Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were not your average teenagers. According to their journals, notes, and videos, Klebold had been thinking of committing suicide in 1997, and they both begun thinking about a large massacre in April 1998. The two had already run into trouble, and were arrested for breaking into a van on January 30, 1998. Since they were first time offenders, the two began a juvenile diversion program. For eleven months, the boys were doing everything they could to convince everyone they were sorry for what they did. No one knew that the whole time they were planning for a large massacre at their high school.
Klebold and Harris were angry teenagers. They didn't just hate the athletes who made fun of them, or Christians, or blacks, but basically hated everyone except for certain people. They kept journals that expressed their true feelings about everything. "Harris opened his private journal with the sentence, "I hate the f---ing world." And when the media studied Harris, they focused on his hatred-hatred that led him to revenge"(Cullen 1). The two boys wrote about killing and retaliation in each other's yearbooks. They used the internet to find recipes for bombs and other explosives."They amassed on arsenal, which eventually included guns, knives, and 99 explosive devices"(Rosenberg 2). Dylan and Eric wanted to kill as many people as possible. They planned to plant propane bombs in the cafeteria and then shoot any survivors that came running out. .
On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, in Littleton, Colorado Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot and killed students at Columbine High school. As the two arrived at school they parked in areas that had clear view of the cafeteria and the main exit. To distract police they set up a bomb half a mile away. They had two propane bombs in a duffel bag and set them in the cafeteria. When the bombs didn't go off they armed themselves and entered the school.