the name Jeffco Students United for Action—and that was still its name at the time of the events depicted here. However, the group soon rebranded itself as Jeffco Students Demand Action—which I use in the narrative to avoid confusion. (My researchers had trouble even verifying the original name ever existed. If you google to learn more, it’s the current name you’ll want to use.) The reason for the change is actually interesting, and it was duplicated around the country, as kids learned the power of branding. Groups were sprouting around the country with their own creative names, but Students Demand Action quickly developed into a brand, with T-shirts, hashtags, a logo, principles, and so forth. When kids networked around their region and tweeted around the world, SDA was a known quantity, so large numbers of them quickly began to coalesce around the name.
2
Full disclosure: the leaders of MFOL and the Columbine survivor community both knew I was connected with the other, and both sides reached out to me for contact names and numbers. In a strange coincidence, Frank DeAngelis and Jackie Corin texted me at almost the same time for help in reaching each other. (Frank didn’t specify Jackie in particular, but wanted to invite the MFOL leaders to the April 19 event. Jackie wanted to invite Frank to Douglas High to advise them on the grieving process.) That was the full extent of my role: helping connect them—and advising Frank that Jackie was a reliable person to use as a primary contact there. However, it gave me an early window into what the groups were planning long before they revealed it to media, and I kept in touch with both sides about the developments.
3
My interview with the four Legally Blonde kids actually took place a few weeks later, on May 8. As a rule, I tried to use quotes in the narrative when they occurred, or very close to that time, to give the reader a sense of how individuals’ impressions evolved. Two weeks is longer than I usually like to stretch it, but this was the place in the story where this material was relevant for readers, and it was clear that the kids had settled on these feelings for quite a while. I had also heard bits and pieces of this sentiment from many Douglas students for weeks before and after this point in the narrative (April 20). Of all those conversations, I felt this foursome really captured many shadings and perspectives of those feelings. I hope this scene provides a sense of so many more like it.
4
The meeting with survivors was by far the most intimate exchange between survivors I’ve ever witnessed in two decades covering such events. It was closed to the press and public. However, since I’ve known several of the Columbine survivors so long, they trusted me to observe quietly in the back of the auditorium. I took notes but did not record it. To augment my notes, I taped several minutes of impressions immediately after walking out. Because no one taped the session, I used only the few brief quotes—which I jotted down and then confirmed with the source later. Because it was private, I used only names and quotes from people who gave me permission afterward.
More disclosures: I have gotten close to many of the Columbine survivors over the years. After Columbine was published, I foolishly believed I had moved on from this horrible story, and became good friends with some of my “former” sources, including Kiki and Paula. The reality is that after two decades, we have all been pulled into the strange gravitational orbit of these awful events, and are part of it together. Normal journalistic boundaries have blurred.
In the years after Columbine was published, I also faced an ethical dilemma. I had always sought to remain neutral and objective on issues like the gun debate. However, I am now frequently sought out for advice on mass shootings by students, parents, school administrators, academics, and law enforcement officers. (For example, I was the keynote speaker one year for the annual threat management conference organized by the FBI and LAPD.) I realized at some point that I had blended into being part of this, and with people dying—so many children dying—and such an obvious national problem with guns, I could no longer stay completely neutral. I avoid public positions on specific gun legislation, but I take the overt position that we have badly failed to do anything, and some reasonable