and that former coworkers and I have brought up to no effect. So yeah, as a child the drill was to lock classroom doors from the inside, hide in the corner or under furniture “somewhere,” and to be quiet until an all clear was called over the announcements. A lot of that has changed. Firstly, over time, they realized they had to stop the all clear announcement because the theory was that a shooter could get an administrator when they come through the front entrance and make them announce an all clear. I do not know if this is in response to an actual incident because I honestly can’t keep track of them all. Now you have to squat in the dark until a police officer lets you out (or an administrator during drills). But yes for 90% of the time and at most schools, “get low and hide silently in the dark and hope they don’t pick your room” was and is the going method. However, some recent changes have been happening in standard training protocols that are pushing for a more active resistance. Weirdly the best place I got trained on it was at the school I worked for in the Alaskan bush even though they’re still firmly in the “if I’m shooting someone it’s because I have beef with that one person” territory out there. Different companies sell different trainings (because of course we found a way to monetize school shootings) but the gist is if you know for a fact the shooter isn’t near your location, break a window or get to the nearest exit and don’t stop running until you get to a far away meeting point. If you are unsure or you think you hear them between you and the nearest exit, you do the squat in the dark thing, but they teach the students and teachers to arm themselves. Heavy books, chairs, backpacks, whatever they can grab and hold while they wait. If the shooter enters your room, they teach you to run in a zig zag pattern, make loud noises, and begin throwing everything you can at the shooter until someone (hopefully us teachers but in a high school they say anyone) can tackle them. If you can get the gun away, put it in the far corner of the room and keep everyone far away from it. They say do this so that when the cops come in they don’t shoot a victim, because they’ll shoot anyone with a gun before asking questions. If possible, use the school phone to call 911 and report your location and that you’ve gotten a shooter. Don’t shout for help or that you’ve taken down a shooter in case they have accomplices. As for the locking/securing of entrances, that is a whole fucking obnoxious thing, especially in schools built pre-Columbine and especially after they tried to lie that Uvalde happened because a teacher propped open a door. Which is ultimately untrue, but there’s still to this day “stop the prop” signs on every door of my previous school. So yes, one entrance will be unlocked all day, the front entrance. All other doors are supposed to be locked from the outside, but not from the inside, for fire safety. The other goal right now is keeping people from walking into the school or shooting a lock or whatever. So now, a lot of schools with those front entrances are building a little bulletproof reception window that from experience looks a hell of a lot like a prison visitation area so that nobody gets in or can even make physical contact with anyone in the school without being buzzed in. Effective, but makes coming to school a very cold and clinical experience. Most schools have also fenced off any areas with external doors to try and deter people from walking up while people are exiting and brute forcing their way in, or from coming up and shooting the door to get in. As for the issues myself and other teachers have brought up in the past that cops don’t have answers for: sometimes the outdoor areas of a school are a bigger challenge to safety than the inside. That school in Alaska I mentioned, that says bail out the window? It’s in Alaska. It’s built on snow stilts. The front of the school is about a 1.5 story drop from the window to the ground, unless you were in my classroom which faced the entrance ramp which was made out of metal with spiky shoe gripping stuff for traction. Imagine dropping a first grader onto that and having them stay quiet. The tallest parts because the ground wasn’t level were about 4 stories up in the air when there wasn’t snow, and still a good 1.5-2 in the winter when the snow drifts against it. I’d imagine if you dropped yourself into that snowbank, getting out might be harder than staying in the school, and in the summer you’re at best asking for broken legs and screaming in pain. At my other schools, the entire exterior except for the front entrance and the cafeteria where buses unload are surrounded by padlocked fences. Only “team leads” have keys. That’s 1 in 4-6 teachers on each hallway. So if you happen to be on the playground and your lead isn’t, or god forbid you can get your kids out but the team lead can’t because they’re at the other end of the hallway, great now you’ve got your kids in a big outdoor cage. Start chucking them over if they’re little, or asking a kid to help you boost them over if they’re bigger, is what the cops said. The other alternative was to unlock the gym door and then find the mechanism to roll up the big loud garage door in the back of the gym so you can get out that way, but they also never showed us how to do that. Another school had adjoining doors between classrooms. Like if three rooms are side by side in a hallway, they all have a door to the hallway and then a door to the room next door. Every year you never knew if the adjoining doors would be locked or unlocked, because the firefighters and the cops kept fighting over them and we didn’t have keys. If the cops won that year, they’d be locked so a shooter couldn’t go from room to room that way, but your fire escape plan and tornado drill plan is fucked because they’re secondary exits if the fire’s in the hall and the way you get to a windowless room in a tornado drill. If the firefighter wins, it’s unlocked for those reasons but the school officer will get mad at you, the teacher, during lockdown drills and then look confused when you say you don’t have a key for it. A good SRO will tell you that’s not okay and that they’ll “do something about that” that never gets done, a bad SRO will act like you’re stupid and don’t know which of your two keys does it. TL;DR- they’re making changes to active shooter drills but trying to walk the fine line between shooter safety and accessibility and other kinds of safety is frustrating, upsetting, and contradictory. Edit: hey! I also had a moose walk by my window at that school in Alaska! They are that tall, we could see most of its torso from that window I described.

It's crazy to ask someone about what would have obviously been a traumatic experience just out of curiosity.

These were a bunch of harrowing but important episodes. You are an incredible writer, Hoots, so thank you for emersing yourself in this absolute shittery. Y'all, but especially Hoots, take care of yourselves now!

The first time I heard the 'she said yes' story was when another youtuber I used to watch covered a Christian movie about that... except that was about a third girl entirely. It's awful how that story has been exploited by people.

@bird2793

17 күн бұрын

Say Goodnight Kevin?

@NateDHWT2023

17 күн бұрын

@@bird2793 different youtuber, cinema snob. Someone more popular in the angry reviewer days who worked with channel awesome and still does (hence why I don't watch anymore.)

@bird2793

14 күн бұрын

@@NateDHWT2023 Yeah, I remember him. Definitely more of the "asshole atheist" variety

You guys didn't touch on it, but the biggest problem i see with the she said yes story were the evangelical churches that encouraged their youth to martyr themselves. It wasn't a hugely widespread practice but it was something church leaders taught their youth to want

Absolutely stunning work on this series. You stayed respectful in keeping the victims as the main focus and the ending to each part was incredibly poignant and brought tears to my eyes each time. Thank you.

This episode was harder for me to listen to particularly because I grew up in the same county as Parkland and it made me think a lot about how much an entire community grieves after a mass shooting and the legacy of Parkland in particular. The sixth anniversary of Parkland is coming up in a couple months (February 14th) and I still think a lot about how much our community was affected long after the national attention turned away. The grief ripples out in waves, obviously affecting the victims and parents most strongly, but it touches on other people in unexpected ways. I didn't know anyone personally, I was long out of high school at that time, but my youngest sister was in high school at the time. She knew one of the victims, she had friends who attended the school, she struggled with going to school after that. (We were zoned for a different school, but there was a community wide rumor that the shooter was going to go to her school as a secondary target, I still don't know if this is true because I can't look at the details of this case, but it doesn't matter, the rumor served its purpose to spread fear among the kids returning to school). My birthday was a few days after the shooting and I spent my birthday lunch with my mom trying to explain to her why the kids who had just gone through this shooting would feel so strongly about gun control and how important it is an issue. There's so much more I could talk about with my family by itself, and to see this replicated with families all over the county, the collective and individual grief. It's so much, and only more and more communities will know that pain as mass shootings continue to happen.

I was just over 4 months old when this happened, but growing up in the evangelical church it was overwhelmingly glorified and held as the standard of how to defend the faith. When I was old enough to realize the lies and that they were praising the deaths of children who didn't need to die it cemented my hatred of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity.

16:00 as a Boulderite I do take exception to Boulder (where the JonBenét case happened) being called a suburb of Denver lol. Agree that the Denver suburbs are cursed af. Colorado just gets worse the further south down i25 you go

I am so glad TikTok didn't exist when I was seventeen. I absolutely would have been one of these kids making these awful videos. It's absolutely insane what religious brainwashing does to a young mind, and wow I didn't expect to get this triggered in this specific religious trauma way from this video. 😅

fundie fridays has a really interestingepisode on cassie's story. It can not be said enough just how mcuh young evangelical girls were taught to idolize her and idolize the idea of being a martyr. I can remember being told countless times the importance of doing what she did in that situation. I can remember going to whole massive camps and events based around the idea that if given the oppertunity that I should do what she did. it was such a massive part of my childhood I honestly struggle to explain it. I was fully ready to let myself be ended for this idea by the age of like twelve

I could be wrong, but my mom is a recently retired elementary teacher, and she has talked to me about how in her final years, her school district pivoted toward telling teachers as part of their training to throw things at active shooters if they draw close. Basically create as much damage and chaos back to try to convince them to move on or to potentially disarm them in the chaos. I don't know if they expected the kids to do any of this, but that was what the adults were asked to do. It feels more productive in a situation where a shooter is at the classroom door, but I was horrified of them asking my mom to do this, and I breathed a sigh of relief the day she retired.

My family moved to a small town in Colorado not far from Littleton around the same time the shooting happened. I was around 4 years old so I don't remember it, but some years later in 6th grade we had a memorable lockdown drill. It was an unplanned drill. No one knew it was a drill. I don't remember much of it other than silence, deep fear, and glueing my eyes to the classroom door and windows. Wondering if every noise outside would precipitate a gunshot. Most clearly I remember that after it was announced that it was over, everyone was sick and a bunch of kids went home. Also, fun fact: the Colorado state flower is the Columbine.

I was in my last year of middle school when Columbine happened. Before 9/11 it was definitely my most distinct memory of a division between pre-historical event and post-historical event. I remember watching the news almost nonstop for a few days after and especially the night of when the harried reporters were still figuring out what had happened. The school shooter drills kids grow up with today are so consistent and regimented but at the time, it seemed like every school was just trying their own thing to prevent it completely haphazardly. The high school I entered into the next year completely took away all lockers in an attempt to keep people from sneaking guns in. Then, they had all of us take our books and notebooks out of our backpacks at the start of class, and then leave the backpacks on the ground outside of every classroom so the vice principal could come by and do random checks for weapons. Nobody knew what they were doing. I don't think I even had a shooter drill that first year-- everything was focused on finding weapons and preventing it. I think the fact that shootings became more commonplace made it necessary to switch to a focus on survival rather than prevention, but in 2000, we were still naive enough to think these kinds of things could be stopped before they began. Even so, I think because it felt like such an anomaly in 1999, I never even considered that it could happen at my school. Most of us goofed off or rolled our eyes at all the new precautions because they felt so silly and reactionary. Columbine felt unique. I can't even imagine what it's like being much younger and routinely going through school shooting drills from kindergarten on-- being told to consider whether you should open your classroom door for your friend who's begging to be let inside, or to let them die rather than risk the rest of your class being shot. Or being taught by a second grade teacher to play dead... I could go through my entire childhood until high school without once considering that I could die at school, it's insane to me that people younger than me didn't.

Great retelling of the story . Huge props

I’m 24 years old and I used to have those types of drills at school. We even had a case where a loose criminal was near our school and we had to go into lockdown. Basically, our teachers would lock the door and turn off the lights. Then, we would all sit behind our desks near a wall. I remember a teacher one time explaining where we had to sit so that we couldn’t be hit from a window. Then, the principal or vice principal would go classroom to classroom and juggle the door handle to make sure they were locked. I also distinctly remember that we all had to remain silent and we had a bucket to use for emergencies if someone had to use the bathroom.

I work at a university and we require see-through bags / backpacks but only at large events like graduation and sports games. I was 10 when Columbine happened. By the time I started high school, we had metal detectors by the entrance, cameras in all the hallways, and a couple of chill cops that worked on site. Oh, and yeah we did active shooter drills.

fellow canadine here, graduated high school in 2023 in Ontario and we had SCOs and shooting drills and meatal detectors at the doors

I was born in 2000 and I did active shooter drills most of my school carrer. We would be taught how to lock doors with chairs and where to hide if anything where to happen. Hell some of my teachers encouraged the use of bullet proof book bags when i went to school in DC and we had metal detectors everywhere. I've lived my entire life under the shadow of mass shootings and dont know an america without them.

I mentioned that this happened basically in my back yard. I also have friends who are teachers, including one who was friends with a teacher who had known Dylan. He'd been her favorite student, and she just couldn't believe it. I don't have any point. I just... this is just one of the snapshots of the tragedy I've seen personally. Everything about it was terrible. I was just barely out of high school when this happened. So I've never experienced a lock-down drill. My kids do, though. And it makes me so angry that we live in this world that refuses to do anything to try to stop these shootings from happening. I also can't help but wonder how helpful these drills can really be when in all likelihood, a would-be shooter is also participating in those drills and knows exactly where these kids will be hiding and what they're being told to do. And it's impossible to know if Eric would've gone on to commit some other violent crime. Maybe. But the fact that teenagers' brains aren't finished developing really does mean it might've changed. It has happened. Mary Bell comes to mind. She was a literal child who murdered children, and decades later she actually lived a pretty normal life and was genuinely remorseful about the things she'd done.

@morbidsearch

4 ай бұрын

*country, not world

@angiep2229

4 ай бұрын

@@morbidsearchBy world I was more talking about life, existence, etc, but your point is valid. I did not mean to imply that the U.S. is the world or that the rest of the world is like the U.S. Thank you.

On the topic of school shooting drills, in my experience we had one every year until high school hit… then we started having them every month. It was exhausting.

To say there aren’t active shooter drills in Canadian schools is accurate, but I do want to add that (at least in my experience) the general lockdown drills got increasingly shooter-oriented starting somewhere near the middle of the 2010s. I graduated high school in 2021, for context. In elementary school our lockdown drills assumed we might face a small-scale threat- an angry divorcee kidnapping the child they lost custody of, a violent conflict between two students, a dangerous wild animal in the building, etc. The assumption was that a lockdown would happen from someone that wasn’t actively trying to harm anyone in sight. In middle school, they started telling us not to open the classroom doors even if we hear someone begging outside. In high school they had the school police (on that note, the idea of “school police” was somewhat alien to me until 10th grade) rattle the doors and try to get us to open them- sometimes by playing as an angry attacker, sometimes as a frightened student. The assumption became that if a lockdown was needed, it would be from a shooter or similar threat. Someone that would hurt anyone in their way.

I wrote a manifesto when I was an angsty little 16, in 1998. Someone found it. I got suspended for 1 day. If it had been a year later it would have gone so differently.

A little late to the party, but as an afab raised evangelical, those tiktok evangelicals probably don't even know what they're referencing. I remember growing up (2000s baby) being asked/told that I *should* say yes if someone put a g*n to my head and asked if I believed in Christ, even if that answer would end badly. I had no idea that it was ever related to Columbine or that Columbine was even a thing. I was just told that it was a realistic scenario and that I would always have to say yes even if it risked my life (therapy is going well, thanks for asking). I can guarantee at least a good portion of those kids do not know about Columbine or this myth, it is just something that is asked of them and so they reenact it as a way of proving themselves. It's sick and twisted, but a reflection on those kids parents and pastors more than on themselves.

I was in 8th grade, I remember teachers wacthing TV between classes, but trying to shield us from what was happening/had happened. My whole high school experience was post-Columbine. We never had active shooter drills, but the school administration was very jumpy around things like bomb threats. My boyfriend in high school was named Erik, and his best friend was named Dylan. They were weird little nerds, into gaming, etc. I don't know if they actually got shit from other students, but it definitely messed with my boyfriend, made him scared if his own darker thoughts/feelings.

In my experience the public schools in Spokane, WA started routine active shooter drills the year after Columbine and back then the instructions were to evacuate if possible, and barricade yourself and others in a room if you couldn't. Elementary school, middle school, and early high school the drills were all much the same ('00-'09-ish), but in late high school I remember them updating the drills to include instruction to fight back as the final resort, and they've continued that teaching in our community colleges too.

None of the above and just beyond sending love and many more prayers to the victims and their families always and never forgotten no matter what may God blessed 🙏🙏🙏🙏

As a high schooler now that goes to a school that is similar in size to colombine was at this time we have 4 police at all times and do active shooter drills about every other month. Seeing the difference in how America was before and after this is astonishing because I’ve only known it after.

One person had brought up the fact that the new generation of school shooters had grown up with these shooter drills so they know how to work around them. I believe one of the more recent one, don't know if it was Uvalde or not, the shooter was calling out to students how students were taught that law enforcement would call out to them. So they had lured some students out of the class. It's so scary to think about this evolution of school shooters.

So you and I have something...sort of in common caelan where gun violence just...it isn't this overwhelming shadow. I'm Australian so we had a really nasty shooting in 1996 port arthur-, Tasmania. I was only...like 9 when this happened so I was pretty sheltered but guns were just like...there one minute gone the next. That's one silver lining but it still ripples on and is traumatic for people. We still have like...weird teenagers, incels- and evangelicals but I haven't known a world where gun violence was a real concern. It can happen...but you have to be REALLY smart and determined to get them into the country. I'm the same with the thinking about...actual children being affected by this. It makes me want to throw up when I think about any poor kid in that situation. Anyway to summarise...I can't imagine your daily concern and anxiety and I'm really sorry. And also just really impressed with your video...I was a big worried because of the usual tone of your videos (please don't change them...long listener first time caller) but you treated this subject with such delicacy that you should be really proud.

On Mandy's point about drills not being very fleshed out, I just graduated a couple years ago, and the plans at both of the high schools I attended was Even Worse imo! At both the teachers all told us that we didn't do drills because if the shooter was a student, they didn't want them to know the plan. Which. That logic is definitely sound. But as the only visibly autistic queer kid in a deep south school, did not make me feel safe being alone in the hallways bathrooms classrooms wherever. If the fire alarm goes off I know where the meeting points are, If there were shots I had No Idea where I could go

Gotta say, this two parter hit me kinda hard. I was a small kid in another state when this happened, but I now work as a custodian in the district that Columbine is in. I think the shooting hit the district really hard, our security officers really seem to work hard now, and we apparently have the best school security in the whole country. But I can't help but worry that another incident will happen while I'm at work.

I wasn't taught in schools but i worked for a organisation that could have been a target for terrorists and yup its run, hide and fight back in that order and keep an eye out of dodgy stuff beforehand.

7:34 Atlantic Canadian here (only a few hours from the border if it means anything), we had/have lockdowns drills but they’re not necessary about shootings, just general safety, since I’ve been in lockdowns for wild animals being on school grounds. So sad that it’s normalized in America.

My school practiced drills pretty often, they had a blow horn to signal where the “shooter” was and if you were in an area you could either not hear it or it was far we had exit places we would run out of and meeting spots far from the school where we oops meet at. We also practiced barricading and talked about supplies in each classroom that could be used as weapons against the shooter and to grab books as shields. Very scary world we live in. I’m a senior in college about to become a high school teacher and I get worked up thinking about all of it and that it could be a reality.

there's something called ALICE drills introduced around the time of the Parkland shooting. we were taught to barricade doors and find any thing to throw at a shooter if we were told over announcements that they were near our area of the school, evacuate otherwise. fucking insane to do that at like 14 years old

I was an adult when Columbine happened, and I've found the transformation of the event into a public facsimile of the real thing to be most disturbing. At the time, I figured it was a terrible but unique tragedy, something that would be unlikely to influence many future events. After all, why should it? It surely happened because of the confluence of multiple factors that would not be easy to replicate anywhere else. But instead, it entered into public mythology in an unspeakably damaging way. Having seen it once, journalists immediately generated widespread expectations for it to happen again. I remember thinking how very weird the obsession with Columbine was. I think this is the main reason mass shootings have become an ongoing aspect of American culture - the culture and economics of journalism, and the way journalism is received, all demand that it continue. The US military routinely creates events all over the world that are worse than Columbine, but none of them is treated the way Columbine is. Within the US, terrible things happen all the time that turn out to be one-offs. But Columbine is infinitely exploitable. So we have ended up with things as they are now.

My school did the locked door thing and locked 90% of the restrooms. I graduated high school in 2005

when I was in high school (born '98, class of 2017), we had a shooter threat and had to go in through metal detectors and have our bags searched every day for a week. I remember doing drills where we hid under desks and turned off the lights throughout my entire education. I don't think I remember a time where being shot was not a genuine concern. I really hope that changes for future kids. It really fucks up your brain.

At least in the United States, the demographic most lacking in access to mental health services is BIPOC women. So it stands to reason that if mental health was the cause of mass shootings and violence there would be way more BIPOC female perpetrators. Mental health is vital and should be more of a priority but the fact that it only seems to be brought up as an issue that needs addressing in the context of mass violence feels gross to me.

The messaging around active shooters has evolved in the last decade or so. Generally the philosophy kids and teachers get taught now is Run-Hide-Fight. If you can't make it to an exit, you're supposed to barricade doors and hide. If the shooter comes in the room, you're supposed to fight, which can be something like 25 kids throwing shit at the shooter. (I know some american schools have gun safes, so teachers can get guns to fight off the killers??! I haven't heard of it in maryland though, which is where i am from) I think the idea is that the shooter is discouraged from entering when they meet resistance, since these losers are usually racing to kill as many people as possible before they're killed or apprehended. Source: i've been teaching highschool for 5 years

The thing about NBK- "Natural Born Killers"- Was that it was intended as a satire commenting on how the media glorifies mass murderers. The trend of edgy yt teen boys lacking media literacy and identifying with the villains is nothing new, I guess.

1:00:20 Idk. I took a self defense class in college, and I remember them saying that, according to hospital statistics, about 70% of stabbing victims that go to the hospital survive, vs 90% of gunshot victims.

I dunno why, but I always feel compelled to apologise, as a tumblr user, because of the types of people mentioned here. I know it’s a trash can of garbage, but usually it’s recycled garbage or compost, but yeah, we do have rancid biochemical waste as well, I just tend to block it out, cuz making two fictional serial killers smooch is one thing, but real, actual killers? Get outta our trash can, you’re making the rats and raccoons sick.

1:21:38 Caelan how do you live in Canada and not know that moose like to break into buildings? Like the one in Alaska who walked into a movie theater and just started eating the loose popcorn on the ground.

A) not these teens doing their yukio mishima saint Sebastian shit... but like i thought protestants didnt do like veneration of the saints B) wrt to sue...she's very... lets be nice and say "divisive". She pushes a lot of the essentialist BS & there are some -not unsunstantiated- critiques of her advocacy work smelling a bit of using the tragedy to bask in the limelight

Eric and Dylan had semi-automatics, not AR-15 weapons. You guys need to do more research.

@RespecttheDeadPodcast

5 ай бұрын

Hey baby, did you get to the next sentence where I said "except almost none of that was true"? This is the episode where we discuss Columbine myths. If you want to hear about the TEC-9 handguns and pipe bombs they had please go to part 1. - Hoots

@AntiMasonic93

5 ай бұрын

Oh ok! I missed that part. As mentioned before, you guys might want to Google search "11k reports on Columbine" and read some of the witness statements. Some students stated "redacted" shot at them, not Eric or Dylan. I believe there were more than two shooters.

@DeemoandPuff

4 ай бұрын

@@AntiMasonic93that theory has been disproven multiple times. at this point its irresponsible to perpetuate it.

@reneedailey1696

25 күн бұрын

Yikes, imagine watching this video with your ears and apparently brain turned off, and ironically telling people who did extensive research and addressed what you're "correcting", to "do their own research". Shoulda kept this comment in the drafts, sweaty.