Columbine not a closed book

If law enforcers knew then what they know now, perhaps someone would have connected the dots before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold slaughtered 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in 1999.

Newly released findings of a state investigation found that officers had at least 15 tips or face-to-face contacts with Harris and Klebold in the two years before the Columbine massacre. Attorney General Ken Salazar says he holds no one liable for not following up on death threats by one of the Columbine killers.

Other school shootings preceded the assault on Columbine, but no one could have conceived of the scope of the onslaught, which culminated in Harris and Klebold taking their own lives. As one examines the nature of law enforcement contacts with the pair, the vast majority appear to be the stuff of any number of teenagers' delinquent histories: property damage from a snowball and a paintball; a prank telephone call; breaking into a van and, for Klebold, a stop-light violation. Incidentally, the police officer who conducted the traffic stop noted that Klebold's attitude was good.

What separated the Columbine killers' early law-enforcement history from other delinquent teenagers was a Web site developed by Harris that threatened violence and mentioned four pipe bombs that Harris and Klebold had constructed. Deputies who investigated the Web site were reportedly aware of a pipe found near Harris' house that appeared to resemble bombs described on the Web page.

Failing to seek a warrant to search Harris' home was a squandered chance that possibly could have derailed the deadly rampage.

All of this is Monday morning quarterbacking, of course. Even if authorities had searched the Harris home, seized pipe bombs or bomb-making materials, isn't it also possible the pair would have continued their planning at another location? There's no way to know, really.

The reaction to the public display of the Columbine evidence and the ongoing investigation reminds us of the ongoing grief and pain of the victims and the victims' families. If the investigation and display of evidence validates some victims issues, there's some value to that. Others might find closure in knowing more of the details of the deadly siege.

But for others, the pain and the sense of loss has not been blunted with time. The best they can hope for is that school officials and law enforcers across the country have a better understanding of the psyche of school shooters and their methods, and that officials take proactive steps to prevent a similar tragedy in their own communities.