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Gunfire in the Halls
April 20th, 1999
Just 17 school days before graduation. It was an ordinary morning of a day that would become anything but ordinary in Jefferson County for the students of Littleton's Columbine High School .
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold skipped their first class of the day: bowling, which usually ran from 6 AM to 7:15 AM. Their teacher, Kristine Macauley said that Klebold and Harris were on a team with Chris Morris and and Nate Dykeman and also noted later in FBI document 174A-DN-57419 that despite "always" being in bowling class, Harris, Klebold, and Morris were all missing that morning. She said that Morris "rarely" missed the class but had been missing it more and more frequently in the weeks before the shootings. Student Jen Laplante told teacher Macauley that she had seen Klebold and Harris in the parking lot of the AMF Belleview Bowling Lanes the day of the shooting and had even said hi to them. However, they never made it into class.
At about 11:10 AM Eric and Dylan arrived at Columbine High School. They parked their cars flanking the exits and entrances to the cafeteria: Eric parked his 1986 gray Honda Civic in a parking place in the junior student parking lot, Dylan parked his 1982 black BMW on the other side in the senior lot. The cars had good view of the front student entrance as well as the entrance to the cafeteria; neither car was parked in its assigned spot.
Brooks Brown had just stepped outside for a cigarette when he saw Eric pull up in his car. He confronted Eric for skipping morning classes so close to graduation and Harris told him that it didn't matter; Eric told him "Brooks, I like you. Now, get out of here. Go home." Brooks shrugged the words off and went on his way.
Sometime after 11:14 AM, dressed in black leather dusters (trenchcoats) and wearing wraparound sunglasses, the gunmen carried two duffle bags toward the school, each containing a 20-pound (9 kg) propane bomb set to go off at 11:17 AM -- during "A" Lunch, when the cafeteria was the most crowded, according to Eric's notes . A janitor had just turned off the surveillance tape to rewind it, narrowly missing capturing the appearance of the bags being left on the floor beside two tables, though they could be seen on the tape when it starts again at 11:22 AM.
Eric and Dylan returned to their cars to wait for the explosions, which were timed to go off at 11:17 AM -- the time Eric had figured in his notes to have the greatest number of people in the lunchroom. Based on information in Klebold and Harris' home videos and writing it would appear that the two intended to blow the school up and then gun down any survivors who were able to escape after the bombs went off. There were roughly 488 people inside the cafeteria at the time the propane bombs were set to detonate. They would have surely been killed if the bombs had gone off as planned, and the library likely would've collapsed down onto the lunchroom due to the structural damage. Fortunately for those inside, the bombs failed to go off.
At 11:19 AM the Jefferson County Dispatch Center received a 911 call from a citizen reporting an explosion in a field on the east side of Wadsworth Boulevard (about 3 miles from the school, between Ken Caryl and Chatfield avenues). Two backpacks with pipe bombs, aerosol canisters and small propane tanks had been placed in a grassy open space three miles southwest of Columbine High School. Only the pipe bombs and one of the aerosol canisters exploded but the explosion and subsequent grass fire were enough to divert the attention of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the Littleton Fire Department. Police dispatch radioed the event out. (This clip is about 40 minutes long and includes 911 calls as well as police communications. It begins with the explosion in the field and continues past the library shootings.)
Back at the school, Eric and Dylan got tired of waiting. They left their cars rigged with explosives and, grabbing a duffel bag and a backpack containing two sawed-off shotguns, a 9mm semi-automatic carbine rifle and a 9mm Tec-DC9 semi-automatic pistol, they headed back to the school. They proceeded up the hill toward the top of the west entrance steps  , the highest point on the school grounds. From that position they were near the north side of the library and cafeteria, with the cafeteria entrance was below them. The west entrance was to their left and the athletic fields was to the right. A witness heard one of the gunmen shout "GO! GO!" and both Harris and Klebold pulled out their shotguns and opened fire.
Brooks Brown was quoted as saying later, "I went to go have my cigarette and heard gunshots, so I took off and started running. I went to random houses, called the cops and told them I knew who it was; it was Eric, it had to have been." Brooks was seen by witnesses around this time heading south on Pierce Street, in the direction of his home.
Richard Castaldo and Rachel Scott were sitting on the grassy knoll below where the shooters were when the bullets began to fly. Richard was hit five times but survived, though he suffered critical injury to his spine that crippled him. Rachel was hit four times by bullets from Eric's 9mm Hi-Point, taking a fatal bullet to the head. (The name 'Rachel' is mentioned on Eric and Dylan's videotapes, where they make fun of girls who are always talking about Jesus.)
 Eric Harris took off his coat then and dropped it near the stairs to reload his weapon. Lance Kirklin said he saw Harris and Klebold standing at the top of the outdoor stairway when he and friends Sean Graves and Danny Rohrbough left the cafeteria through the side entrance below. Thinking the gunmen were just playing a senior prank, the three friends headed up the stairs to go to "Smokers' Pit" at Leawood Park across the street when Klebold and Harris opened fire on them. Lance said he didn't remember hearing gunshots but he was shot in the leg and chest. Danny was also hit in the chest and fell back into Sean. Lance turned to run and was shot in the leg, causing him to fall to the ground. Sean ran past, taking several shots to the back and abdomen before a gunshot wound to the leg downed him just outside the door to the cafeteria.
 Five students who had been sitting to the west of the stairs were shot at as they ran for cover. 15-year-old Michael Johnson was hit but he was able to reach the outdoor athletic storage shed where he hid with the other three uninjured students who had already made it there. Mark Taylor suffered a critical hit and fell; crippled and unable to flee with the others, he played dead.
While the gunmen were firing on the fleeing students Sean Graves managed to crawl to the doorway to the cafeteria but, weakened from blood loss, he couldn't make it all the way inside. He rubbed blood on his face and lay there playing dead.
Dylan then headed down the stairs where he shot Daniel Rohrbough at close range, killing him. He also shot Lance Kirklin again, this time in the face. Lance was critically injured by the shotgun blast that mangled his jaw but somehow managed to survive. From there Dylan went to the cafeteria entrance, stepping on Sean Graves when he entered the cafeteria briefly at 11:21 AM. Dylan was, perhaps, trying to discover why the propane bombs didn't explode.
Anne Marie Hochhalter had been eating lunch with friends on the grassy knoll when the shooters opened fire. She got up and tried to run for the shelter of the cafeteria and was shot by Harris. Paralyzed from her injuries, she fell. Dylan exited the cafeteria then and went back up the outside stairs to join Eric at the top. They attempted to shoot some more people who were near the soccer fields several yards away but didn't hit anyone. They also lit and threw home-made pipe bombs onto the school roof, toward the grassy hill to the right and down into the parking lot. Witnesses reported hearing one of the gunmen say: "This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome!"
Teacher Peggy Dodd, who was in the library at the time, said she looked out the window and could see Dylan "standing on the hill, just shooting". He had been a student in her computer class the previous year and she remembered him as being a "troublemaker who hacked into computers and wore tall Nazi boots and an overcoat". Dodd said that Klebold was holding a weapon with both hands and, using a sweeping motion, was pointing it toward the south parking lot.
At 11:22 AM the school custodian set the surveillance camera in the cafeteria recording again. On screen, students were beginning to notice what was happening outside, some even going to the big front windows to have a look. Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gardner, a community resource officer at Columbine High School, was sitting in his patrol car over by "Smoker's Pit" when he received a call on the school's radio from the custodian telling him that he was needed at the 'back lot' (student parking) of the school.
A 911 call from a student at Columbine at 11:23 AM reported a female fallen in the south parking, saying that she might be paralyzed. Deputy Paul Magor, who was en route to the diversionary explosion at Wadsworth, was advised of this by dispatch - Deputy Gardner heard the dispatched message as well over the Sheriff's radio and put his lights and sirens on.
At 11:24 AM Coach William "Dave" Sanders and school custodians Jon Curtis and Jay Gallatine entered the cafeteria to find out what was happening. Realizing the danger, they - with the help of a school security officer - directed students to get down, to hide under the tables and to get out of the cafeteria by leaving through the east exits. As students began to realize the situation was more serious than they thought, many panicked and ran, leaving behind their books, backpacks and even their shoes in their haste to get to safety. 
Deputy Paul Smoker, a motorcycle patrolman, was up on West Bowles Avenue, north of Columbine, when he heard the dispatch report about the female down in the south parking lot of the school. Being close, he radioed that he was responding to the call and headed that way.
Patricia (Patti) Nielson was on hall monitor duty when she heard the commotion outside of the school. She looked out the west entrance and saw a male student carrying what she thought was a toy gun and assumed that a school video production was being taped or was a prank. She didn't approve of how 'real' it looked and went out to tell them to "knock it off".
Student Brian Anderson had just pushed open the interior set of doors of the west entrance to go outside - he had been told by another teacher to get out of the school because of the explosions and commotion. Not realizing where the danger was, he went out through the first exit he came to: the west entrance to the school. He saw Eric Harris in the entryway between the two sets of double doors but knew Eric was in film class so he assumed the gun that he was holding was a prop gun. Patti followed Brian - she also thought the shooter was staging a film or prank but didn't approve of the idea of having any guns on campus even if they weren't real. Turning, Eric saw the two of them heading toward him and he shot at the door behind them. Glass and metal fragments sprayed into the corridor, hitting Patti in the shoulder, forearm and knee and hitting Brian in the chest.
Bleeding and terrified, Patti ran to the library while Brian Anderson stumbled his way out of the west entryway and also to the library where he hid in a utility closet till the horror was over. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the school's west entrance shortly after.
Deputy Neil Gardner was the first on the scene, and decided to park in the senior lot where he would have a good view of the school and grounds. It also happened to be the lot closest to the west entrance. As soon as Gardner got out of his car Harris fired about 10 shots at the deputy before his weapon jammed.
While Eric tried to fix his gun, Deputy Gardner returned fire, aiming four shots at Harris. Gardner thought for a moment that he had hit Harris when the gunman turned sharply to the right but seconds later Eric began firing at the deputy again. Gardner's patrol car wasn't hit but the two vehicles he parked behind both were later found to have two bulletholes in each of them. After the exchange Eric Harris ducked back inside the school.
At 11:25 Patti Nielson made it to the checkout desk in the library and quickly placed a 911 call as she tried to get the students in the library to hide under the tables.
911 calls from students and neighbors who lived near the school began flooding the dispatch. Matthew Depew - son of one of the officers later on the scene - made a 911 call from the kitchen, hidden so close to the killers he could hear them reloading their guns. 18-year old senior Nicholas (Nick) Foss (whose head had been grazed by a bullet) and friend Tim Kastle joined three teachers, a cook, and another student in a cramped bathroom attached to the teachers' lounge. "I heard people praying for their husbands and their children," Nick said. The attackers banged on doors, yelling: "We know you're in there."
At 11:26 AM Gardner radioed for backup, telling dispatch "Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me." Jefferson County Deputies Scott Taborsky and Paul Smoker arrived on the west side of the school shortly afterward, responding to the original police dispatch. They quickly rescued two injured students who were lying on the ground near the baseball field.
  Reappearing at the west entrance, Eric exchanged more gunfire with Deputy Gardner, firing his rifle out a broken window of the west entrance. Deputy Paul Smoker fired three times and Harris retreated back inside the building where the deputy could hear more gunfire. More students managed to flee the school while Gardner called for ambulances.
Many students who weren't at lunch were still in classrooms and had no idea what was going on. A student in the gym hallway saw Dylan and Eric walking down the north hallway firing weapons and laughing. Student Stephanie Munson and another student stepped out of a classroom into the north main hallway in time to see a teacher and several students running away, headed for the school's main entrance to the east. The teacher hollered for them to "Run! Get out of the building!". Dylan fired his TEC-DC9 in their direction and both students ran; Stephanie was shot in the ankle but both were able to escape the building through the east entrance and to safety.
A student in the counseling hall saw Dylan chase a group of students in the north hall east, where Dylan came to an abrupt halt near a bank of phones at the entrance to the main lobby area. Another student who was on one of those phones with her mother, glanced up in time to the sleeve of Dylan's coat and his TEC-DC9 firing toward the main entrance of the school. She dropped the phone and hid in a nearby restroom. Dylan ran back the way he came, west along the north hallway toward the library. The frightened student crept out of the restroom and back to the phone where she whispered to her mother to come pick her up. The student then proceeded to escape through the east exit. Her mother's cell phone bill showed this call to have been made between 11:23 and 11:26 AM - the student said she talked with her mother about two minutes before she saw the gunman.
 After evacuating the cafeteria, Coach Sanders headed up the stairs where he passed the library, motioning to Peggy Dodd that she and the others should stay put. Seeing Dylan coming down the north hall toward him, Coach Dave Sanders turned and went back the other way but he was shot in the neck by Eric Harris just before making it around the corner.
Varsity basketball player Greg Barnes was in the science room nearby, looking out the window when he saw Sanders go down. "I saw Coach Sanders turn around, take two shots, right in front of me. Blood went flying off him and he fell," he told reporters later. (Tragically, Greg committed suicide May 4, 2000.)
While Eric searched his duffel bag for something, Dylan fired down the north hallway again, then ran to the top of the cafeteria stairs while Sanders lay on the hallway floor, bleeding. After Dylan had gone back to the library hallway where Eric was, Coach Sanders was able crawl to the corner of the Science hallway where teacher Richard Long helped him into classroom SCI-3. A group of students, including Eagle Scouts Aaron Hancey and Kevin Starkey, attended to his injuries and administered first aid while others called 911. They were told help was "on the way".
At 11:27 AM Deputy Neil Gardner radioed in a Code 33 (officer needs emergency assistance). He also requested medical assistance to the west side of the school. On Pierce Street, Deputy Magor set up a roadblock where he was immediately approached by a teacher and several students who wanted to report a person at the school with a gun.
Harris and Klebold paced the library hallway for nearly three minutes firing their weapons and lighting pipe bombs. They threw two pipe bombs over the stairway rail into the cafeteria (the explosions of which can be seen on the cafeteria surveillance camera and then two more in the library hall, damaging some lockers. They did lots of damage to the school but they didn't injure anyone during this time. Smoke poured into the library from the hall and the fire alarms went off, blaring so loud some people on the phone with 911 couldn't be heard by emergency operators.
In the library, Patti Nielson continued her 911 call from under the checkout desk, reporting what she could see and hear. Another teacher was on the phone with 911 at the other end of the hall at that time as well, reporting everything she heard (50mb). Patti split her attention between trying to talk to the 911 operator and ordering the kids in the room with her to stay down on the floor as she was afraid the shooters would enter the library where she, 3 staff members, and 55 students were hiding.
Student Aaron Hancey , hiding with the injured Coach Sanders, remembered hearing the explosions real close by. A window in the door made students afraid the shooters would see them and come to shoot them too so they hid while the gunmen passed, leaving Sanders laying on the floor in hopes Klebold and Harris would think he was dead. Once they passed the students moved back to his side to keep him company and show him pictures of his family to keep him talking.
Nick Foss, Tim Kastle, and some other students tried to climb to freedom from the bathroom through the heating duct in the ceiling but the duct broke. Nick fell 18 feet to a table below in the teachers' lounge where he got up and ran out of the school to look for help. His twin brother Adam Foss was still trapped in the school where he barricaded himself in a narrow closet near the choir room with several other students.
Several students who were able to escape from the high school took cover behind Deputy Scott Taborsky's car and told him that two gunmen wearing black trenchcoats were in the school, armed with uzis and hand grenades. Deputy Smoker radioed in at 11:28 AM that the gunmen was wearing a black trenchcoat.
Meanwhile Patti Nielson was still on the phone with 911. She told the operator that the shooter (she only thought there was one at the time and she described him as "very big") was right outside the door. She lowered her voice to a whisper and spoke very little after that, except to tell the emergency operator that she had to go. She left the phone off the hook though, so the call recorded even after she stopped speaking.
Evan Todd, in response to Patti's order to hide, had hidden himself behind a support pillar near the copy counter. Soon after he heard explosions gunfire in the hall. He looked around the pillar and saw Eric Harris out in the hall, carrying a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a lit pipe bomb in the other. Eric threw it and soon after Evan heard another explosion. When Evan peeked around the pillar a second time, he saw Eric standing directly in front of the library doors. Eric saw him as well and fired a round into the library toward him. Evan ducked low, behind the nearby copy counter to the north of the circulation desk. Eric fired another round, splintering the wood of the counter and injuring Evan.
At 11:29 AM Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered the library. When they entered they hollered for everyone in the library to "Get up!" -- loud enough that they could be heard over the phone Patti was holding. Witnesses hiding in the library rooms said  they heard the gunmen say things such as: "Everyone with a white cap or baseball cap, stand up!" and "All jocks stand up! We'll get the guys in white hats!" -- wearing a white hat at Columbine was a sign of being a 'jock', of which there were several hiding in the library at that time. When no one stood up, one was heard to say, "Fine, I’ll start shooting!"
Dylan and Eric proceeded through the library toward the west windows on the opposite side of the room, past two rows of computers to their north. Klebold shot at the computer lab while Evan Todd quickly moved to a new hiding place behind the administrator's desk. 16-year-old Kyle Velasquez, who had suffered a stroke as an infant and was mentally retarded, was the only student not hiding. Kyle was sitting at the computer table in the north row when Dylan Klebold shot him . Kyle took a shotgun blast in the back and head and died where he sat.
At 11:30 AM dispatch reported possible shots in the Columbine High library. Jefferson County Patrol Deputy Rick Searle had his hands full evacuating fleeing students outside who had taken cover behind Deputy Taborsky's car. In three trips he took the young refugees south to a safe place that would soon become a triage area for the injured. More were hiding behind Taborsky's car by the time he returned.
The shooters set their bags filled with ammunition and Molotov cocktails down on the southern computer table. After reloading their weapons the gunmen moved between the north and south computer tables toward the western windows. Eric got down on one knee and began shooting out the west library windows at law enforcement officers who were evacuating students. Klebold knelt down to the east of Harris and fired out the broken west window toward officers and fleeing students. Dylan then took off his coat and dropped it near a table before firing his shotgun at a nearby table, injuring Patrick Ireland, Daniel Steepleton, and Makai Hall.
Outside the school, police returned fire but could not get a clear shot at either gunman. The gunmen were having no better success at hitting people outside.
Eric Harris turned away from the windows and opened fire on the nearest table to the north. His first shot killed Steve Curnow, who was hiding under the last desk and his second shot injured Kacey Ruegsegger.
 Outside, deputies helped get escaping students and faculty to safety. At 11:31 AM Deputy Searle reported seeing smoke coming from the school. On the 911 call coming from the library, one of the gunmen can be heard yelling "Yahoo!".
At 11:32 AM the Sheriff's Office fielded the first media call from reporters seeking information. Media crews in the area who were hoping for some news on the Jon Benet Ramsey case flocked to the scene in droves, totalling close to 400 before it was all over. In their desire to get as close to the scene as possible, some news vans even jumped curbs and parked in the grass.
Inside the library, Eric moved south and, seeing two girls hiding under the table there, he slapped the table twice. He then bent down and said "Peek-a-boo!" before he shot and killed Cassie Bernall. The recoil from the shotgun caught him in the face, breaking his nose. Students in the library at the time later reported that it didn't seem to faze him in the least as he told Dylan about the accident the 'kick' caused. The injury caused his nose to bleed, the sight of which disturbed several students who told reporters afterward that he looked as though he had been drinking blood.
 Meanwhile, Patrick Ireland moved out of his hiding place to administer first aid to Makai Hall. Seeing him, Dylan shot him twice in the head and once more in the foot when Pat tried to crawl back under cover. The blast knocked one of his shoes off and he fell to the floor, unconscious. Makai and Dan Steepleton played dead to avoid being shot at again.
Bree Pasquale was crouched down out in the open, just south of the table under which Cassie had been hiding; there was no other place for her to hide and when Eric turned to her she was completely defenseless. Gun aimed at her, Harris asked Bree "Do you want to die?". Bree answered: "No, please don't shoot me, I have a family and a fiancé." He laughed at her then seemed to notice his nose was bleeding. "Dylan, it hit my nose." he said and, according to Bree Pasquale, he started laughing again. "Everyone’s gonna die," he said then. "We’re gonna blow up the school anyway." He was then distracted by Dylan calling his attention to two boys hiding under another table, Eric forgot about Bree and joined his fellow gunman. It would be four days before she would sleep again, she was so traumatized by her encounter with Harris.
Dylan was at another set of tables east of Harris, where three friends were hiding: Matthew Kechter (a football player), Isaiah Shoels (an ex-football player and wrestler whose father later said had a "dispute" with the shooters) and Craig Scott (younger brother of victim Rachel Scott). The shooters flanked the table on the east and west sides; Isaiah was heard by witnesses to have told the shooters that he was scared and wanted to go home to see his mom. Dylan made a racial comment toward Isaiah and tried to pull him out from under the table. When that didn't work, Eric fired under the other side of the table, killing Isaiah.
Dylan followed his lead shot under his side of the table as well, killing Matt Ketchter. Craig Scott was remarkably uninjured, left to lay in his friends' spilling blood, pretending to be dead. Eric got up and threw a CO2 cartridge (home-made bomb) under the table where Makai, Daniel, and Pat were. It landed on Dan's thigh but he was too afraid of being shot to move, even though he could see it was lit. Makai Hall grabbed the bomb threw it back out, further south (away from the gunmen), where it exploded mid-air without hurting anyone.
Around 11:34 AM Eric Harris headed over to some bookcases between the center and west sections of the library, where he jumped on the shelves, shaking them and swearing. Witnesses say he fired a shot somewhere behind the bookcases but no one could see him then. Eric then went over to another table where two girls were hiding. He bent down so he could look at them, then dismissed them as "Pathetic".
Meanwhile, Dylan crossed the room to the east side of the library where he shot out the trophy case near the door. Moving around the broken display, he shot underneath the nearest library table to the south, leaving Mark Kintgen with bullets in his head and shoulder. Klebold then turned and shot at the students hiding under the table to his left, injuring both Lisa Kreutz and Valeen Schnurr with the same bullet. He then fired eight times in rapid succession, followed by a ninth shot, killing Lauren Townsend, who had been beside Val Schnurr.
 Forced out from under the table, Valeen cried out in panic: "Oh, my God! Help me!". One of the shooters, who was reloading his weapon at the time, asked her if she believed in God. She floundered in her answer, saying no at first and then yes, trying to get the answer 'right'. He asked her 'Why?' and she said it was because it was what her family believed. She crawled back under the table then and pretended to be dead.
* Popular belief has it that Cassie was the individual who was asked "Do you believe in God?" but the above recount is what the witnesses in the library reported and what was entered into the Columbine Report.
He moved to another table where he shot and injured Nicole Nowlen and John Tomlin. John tried to crawl out from under the table at that point; Dylan shot and killed him. Eric then walked around the table, back to the table where Lauren had been killed. Behind it Kelly Fleming was hiding - like Bree Pasquale, there wasn't room under a table for her. Eric shot her in the back. She died instantly. He shot under the table once more, hitting Lauren (who was already dead) and Lisa again. He also wounded Jeanna Park, who was hiding under the table as well.
At 11:34 AM the shooters moved to the center of the library where they reloaded their weapons at a table midway across the room. Eric recognized a student hiding under a nearby table and told him to identify himself. With Dylan aiming a weapon at his head, John Savage identified himself; he was an acquaintance of Dylan's. He asked Dylan what he was doing, to which Klebold replied: "Oh, just killing people." John asked if they were going to kill him too and Dylan told him to get out of the library. He got out immediately, escaping through the library's main entrance.
At 11:35 AM Eric turned and fired on the table directly north of where they'd been, shooting Daniel Mauser in the face at close range, killing him. Both Dylan and Eric then moved south to another table where Jennifer Doyle and Stephen "Austin" Eubanks, and Corey DePooter were hiding. Jennifer and Austin were injured, Corey was killed.
At 11:36 AM Deputy Searle reported a man on the roof wearing a red, white and blue striped shirt. The man was thought to be a possible third shooter at the time but he was later identified as an air conditioning repairman out on a service call to fix a leak above the girls' locker room. The repairman was on the roof when the first shots were fired. He used a pair of vice grips to clamp shut the roof's access hatch so no one could come up onto the roof. He then tried to hide himself so he wouldn't be shot. At the same time Jeffco SWAT team commander Manwaring arrived at Pierce and Leawood and declared that to be the SWAT staging area. The Littleton Fire Department was positioned at Pierce and Weaver streets.
 In the library, the gunmen headed toward the administration desk; Eric threw a Molotov cocktail toward the southwestern end of the library as he went but it didn't explode. Eric came around the east side of the counter and Dylan joined him from the west, both converging near where Evan Todd had moved to after being injured. Dylan made fun of him and discussed killing him but didn't (see Evan's story). Eric then suggested they go down to the school's common area. Before leaving Dylan fired a shot into the library staff break room, hitting a television. He then slammed a chair down on top of the computer terminal that was on the library counter, beneath which Patti Nielson was hiding.
The gunmen left the library at 11:36 AM. Patti Nielson, still on the phone with 911, whispered to the operator that she had to go and then took opportunity to duck into the library's break room to hide in a cupboard. Library technician Carole Weld and assistant Lois Kean hid in the television studio while teacher Peggy Dodd hid in the periodicals room, where all four remained hidden until the SWAT team came to evacuate them at 3:30 PM.
Silence fell over the library for those left in it. Though the injured were moaning and everyone's ears were ringing from the explosions and the fire alarms were blaring the survivors later described the room as eerily quiet. The gunfire had stopped.
For the longest time no one moved, no one looked at each other, no one spoke. Slowly, those left alive crept out of the library through the northern emergency exit that led out to the sidewalk were the massacre began. Individually and in groups of two and three they escaped, fearful that the shooters would come back and finish what they started. Jeanna Parks and Kacey Ruegsegger made it to safety behind the shelter of Deputy Taborsky's patrol car where they hid till help could come for them. Val Schnurr and others fled for the safety of the patrol cars as well, telling officers that the shooters had left the library. Patrick Ireland (unconscious) and Lisa Kreutz (mostly paralyzed) were left behind.
In just over 7 minutes, 10 people were killed and 12 more wounded. There were a total of 56 people in the library; 34 escaped injury. The shooters had more than enough ammo to kill everyone but for whatever reason... they didn't.
From the library Dylan and Eric made their way back down the hall to the science area. They looked in through the door windows of some of the locked classrooms and even made eye contact with several students but they didn't actually try to break into the rooms. Witnesses said that Eric and Dylan didn't appear to be overly intent on gaining access to any of the rooms. They easily could have shot the locks on the doors or through the windows into the classrooms but they didn't. Their behavior was rather directionless at this point.
At 11:38 AM they threw several more pipe bombs down to the cafeteria below. They threw an explosive into a storage room in passing but no one was in it. A teacher saw the gunmen at approximately 11:40 AM in the science hallway in front of the chemical storage room just east of Science Room 3 where she was hiding. Several students saw Dylan and Eric shoot into empty rooms after they taped a Molotov cocktail to the storage room door next to the area where Coach Sanders and several students were hiding. The explosive caused a small fire in the storage room when it went off.
Dylan and Eric headed back down to the cafeteria at 11:44 AM.  Eric stopped on the stairs and knelt down to fire several shots with his rifle at a duffel bag containing one of the 20-lb propane bombs. Despite the room being covered in backpacks and bags, he knew exactly which one to shoot at. It didn't work. Dylan walked over to the same bomb after Eric's failed attempts to detonate it and tampered with something on the floor but again nothing happened. A witness hiding in the cafeteria heard one of the gunmen say, "Today the world's going to come to an end. Today's the day we die."
The boys drank from some of the water bottles the other students left behind. The cafeteria surveillance tape showed Klebold light something (possibly a CO2 cartridge or pipe bomb) and throw it at the bomb. Smaller containers of flammable liquids were attached to the bomb and these were ignited by whatever it was Dylan threw, causing a fire as the shooters went back upstairs at 11:46 AM. If you watch this surveillance tape clip, you can see it go off about halfway through. The explosion is in the upper right-hand corner; it's hard to miss, being about 4 tables across in blast radius. The explosion blew out the windows of the cafeteria and the fire activated 5 sprinklers in the area. The actual 20-lb propane bomb and the second complete bomb/duffel bag beside a nearby table didn't explode. If they had, investigators believe it would have been enough to bring the whole library down on the cafeteria.
11:53 AM Eric and Dylan headed to the main office area where unarmed security guard and a secretary were hiding, on lengthy calls to 911. The shooters moved from the office to the art hall, firing their weapons into the ceiling as they went. They went back down to the cafeteria again at 11:56 AM, looking defeated in posture on the security tapes. The bombs hadn't exploded and the sprinkler system had put out the fire they'd managed to start. At that time the first reports of gunmen at Columbine High School were beginning to air on television. The gunmen went into the kitchen very briefly then headed back upstairs once more, at 12:00 PM precisely. Outside, an armored vehicle arrived because the area was deemed unsafe for medical. Uninterrupted broadcasts on television are now airing on television stations all over the nation.
From 12:02 to 12:05 PM the gunmen were in the library, firing out the broken west windows at emergency workers and law enforcement who were trying to get people to safety and assist the wounded who were able to get out of the school. The Denver SWAT team finally begins to approach the school, under the cover of a commandeered fire truck.
At 12:04 paramedics were able to rescue Sean Graves, and Anne Marie Hochhalter from where they lay on the ground outside the school near the cafeteria. Both would later need wheelchairs. Lance Kirklin was rescued as well and transported to a makeshift triage area a few blocks away; Dan Rohrbough was deemed dead and left behind. Police had to provide cover for paramedics when they're shot at from the broken windows of the second floor library above the cafeteria.
Officers returned fire to provide cover for the folks executing rescue maneuvers while SWAT members watched the scene unfold from nearby roofs of houses. Once the ambulances left with the three injured students the gunfire from the library ceased. At this point the only people left alive in the library were Patrick Ireland, Lisa Kreutz and the four faculty hiding in the break and video rooms. Because of the noise of cover fire from law enforcement outside, none of them were able to later say when Eric and Dylan shot themselves but after 12:05 no shots attributed to the killers were fired. Investigators believe they committed suicide shortly after opening fire on the rescue workers below.
Escaping students were "leap-frogged" down a line of police cars positioned to provide cover for them outside the school. A news helicopter began circling the school at that time, providing aerial coverage of the event. At 12:06, the first SWAT team arrived at the school's east entrance. Jefferson County SWAT Deputy Allen Simmons' team of five men entered the building through the south-east entrance.
A smoke alarm on the ceiling went off in the library, above where the shooters' bodies were later found, at 12:08 PM. A small Molotov cocktail had been placed on a nearby table by one of the gunmen. The lit 'fuse' of the thing was hot enough to break the glass of the bottle, allowing the flammable liquid inside to spill out and make a small fire that set off the alarm. Arson investigators determined the small fire occurred after the shooters killed themselves.
A heating and air conditioning repairman was removed from the roof of Columbine at 12:11 PM. Initially thought to be a sniper, he was not a third gunman but one more innocent bystander hiding from the actual shooters.
At 12:21 PM, Lance Kirklin was taken from the official triage area at Yukon Street and Caley Avenue southwest of the school at the south entrance to Clement Park, to Denver Health Medical. At 12:25 PM paramedics rescued Mark Taylor from where he lay bleeding nearby. Deputy Searle and other officials made it to the injured students hiding behind Deputy Taborsky's vehicle (including Jeanna and Kacey) and got them transported to medical facilities at around 12:27 PM.
At about 12:30 Jefferson County SWAT commander Lt. Terry Manwaring's SWAT team reached the west side's back entrance. Believing the situation to be  one of hostage-negotiation, they sent in a team of 5 people through the upper level who stopped at the closed doors in the halls that seperated them from the science rooms, choir room and library (where the majority of the students are hiding/wounded/dead) afraid of encountering booby traps. About 20 students were freed.
Val Schnurr was taken from triage to the hospital at 12:31 PM. At 12:35 two members of the Denver SWAT team rescued Richard Castaldo from the grassy knoll, laying him on the bumper of the fire truck they were using for cover. From there Jefferson County Deputy Scott Taborsky put Richard in his patrol car and rushed him to triage. A half hour later he was on his way to the Swedish Medical Center.
By 1:30 more students were freed from the downstairs areas where the killers never went. At 2:30 two SWAT teams enter the teachers' lounge next to the kitchen and began securing lower the lower level and freed the people hiding in the kitchen and bathrooms. (See the findings of the cafeteria team) Casualties began arriving at two local hospitals. Five people suffering from serious gunshot wounds were taken to the Swedish Medical Centre in Denver.
 Trying to get help up to Coach Sanders, student Deidra Kucera posted a sign in the window: "1 BLEEDING TO DEATH". The sign was ignored. Despite their attempts, Dave Sanders died nearly three hours later from blood loss, surrounded by about 30 terrified students. His last words were reported by a student who was with him to be: "Tell my family I love them."
At 2:38 PM the SWAT moved in to rescue Patrick Ireland who had regained consciousness and had, in a desperate attempt to stay alive, hauled himself to the second floor window of the library. Slipping in and out of consciousness, he pushed himself up using his good leg and rolled himself out onto the ledge where he dangled, with nothing to land on below but concrete. With news cameras capturing everything, the SWAT had to move in under the cover of an armored unit to rescue him before he fell. 
Around that time, the students with Coach Sanders had given up waiting and snapped the legs off a table to make a gurney for him. At 2:42 PM, Williams' SWAT team finally made it to where Dave Sanders lay bleeding on the floor of the science lab. They radioed in for medical assistance to be sent in for a "teacher with multiple gunshot wounds". They wouldn't let the students use their gurney to move Sanders in -- they said they wanted to get the healthy people out first then they would move him out. At 2:47 that team moved roughly 60 students from the science area, freeing them from the building while two team members remained with the still-living Sanders.
It wasn't until 3:25 PM that the SWAT team finally made it into the library. The four officials who entered had to step over numerous bombs trying to get to each of the victims. They found Lisa Kreutz badly injured but still alive and, seeing her wounds, called for paramedics. Lisa was placed on a backboard and transported to the hospital at 3:37 PM, the last surviving victim to be removed from the school.
At 4:38 PM Dr. Christopher Colwell was called from the Denver Health Medical Center to search for signs of life among those left at the scene. Outside, he pronounced Rachel Scott and Dan Rohrbough dead. At 4:45 PM he was taken to the library where he pronounced 10 more students dead. He was then escorted to the science area, where he found and pronounced Dave Sanders dead. He bled to death while waiting for medical assistance to arrive.
Around 4:00 PM the sheriff made an initial estimate of 25 dead students and teachers - 10 over the actual count. Littleton police entered the library where they found Eric and Dylan dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head. The shooters lay close together in bloody heaps; Dylan was found laying on the floor with the TEC-DC9 and Eric had his sawed-off shotgun between his legs, slumped against a shelf of books. Both boys were still armed with several unused weapons (Investigation later confirmed the boys were both dead by 12:30 PM, three hours before their bodies were found. See the autopsies.). Officials searched Dylan and Eric's bodies at that time to be sure there were no booby traps. (Around 3:30 PM the bomb squad had also been called in to go over the area. These events took place before any forensics teams were allowed in to take pictures, so the bodies were not in their original positions when the infamous photos of the dead gunmen were taken.)
At 4:30 PM Columbine was officially declared safe but more officers were called in at 5:30 PM when explosives were found in the parking lots. At 6:15 PM the bomb squad found a bomb in Dylan's car , so the sheriff declared the whole school a crime scene, cordoning it off with police tape -- with all the dead bodies still inside. The dead couldn't be moved till a full investigation was done. At 10:45 PM, the car bomb went off when an official tried to defuse it, damaging the BMW without injuring anyone.
The day after the shootings, thousands of people came and went, leaving flowers and other memorials for those who died. It was sunny that afternoon but as soon as the bodies of the shooters were removed from the school, an unseasonable blizzard began.
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