people really read all of this and still believe that the town and the school weren't the real problem, and eric was simply intrinsically evil. or that he convinced dylan to kill people and commit suicide, whereas in fact it was the the other way around.
Oscoda, Michigan ๐ฅ๐ ๐ ฅ ฬฅฬฅฬฅฬ ๐ฅ๐ชก
Eric's fifth-grade teacher, Bonnie Leach, says, "He was the perfect little fifth-grader." He was an A-student, small for his age. "Adorable," she says. She remembers being impressed that both of Eric's parents attended parent-teacher conferences. His mother helped out when the class made special shirts for Halloween.
Terry Condo, Harrisโs Little League coach, remembered the quiet boy as someone "new and trying to fit in, a little unsure of himself, but nice."
Harrisโs parents seemed supportive. "They were ideal Little League parents," Condo said. "They didnโt yell or carry on. They were dignified and friendly and involved."
I met Eric when I was about 9 or 10 years old. Our dads worked together in the military, so they already knew each other before Eric and I ever met. We did stay over at each otherโs house once or twice maybe. In hindsight, the biggest thing that stands out is how he
reacted when he accidentally hit me with a baseball at my first practice. Itโs quite a thing to think that he was so upset and sorry that he had hurt me at practice, then fast forward to seeing him on the news during high school.
Plattsburgh, New York ๐ฅ๐ ๐ ฅ ฬฅฬฅฬฅฬ ๐ฅ๐ชก
Chris Otten became Eric's best friend. He remembers the sleepovers at the Harris home. "It was a real comforting house. Everything was neat and organized," Otten says. Both parents usually were home. Eric's mother was always ready with sandwiches for the boys. They'd play computer games, dive off the couches and pillows in the family's basement, and build snow forts.
"The Eric Harris in Colorado that did these things was not the kid I knew in New York," Otten says.
"Eric did have pressure from his dad, nothing he would express verbally, but it was something I could tell," Otten said. "His dad was fairly strict and wanted him to do good and not mess up."
Chris Otten stayed in touch with Harris after the family moved to Littleton in 1996. He sensed an unhappiness:
"I think what happened is a lot of people didnโt accept him, and he found his one friend who did."
Harris, who with his friend Dylan Klebold gunned down a dozen fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves in an April 20 attack at their high school in Littleton, Colo., was a former middle school classmate of Abi Tenebaum and Jessica Sapelโs in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Although there have been reports that Harris and Klebold chose the date because it was Hitler's birthday and singled out a black student and athletes as victims for their savage attack, both teenagers said that when Harris lived in Plattsburgh, he never showed signs of any hatred toward those groups.
Harris was also an active athlete who played Little League in the town. Tenebaum said that Harris associated with "preps," but said he wasnโt "an annoying prick."
Sapel canโt imagine how this gentle middle schooler turned into a trench coat-toting criminal, but she thinks Harris began having problems after his family moved from New York to Colorado during their seventh-grade year. "It didnโt happen to him here (in Plattsburgh)," Sapel said. "None of us can imagine what happened."
Sarah Davis ๐ฅ๐ ๐ ฅ ฬฅฬฅฬฅฬ ๐ฅ๐ชก
Eric and I were in 6th grade when we first met, and I was so awkward then. And he was really quiet. We have an Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York. So he was an Air Force base kid. I wouldnโt say we were close friends right away. But we became friends, and he was like a nice quiet kid. So he was one of my first boyfriendsโwell, it doesnโt really matter. I mean, it was like a 6th grade boyfriend.
"He was a shy kid, but he was a good kid," she recalled. "I never knew him to do anything wrong when he was here. We were in the same group of kids, and we always hung out together, both inside and out of school."
"Itโs kind of funny to think back about things we did together. Like we went to the Clinton County Fair with two other kids. I donโt like certain rides very much. They were all about to go on one, and he came running out so I didnโt have to be by myself. He was just a sweetheart. He was a nice kid. I mean, he had friends. It wasnโt like he was a loner then. Maybe he was out in Coloradoโactually I guess he was, โcause they wrote and talked about that in the media. But when he was in Plattsburgh, he wasnโt like that.
When we first kept in touch, we wrote letters. I have some of them, and itโs funny to look back and read them, because some of them are really silly. He said things like, 'I donโt want to see other girls.' And we also talked on the phone. There was a time when we lost touch for a little bit, but not that long. Then we got into the Internet.
It was every couple of weeks weโd e-mail or talk, and it was always a good thing. Iโm a very quiet and not a very emotional person and tend to listen. He tried to be open and get me to talk about things that were going on in my life. I really liked that about him. He was compassionate.
Sarah said she seldom saw the anger that was building up inside Harris, though he let her know that he wasnโt happy in Littleton. "When he first moved there, he didnโt like it at all," she said. "I donโt remember if it was because he didnโt have any friends or if he didnโt like the environment." The Eric Harris she knew did not like violence, Sarah said.
"Obviously, things changed," she said. "If he had stayed here, I donโt think this ever would have happened."
The day of the shooting, I was outside playing street hockey with my friends. I was 18 then. My mom came to the door and said, 'There was another school shooting.' And your heart kind of drops. I later came inside with my friends. We were watching TV, flipping through the channels, and saw the school shooting thing. On the bottom of the TV, it says where they are, Littleton, Colorado. I just sat there and couldnโt move at first. Then I got up and I went in my room. I shut the door and I started bawling. It was awful. And then my mom came down and asked, 'Whatโs wrong?' And I couldnโt even get the words out. I finally told her, 'Littleton. Eric lives in Littleton. Thatโs where the school shooting was, and Iโm really worried about him.'
When her friends left, Sarah went online to see if Harris might be online as well. He was not. She tried calling his house several times, but there was no answer.
The next morning I went to my softball practice and I didnโt take my sunglasses off. My eyes were beet red from crying the whole night. When I got home, my dad came out and his eyes were all puffy. He said, 'I have bad news. Your friend Eric was one of the shooters.' I pretty much broke down there in the driveway.
The tape stops again, and when it starts, Eric Harris is alone in a moving car. The camera seems to be mounted on the carโs dashboard. Itโs dark out, and there are raindrops on the window. At one point he passes a street sign that reads "Federal." Thereโs music playing loudly, making it hard at times to understand what Eric is saying. At one point he mentions "The Black Jack Crew," specifically mentioning "Jason" and "Chris."
Eric: "You guys are very cool. Sorry, dudes. I had to do what I had to do. Bob is one of the coolest guys Iโve ever met in my life, except for being an alcoholic." Eric says heโs going to miss Bob. "Itโs a weird feeling knowing youโre going to be dead in two and a half weeks."
Eric says he canโt decide if they should do it before or after prom. At the end of this section of the tape, Harris says he wishes he could have re-visited Michigan and "old friends." He falls silent then and appears to start crying, wiping a tear from the left side of his face. He shuts the camera off.
"Earliest memory is hard to visualize. It might not even be true. My mind tends to blend memories together.
I do remember the 4th of July when I was 12.
I remember riding my bike down a street.
I hid in a closet. I hid from everyone when I wanted to be alone.
I remember running outside with a lot of other kids and it felt like an invasion.
A bonfire in a clearing in a private property area. Firework smells.
[redacted], I wanted to chain his hyper ass down.
I think I had a buzz cut and was real skinny."
Eric started to become more overwhelmed with emotion and would hide in the closet when he wanted to be alone. He would also seek refuge at the back of the bus to talk about
"guns, sex, and people." He described it as "our refuge from everyone else, where we talked about personal things."
โI knew them both for several years. I moved to Colorado in jr high and started to know Eric then. Same friend group of not really popular kids. Eric and I both took German and so we had at least one class together every semester. Eric was just a normal kid until freshman/sophomore year. Always nice and pleasant, kinda nerdy. His going darker wasn't really anything that seemed outside of the normal. Lots of kids were expressing themselves in different ways so I didn't think much of it. We stopped hanging out in the same groups around that time. Even with all of the darkness and changes in the way he dressed or music he listened to, I never would have imagined Eric would do something like this. He was very normal at school. The only thing that seemed off was one time he walked down our hallway between classes and didn't move for anyone, just kinda barged through everyone. Even that didn't seem out of the ordinary, just a moody kid.โ
โCouple memories from them: Eric was part of a history presentation in a class we shared. The presentation was about the mummification process. He was carried into class by the other kids in his group and he was wearing just his gym shorts and placed on a table to be "mummified". He was really skinny and had a sunken chest and I thought it was really bold of him to do something like that.โ
Interesting to note that it was Bryon who introduced Dylan to both drugs and alcohol. Im sure dylan would have tried it himself eventually but I cant help but think Bryon would have felt some responsibility in regards to Dylans later drinking habits.
Okay with this i think ppl misunderstood what he meant. Eric reportedly loved school work. He was a very active student in creative writing, always answering questions, dih ridin the teachers. While i think he loved the work, he disliked the people. Also with Eric's grades beinf mainly Bs and As it shows he tried
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