Columbine 911 tapes to be edited, then released

The Associated Press

05.12.00

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DENVER — A Jefferson County District Court judge on Thursday ordered the sheriff's department to edit the 911 tapes made during the Columbine High School shootings a year ago, and then release them to parents of the gunmen and of some victims.

The ruling by Judge R. Brooke Jackson said Colorado law requires that information sought under the state Open Records Act must be released "unless disclosure would be contrary to the public interest."

Jackson ordered the sheriff's department to do the editing as soon as possible, and he noted that once the plaintiffs in the case are given the tapes, there are no restrictions on what they can do with them.

The portion that will be edited out includes a sequence of conversations recorded when a teacher in the library left a telephone line open to a 911 operator as the two gunmen entered and began shooting students. The judge said that portion of the tape is akin to gruesome crime scene photographs and need not be released.

The judge also ordered most names, telephone numbers and addresses to be edited out of the tapes.

There are a total of 22 tapes, each 90 minutes long, except for a few sections that were blank, officials said. They were sought by Donald Fleming, Diedra A. Fleming, Brian E. Rohrbough and Susan A. Petrone.

Joining the request later were Mark and Sharilyn Schnurr, Dale and Jana Todd, and Andrew and Michelle Park.

Wayne and Katherine Harris and Thomas and Susan Klebold, the parents of assailants Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, filed to intervene in the request, but took no position on whether the tapes should be released.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine on April 20, 1999, and shot and killed 12 other students and a teacher before committing suicide.

The judge said the tapes start with calls arising from a diversionary bomb placed on a street near the school, then shift to the high school when the first call came in and continue through the events in the school and for a time afterward.

The calls address what was occurring inside and outside the school, including responses from law enforcement personnel, witnesses, the media and the public at large, the judge said.

The portion that must be edited out is limited to the 911 call placed by a teacher who was in the library and a call that was placed shortly before the gunmen entered and continued after they started shooting.

Most of the victims died in the library. The judge said the recording had been technologically enhanced by the FBI, "and ... it picks up screaming and some words spoken by gunmen and by victims.

"When coupled with other information compiled during the investigation, it may be possible to connect particular words to particular individuals and to correlate specific gunshots or bursts of gunshots to injuries inflicted on particular individuals," the judge said.

"In this court's view, publishing this particular [portion of the] recording has the potential of causing a degree of anguish for the surviving victims and victim families, including the families of the perpetrators, that outweighs the public interest in disclosure."