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Eight Years...
April 9, 2007 -- A judge ordered that the statements made by the Klebolds and Harrises to the police after the Columbine shootings were to be sealed for 20 years.
March 1, 2007 -- A bomb threat was called in to Columbine High School. The school was evacuated and students were sent home for the day. Classes resume the next day.
April 16, 2007 -- Lone gunman Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old English male from South Korea, went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech college in Blacksburg, Virginia. He killed 32 people and injured 25 others before taking his own life, making it the deadliest school shooting in US history. A student who lived on campus in one of the dormitories, he was described by those who knew him as a "loner". Officials described his method of shooting as 'brutal' and 'thorough' - nearly everyone he injured or killed took at least three shots. In one classroom he attacked, only 4 of 25 students were able to walk out unassisted after the killing spree ended. On home-made videos he made shortly before the shootings, Cho Seung-Hui mentioned becoming a martyr "like Eric and Dylan". The videos were eerily similar to that of the Columbine shooters in their own videos, right down to the backward baseball cap and posturing with weapons in front of a blank, white brick wall.
September 21, 2007 -- The Columbine Memorial is finished. The project's committee organized a dedication ceremony in Clement Park. October 10, 2007 -- 14-year-old Asa Coon opened fire on his school, SuccessTech Academy. He injured two teachers and two students before committing suicide.
November 7, 2007 -- Armed with a .22 caliber handgun, Pekka Eric Auvinen went on a one-man assault at Joleka High School in Tuusula, Finland. He killed seven students (five boys, two girls) and the headmistress (principal) of the school and injured at least 12 others before turning his weapon on himself. He survived the shot to the head, though was in "seriously critical condition".
Auvinen was a member of the local gun club and had been licensed to carry a gun just one month prior to the attack. Hours before he assaulted the school, a video appeared Wednesday on YouTube called "Joleka High School Massacre - 11/7/2007". The owner of the profile, Sturmgeist89 (meaning Storm Spirit in German), was listed as an 18-year-old male from Finland. This profile was later identified as belonging to Auvinen. The video he made was set to the KMFDM song "Stray Bullet".
December 5, 2007 -- Two suicide notes and a will were found at the Omaha, Nebraska home of 20 year old Robert A. Hawkins, who opened fire on a shopping mall in Omaha, killing at least eight people and injuring three others. In his writings he said he was "going out with style". He went on to say that he'd never amounted to anything in his life but that after today he would be famous. Witnesses to the shooting said Hawkins appeared to be firing randomly. Hawkins was described as having a military-style haircut, was wearing a camouflage jacket and was carrying a black backpack.
Hawkins was recently homeless till friends of his took him into their house. He had gotten a job at McDonald's and, according to the family he was staying with, had been showing positive signs toward getting back on his feet. However, Wednesday Robert called the owner of the home he was staying at. She described him as sounding "very upset" and he told her he had been fired after the fast food restaurant accused him of stealing $17. The home owner told WOWT-TV that Hawkins ended the call with these words: "I love you and I'm sorry for any pain I've caused you."
December 10, 2007 -- Two violent shootings staged 12 hours and 65 miles apart. 4 people were killed and 5 others wounded before the gunman, 24 year old Matthew Murray, was shot multiple times by a security guard. Murray, clad in black, targeted Youth with a Mission training center and then the New Life Church, where the gunman was shot by a security guard. He fell and when the guard ordered him to drop his weapon, he made a move to grab something that "may have been a grenade" so she shot him again. His death was attributed to a shot he fired himself, however. Home-schooled and raised in a deeply religious household, Murray was kicked out of the Youth with a Mission program and had been sending hate mail to the heads of the program during the past few weeks. The mission training center had an office at the 10,000-member church.
Posted Sunday at 11:03 AM (between the two shootings) Murray posted a hateful diatribe on a website devoted to people who have left religion. With the exception of two minor changes, some rearranging and the final paragraph, the text was originally written as a manifesto by Columbine shooter Eric Harris. Some expletives from the Harris version were replaced by Murray with symbols. According to KUSA-TV in Denver, Murray wrote online: "You Christians brought this on yourselves. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can, especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world."
