Where were you that day?

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Listening_Stranger82@reddit

Junior in high school. We had a special assembly where the principal said he understood a lot of people went hunting before and after school but if anyone had a rifle in their car they'd need to be dismissed to take it home. Very Alabama

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No-Relation4226@reddit

Also Junior year. We immediately started speculating who would be our school’s counterpart.

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braxtel@reddit

There was a weird kid at my school who was nicknamed the unabomber, and that was before Columbine happened. Poor kid was under some serious scrutiny after.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

As a goth, my friend group was treated very differently, a lot of attention was given to us.

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tonsofgrassclippings@reddit

Grew up in a very small town in the Upper Midwest. When one kid in my school went full goth circa 2000, you would have thought he had actually shot up the school and made a blood pentagram on the gym’s center court.

Unsurprisingly, he was a nice kid who mostle seems to hate living in relative BFE. Can’t blame him, hope he’s doing well these days.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

What is BFE?

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No-Relation4226@reddit

Bum-Fuck Egypt. Indicating that someplace is out-of-the way, rural, far away, etc.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

I have heard of bum fuck Egypt but I just have never seen the abbreviation. There's too many fucking acronyms out there for me to ever remember or know what the fuck they relate to, I work in IT and every time I've changed jobs in the past 15 years I have to learn a gazillion new acronyms and they just fuck me up so bad

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leave-no-trace-1000@reddit

There was a shooting in 1995 at a high school near mine and they still allowed kids in the parking lot with guns in their vehicles. Columbine changed that though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Richland_High_School_shooting

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Goongagalunga@reddit

This sounds like how it went in my HS, which I would say is in, like, the Alabama of California, if you can imagine. Kids had rifles on gun racks pared 50’ from the library windows. Cause nobody in charge had imagined using them like that…

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Golden_Enby@reddit

Bakersfield? Redding?

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Goongagalunga@reddit

Good guesses. Closer to Redding.

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Golden_Enby@reddit

Ah, that makes sense. I've driven through there (I'm in SoCal) while heading up to Oregon. Much like Bakersfield, I always felt unsettled driving through the outskirts of NorCal. Just shopping at a grocery store, people would stare at me like I had 3 heads and I don't know why. Close family friends used to live in Redding. They'd always tell us how much they don't like the people there.

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Mattie_Doo@reddit

I live in the Bay Area and I love it here, but as soon as you get north of Napa or east into the Central Valley, it’s like you’re in a different world. I’m not saying it’s bad, but to those of us who aren’t used to the rural lifestyle, it’s kinda jarring.

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TreemanTheGuy@reddit

2012 in rural Canada, we had a special assembly to tell kids if they had guns in their vehicles to hunt after school that they aren't allowed to use the school's parking lot. Across the street was fine though.

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SplakyD@reddit

Also in Alabama and also in my junior year.

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cecil021@reddit

Similar situation in Tennessee. Our dress code (and rules in general) was very lax up until then. They really clamped down on it starting my senior year.

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DeuceOfDiamonds@reddit

We had the same announcement the next day in south Georgia.

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14thLizardQueen@reddit

This was our Texas answer too. Thank the guns off the rack before you get to school.

I had a friend get suspended for shells in his truck bed..

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fourtytwoistheanswer@reddit

Down the street watching it unfold.

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protossaccount@reddit

I was in Colorado Springs finishing up 8th grade. On the way home a bunch of seniors were gathered at the 7/11 and that’s when I heard about it.

Schools started changing the next year, and they turned our open campus into a closed and walled off building Cheyenne Mountain high school). Crazy that 9/11 occurred roughly 2 years and 4 months after this. The whole world felt like it had transformed.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

You're 1984 and were in 8th grade, are you sure? I'm 1983 and was a sophomore in high school

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protossaccount@reddit

Yeah, my parents held me back a year in 5th grade (I don’t recommend doing this to a child). I have adhd and I was born in June so they held me back.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

Aw that sucks, thank you for clarifying. I was like no I for sure was a sophomore!

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wtfworld22@reddit

Also 84, February. I was a freshman in high school for Columbine (I said sophomore above but I was wrong) and the beginning of my senior year for 9/11.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

Ok cool!

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OneDay_AtA_Time@reddit

Very off topic but your story reminded me that I tried to read charlottes web to my very young kids last year and on the first page, the son grabs his rifle and heads off to school (insinuating he’d be going to hunt before or after school). They never say which state they are in, just rural America. But maybe it was AL.

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ripestrudel@reddit

I was a 3rd grader at Roosevelt Edison Charter in the Springs when it happened. We went on lockdown. Parents came to pick up their kids. All I really remember was how panicked my teachers were.

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protossaccount@reddit

I went to a charter school in the springs before high school and we had a postal worker literally go postal the year before columbine and it was just a ‘weird event’. We were hanging out in gym class and my buddy was casually like, “That dude has a shotgun.” and sure enough a former postal worker was in the parking lot and they had to call SWAT.

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SUJB9@reddit

I’m the same year and lived a school district over. I think Columbine was more impactful on my adolescence than 9/11 given my age and living in Colorado.

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fourtytwoistheanswer@reddit

Thank you for the award but, I don't deserve it. My friends in the cafeteria do, the kids walking in the halls do. I was at home.

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cocococlash@reddit

I was going to school at Metro. Classes were pretty much stopped, with all screens on the news. Horrifying.

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Own_Negotiation897@reddit

Same. I was in the Tivoli and saw a group gathered at the doorway of one of the lounges. I popped over to see what was on the TV.

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LeopardDue1112@reddit

I've heard stories about students who gathered in houses near the school so they could call their parents. What a nightmare.

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NicolleL@reddit

I remember hearing about the kids that ended up at a nice neighbor’s house with Sandy Hook too. I

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MonkMillar@reddit

Me too, kinda. We lived in Grant Ranch at the time. One of the house backed up to Bowles. I was very young when it happened, but the shadow that day cast loomed over the area my entire childhood.

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MiniTab@reddit

Yeah, I was in the area too. Kind of like a Challenger level event for me, still remember walking by the TV when the started, etc.

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fourtytwoistheanswer@reddit

I was home sick that day. Couple of friends almost got taken out in the cafeteria. Cops were all over my house cause I didn't have much money growing up and wore a ladies London Fog for a winter coat. The bullshit treanch coat mafia thing got me flagged. Pretty crappy day!

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cheyennepeppr@reddit

I was home sick that day too in Littleton, but I was a freshman at another high school. Every channel started broadcasting live footage interrupting my TV programs. I finally looked outside and the saw helicopters. My childhood friend Heidi Johnson wrote a book about being in the library. Daniel Mauser was in my youth group. Al Gore spoke on the steps of the new movie theater nearby. It was surreal.

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MiniTab@reddit

Holy crap! That’s nuts. Did you know Dylan and Eric?

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fourtytwoistheanswer@reddit

I didn't know them. I open enrolled for marching band, didn't go to Columbine personally. Just live in the area and had childhood friends there.

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_BadPanda@reddit

I was in Sophomore year sitting in class at Regis Jesuit in Aurora. I remember the teacher breaking news, putting the broadcast on tv, and some of the kids around me breaking down in tears because they had friends at that school.

Around the time it was happening there was a jeep wrangler driving on the football field and around the campus with a couple of guys cheering and yelling out the window. The severity of it all hadn’t really hit me at the time, I just remember the combination of the extreme grief that had overcome the classroom with the bizarre event of the jeep driving around the school yard made everything feel so surreal.

Apparently we weren’t the only school those jeeps were driving around on the field.Some people I knew at Chaparral mentioned they saw the same thing. It later came out that the “Trenchcoat Mafia” had a hit list of schools, and mine was in the top 3 from what I can remember.

I don’t remember much after that. I just remember that things changed after that day, quite a lot.

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Mattie_Doo@reddit

Wait… what? Who was cheering in the jeep? I don’t get it.

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Sycamore_Ready@reddit

I was ditching school and smoking weed and my parents started paging me over and over. I thought I was caught and ignored them. I went to the high school closest to Columbine and no one could find me. I scared the shit out of my parents that day, I feel terrible for that and I'm still so sad for the students and their families.

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Character_Heart_3749@reddit

I was in Aurora in 7th grade, and they made us all go to the hallway and duck and cover like a bomb threat. It was wild

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barefootincozumel@reddit

Holy crap

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fermentedradical@reddit

Holy shit, I'm sorry.

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Much_Usual_3855@reddit

My senior year of high school.

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jackytheripper1@reddit

Sophomore year, as a goth. I was treated very differently from that day on

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pina_koala@reddit

I still wore my MM t-shirt (cringe factor x100) but yeah there was some 'splainin to do moving forward lol

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jackytheripper1@reddit

Look at MM's case and read into that shit because Rachel Evan wood made the entire thing up. MM was not cringe, I'm still a stan for that old music. NIN smashing pumpkins RATM and MM shaped me as a person

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cptsears@reddit

Junior - my friends and I also targeted as being 'Trenchcoat Mafia' types. Like...we're just nerds with different clothes...

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jackytheripper1@reddit

Yup, I feel for you.

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GreenCarpenter3@reddit

Yeah, me too. The next day, there was an armed guard at the main entrance due to fears over copycats.

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djhankb@reddit

Me too

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Cass_Q@reddit

Same.

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WrongfullyIncarnated@reddit

me too

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DMmeDuckPics@reddit

Yep.

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moondaisgirl@reddit

Same here

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KudosOfTheFroond@reddit

Same here too, ditto

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Leilani3317@reddit

Same

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EXSkywarp@reddit

So was I.

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Mental-Method-1321@reddit

Ditto

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Aggressive_Till_8822@reddit

Likewise

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LisaferMorningstar@reddit

Same. Was home sick that day watching it unfold live.

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elbowglitter@reddit

Another senior here.

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_buffy_summers@reddit

I was, also.

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BSet262@reddit

As was I.

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Vivid_Needleworker_8@reddit

Class of 99

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djhankb@reddit

There are dozens of us!

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meltintothesea@reddit

Wow what a coincidence oh wait….

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sexyass2627@reddit

It was my eighth grade year.

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JonnyQuest1981@reddit

Ditto

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b1gd4ddychubb5@reddit

Me three

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ttw81@reddit

me too. my dad picked me up early from school (i have no memory what for) & when i got in the car, he told me two guys busted into a hs in Colorado & killed twenty people; they'd been in a standoff w/the police for hours.

the next few weeks of hs were very strange.

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Original_Ad8991@reddit

It was my senior year as well. We had a bomb threat the next week and the whole district shutdown as a precaution

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BetterOffRedThanDyed@reddit

I was a sophomore, I remember sitting at the kitchen table doing homework after school and hearing the news when my dad turned on NPR. It was bone chilling and so surreal, my high school experience was never the same after that. So many threats and other fuckery afterwards, I never felt entirely safe in school again

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ttw81@reddit

the following week we had a bomb threat saying like the bomb will go off at 10 am, tuesday. they left us sitting in class, i had a class in the basement & trying to figure out how I'd get out if it actually happened,

it turns out they called in a threat to every hs in little rock.

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Drcornelius1983@reddit

We had a shooting threat so they put us all on the football field for some reason.

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ttw81@reddit

gif

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BetterOffRedThanDyed@reddit

That’s terrible. Why anyone would want to copy or perpetuate anything that happened that day is beyond me. It reshaped going to school forever in ways that other generations will never understand simply because it was either never that way or always that way. My junior or senior year I can’t remember which now there was a threat over at the middle school and they brought them all to the high school after evaluation and I remember rushing through the lobby to get to the bathroom before someone told me I couldn’t and there was this 6th grader who was having a complete meltdown right there in the middle of everything crying about how she didn’t want to die. Come to find out later her cousin was in Columbine. I’ll never forget how scared she was

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ttw81@reddit

it's been so long but i seem to remember it was a couple of kids who thought school would be closed. they called every school to make it harder to find out who was doing it,

my brother was in 9th grade & when i asked him if he remembered. he said his middle school actually did take them outside for an extra long fire drill, which was more care we got.

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The-Good-Bad-Place@reddit

Same. And then remembered the bomb threats that plagued my school in the weeks after. 😢

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Kyogsa@reddit

Yup. Same

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fakewoke247@reddit

Same.. with my new black leather trench coat I got for my birthday

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Temporary_Meaning_68@reddit

I think I was either in Juniour or Senior year of high school.

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pig_benis81@reddit

Same

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BogeyLowenstein@reddit

Same

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Accurate-Temporary73@reddit

Yup me as well.

Had about a month until graduation and I was asked to stop wearing my trench coat.

I politely said no

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DudeCanNotAbide@reddit

Class of '99 should've seen all that was coming our way with this little bow on top of our youth.

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scarlet-begonia-9@reddit

Me too.

I remember that the kids who frequently wore trench coats stopped immediately.

The previous Christmas (1998), my grandfather had given me an old pair of his army gloves because he thought they were very warm; I’d just been accepted early decision to a college that got a lot of snow. The gloves were more like mittens, but in addition to the thumb being separate, the index finger was as well for ease of shooting. I opted not to take those to school with me.

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ConfidenceFragrant80@reddit

Omg

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gwhh@reddit

Good move.

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International_Fix792@reddit

Same 💜

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Rdubya291@reddit

I was a Junior. Even more messed up, a few days afterwards, some dude called in a bomb threat to our school, hoping they would send all the kids home because he was planning on throwing a party.

That party never did materialize. But we had to stand outside in the heat with the mosquitos for like 4 hours.

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jesst@reddit

We had a load of bomb threats at my school after as well. It was a matter scary time.

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TacoBetty@reddit

Same and we had so many “bomb threats” afterwards we ended up making up days of school.

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Dense-Lab@reddit

We had so many bomb threats too, I remember taking a test outside on the stadium bleachers during one of the evacuations.

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Fantastic-Guitar-977@reddit

Also a junior - i remember senior year the school installed metal detectors and a police officer at rear cafeteria door of the school that led to the parking lot and you had to sign in/out. I had double early release that year and remember being disappointed in the hassle because prior to that people could just come and go.

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ChickenArise@reddit

also Junior, and I got a lot of shit afterwards.

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RaphaelSolo@reddit

Same, particularly in Building Trades on the bus to the job site. To screw with em I dead ass told them I wouldn't use a gun because it's too loud. They got real quite and left me alone after that.

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Golden_Enby@reddit

Same at my school. A handful of called in bomb threats and some kids thought it would be funny to bring weapons to school. We had so many evacuations those first couple of months after the tragedy.

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BlazedGigaB@reddit

For a lot of us...

My friends and I all got in varying degrees of "trouble" because we'd skipped school to smoke weed all day, but we were the kids in trench coats. The school really wanted to know where we were

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ttw81@reddit

i brother got hauled in because he wore a trenchcoat. he explained he just liked wearing it & (ever the smartass) told them he didn't even like marylin manson, my dad was so pissed he had to miss work for that.

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rarepinkhippo@reddit

I feel so bad for the trenchcoat kids (which as you know, but mentioning in case anyone in this thread doesn’t, the shooters weren’t anyway) and the Marilyn Manson fans in the years after. My school was the site of a different shooting, also in the ‘90s, and it was so unfair later how “alt” kids were scapegoated even though the shooter wasn’t, and wasn’t friends with them. Yet somehow in this small shitty backwards town, kids still brought hunting rifles to school in their cars (I remember being agog seeing someone’s gun rack in their open pickup bed, fully accessible, only a year or two after a multi-fatality shooting at a school in the same town that many students had directly gone through), yet this wasn’t addressed by the school but the kids in trenchcoats and/or who listened to Marilyn Manson were absolutely treated like dogshit by most of the town despite having done NOTHING and probably most of them not even knowing the shooter.

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Drcornelius1983@reddit

Tenth grade for me.

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Suspicious-Earth-648@reddit

Same

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Remote_Force1839@reddit

Me three. And we watched on tv

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dollheads@reddit

I had a month left until graduation. The day after, we were talking about it in homeroom. I still remember my teacher saying “it’s always the quiet ones; like [dollheads]” and the entire classroom looked my way and I was mortified to be called out like that.

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mischievous_misfit13@reddit

Me too.

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mtrxgltchs@reddit

Same. A few weeks after that tragic incident, a sophomore at my school was expelled because he had created a hit list.

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ViewAskewRob@reddit

Yup…so I was most likely home ditching my morning study hall and my 2 TA classes. I think I was watching it on TV so I am pretty sure I was home.

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MungoJennie@reddit

I was home sick, and I watched it from the sofa w/ the barf bowl.

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boommerz420@reddit

9th for me

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Applewave22@reddit

Same.

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Vogonpoet812@reddit

Same. And the "weirdo" kid that always wore a trench coat years before this got picked on horribly even more so.

Fortunately he's doing well and works at an independent salon a few towns over.

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blueplutoredsky@reddit

Yup.

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Fr0stbite37@reddit

Add me to this list. Watched a lot of CNN after school that day

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TheF1na1Countdown59@reddit

Same here...

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Frys100thCupofCoffee@reddit

Same here. I don't remember if it was that day or the next day, but some asshole called in a bomb threat and we all had to do the fire evacuation plan and wait outside while the cops came with dogs to check the campus. Other than that, I don't remember any adults talkling to us about it. Not my parents or teachers, no one. It's like it was mentioned in the news and everyone knew about it, but the shock was so great no one would talk about it.

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errythingbagels@reddit

Sr yr of hs… at my part time job watching the news and trying to understand how you could be killed at school … and how these kids weren’t going to graduate in a few weeks like I was.

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Blackbird136@reddit

Me too.

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EmmalouEsq@reddit

Same. That day was surreal. And who would've thought we'd still be dealing with that stuff 27 years later?

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VoidOmatic@reddit

Still one of my biggest fears.

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bitsy88@reddit

I'd be lying if I said this fear isn't at least a small part of why I chose to not have kids. Trust me, there are many bigger reasons as well but the idea that my kid wouldn't be safe even in school kills me.

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ouijahead@reddit

My poor child has autism. High functioning but doesn’t understand the what and why of a lot of things. The drills they have to at school terrify her.

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NorthWestBoarder@reddit

Sameses

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morkoq@reddit

me too, our motto was last of the century, best of the century...

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AFCartoonist@reddit

Same. Someone called in a bomb threat while we were all outside and they sent us home.

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abcbri@reddit

Oh they had so many bomb threats for days at my school after that.

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MinorThreat4182@reddit

Junior year.

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MinnieVanRental@reddit

Me too

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actingmeg1@reddit

Me too. I picked up my graduation announcements that day.

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wundercat@reddit

Yup

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meldiane81@reddit

Same.

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Alarming_Fun_7246@reddit

Same here

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twinklebat99@reddit

Same, and my friends group was the weird kids. So it was real awkward for us afterwards.

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iron_vet@reddit

Yep, skipped that day to smoke weed.

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karebearjedi@reddit

Same

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_acrostical@reddit

Yep. And we seniors had the day off because it was a state testing day, and we didn't have to take them anymore. So we got to watch all of the coverage as it was happening.

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tellerwoes@reddit

That is a bingo

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m8k@reddit

Same

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Lopsided_Bet_2578@reddit

Same

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LGZ7981@reddit

Same

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PlausibleAuspice@reddit

Me too. It was our senior “cut” day and we all went to the beach. Saw it on the news when I got home. Was scared to go back to school.

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cahrens414@reddit

Same

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Fancy-Duty-2031@reddit

Same

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DarinCN@reddit

Mcqueen high 2 states west

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Junior_Article_3244@reddit

Same. It was so weird. One day everything in the school was unlocked, the next day, everything was locked.

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Comfortable_Tale9722@reddit

Same

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sherzisquirrel@reddit

Me too

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TheWritingMcKenzie@reddit

Likewise.

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BeneficialHamster567@reddit

Same.

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Educational-Basil472@reddit

Same

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Ill-Key7588@reddit

Teaching in a highschool classroom.

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alkenist@reddit

In a hospital bed watching news coverage.

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No-Sandwich9130@reddit

I was recently explaining to my kids that there are few moments in my life that haunt me more than 9/11 & Columbine 💔

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DiegoElM@reddit

Freshman year of college.

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repdetec_revisited@reddit

At least we don’t have to listen to that song anymore

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Coyote-American@reddit

At work.

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EricE9284@reddit

8th grade

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KingdomOfFawg@reddit

Junior year of high school, but I attended community college. Definitely weird enough that if I was at my high school, I would have been taken aside by the principal, vice principal or guidance counselor. Instead I just went about my business and went to class.

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No1Czarnian@reddit

Getting high

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Mysterious-Dot1321@reddit

April vacation

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dialguy86@reddit

Apparently most of did nothing about it though

A total of 115 people have been killed and 377 people have been wounded in 98 shootings, as of March 31, 2026.

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Guest1019@reddit

Working in the office “up the road” in Boulder. Brutal day.

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Inevitable_Sky_2023@reddit

First-year geology class, and no one really explained to me exactly what went on - until my family went to church the following Sunday and were listening to the local Christian radio throughout the week.

Thus, the main impression I got was of the martyrdom of the few individuals who professed their faith before being shot by one of the gunmen, and how brave they were.

I do not go to church that much anymore, but after years of not discussing the event, I now wonder whether those individuals who did decide to profess their faith would have been safer had they fought off their attackers instead of professing their faith. Then again, they were children. They did not have the adults' survival instinct. However, with the number of hunters in the area, couldn't there have been more classes on gun safety and defense? However, with the number of hunters in the area, couldn't there have been more classes offered for school-sponsored courses on gun safety and defense before the attack happened?

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eternalrevolver@reddit

Just another day at highschool in my hometown

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Separate_Editor3223@reddit

Working in the Counseling office of a SoCal high school. Really hit us hard.

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dogfacedponyboy@reddit

I was at JCPenney buying a suit for my first job interview

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Clear_Acanthaceae287@reddit

I was leaving the tanning bed (I know) and saw the news coverage on the TV in the lobby.

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Good-Bandicoot-2152@reddit

School?

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actualelainebenes@reddit

Freshman year of college…I just remember skipping my classes that day because I was annoyed over something ridiculous and driving around…heard the news over the radio

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GalileoAce@reddit

In Australia, where I live

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profcate@reddit

Last quarter of B-School. I remember I was at the gym on the treadmill.

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salami_on_a_bagel@reddit

1999 hmmm, 11th grade

And jesus christ nothing has changed or gotten better since

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Selmarris@reddit

My best friend’s birthday sleepover. Pretty somber. We were sophomores.

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orange_avenue@reddit

Junior year of high school. I remember going to sociology class and my teacher, who was only in his mid 20s and passionate about history/government/sociology, looked devastated, the color drained from his face. He told us what had happened. I think he’d seen news footage somewhere else on campus and was relaying what information he knew to us. We talked about what it meant and just sat kind of stunned.

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OkAcanthaceae9859@reddit

I was employed as a School Social Worker at a district elementary at the time of Columbine. I was horrified by the factual details that emerged as time went on. I made it a practice to research everything I could on so called, "school shooters". Ten years later, I intervened in what would have been an active shooting event. I still have friends who work in schools and I fear for their safety. As far as I'm concerned, the United States is a failed state. Columbine was the canary.....functionally, the gun lobby has won and american kids and families have lost.

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IDigRollinRockBeer@reddit

School

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SimplyTheApnea@reddit

I was less than a mile away at a small charter school. I had work later that day at a mom and pop VHS video store and had to call the manager and tell him that they weren't letting me go home on my bike and could only leave when a parent picked me up so I wouldn't make it in.

Side note the owner pulled our copy of Natural Born Killers days later in a rage

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Notredamus1@reddit

Sophomore in high school. My school got hit a couple years later as a senior. But we were lucky no one died in the shooting at our school.

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DiegoSan619-@reddit

Granite?

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Notredamus1@reddit

Yup

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Tigerzombie@reddit

I was also a sophomore. No shooting but someone did call in a bomb threat a few weeks later. The same kid also had a list of names. I shared a few classes with the guy. We weren’t close but he seemed like a nice guy when I had to work with him in class.

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Interesting-Handle-6@reddit

Wow similar. I was a sophomore and I think the next year I found a note with names on it in the girls bathroom. The girl I found it with was on the list. I went to the police station and was fingerprinted and questioned all night. Tried to crack a joke about the place looking nicer than NYPD Blue. They did not laugh. Turns out the girl I found it with wrote it. That shit fucked with me.

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knarusch123@reddit

Exactly same here. Sophomore year, school shooting at high-school in 2012. Lost three

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Notredamus1@reddit

Im sorry to hear that. I hope you have found peace since the incident. No one died in the incident at my school but I still have nightmares on occasion and its been hard seeing my kids have to do active shooter drills in school.

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t_bone_stake@reddit (OP)

I was a sophomore as well, though nothing of that regard happened

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pimento_mori@reddit

8th grade, playing basketball outside during lunch.

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kaiju505@reddit

On a school field trip a couple of miles down the road.

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Low-Letterhead7231@reddit

You have to have so much more than just the where, the world was different.

Sitting in class. Wearing a Marilyn manson T-shirt and a black trench coat with rage against the machine & tons of patches and whatnot. Followed shortly by being accused of threatening to shoot up our school and getting yanked out of class by the cops and strip searched over 20 times on less than 2 months.

Walking into school wearing 26" jncos and getting asked if I had a shotgun in my pants..... Why no Mr vice principal I'm just happy to see you! Did not go over well.

Two guys that did it confessed for in almost no trouble, they threw live ammo around the school and wrote a bunch of racist shit which is funny if you knew me, my fav shirt was a 1969 real Woodstock t shirt. Plur peace love unity respect. I was a hippy, long hair the works. Just a hippy in 1999.

Way too late though dropped out of school after being internally cavity searched a dozen times, during the complete strip searches.

No family member or adult I begged for help did a gd thing. No school counselor or pastor or policeman....

In fact I came home from school one day and all my shit I was allowed to keep was in the back of a truck and I was told I was dropping out, going to live with a relative so I could work for them.

Literal child slave labor. I was fired after not being able to stay awake for more than 36 hours, and I couldn't fix something (without food or sleep) that none of the adults could fix..

All because these two fucks. My life was literally destroyed and my wife and I have been together since then literally, and we are still paying for what our families did to us and our children. And what they didn't didn't't do for us.

We weren't in but literally next door neighbors to one of the top ten most extreme cults in the USA. Our parents condoned extremist viewpoints at best and at worst enacted them. But they had to look like normal people, for the most part.

We lived through satanic panic not long before this.

Matthew Shepard was still fresh in our minds.

9 11 hadn't happened and the world was still naive and full of hope and innocence .

We were going to save the world.

We were going to stop climate change.

We were going to bring freedom and democracy to the 4 corners of this planet.

We were using the Internet to make the world a better place and share culture and information, to help move humanity forward.

Not everything was about trying to survive or make money.

It was still a world on Monday you start with 0 dollars and being able to work hard, and show up was enough to get you treated like a human and enough money in a couple of weeks to get off the street if you were homeless.

A Manager at McDonald's could by a house....

Let that sink in. You could manage a fast food joint and afford a pretty decent little home. If mom and dad worked full time then you had a new car. The gray area between upper class and lower class was much much bigger. Middle class was America.

Everything was still possible and real and you didn't have to question and investigate every single thing to determine if what you are seeing and hearing is true,real, or intentionally designed to manipulate what you think what you feel, what you buy...

You had time to interact with other humans and actually be present with them.

We saw people not problems.

When you left somewhere, you had to know where you were going and how to get there.

If the car broke down you were walking to a telephone.

This is where I was in the USA. At the time.

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Skywren7@reddit

I was 21 lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver. My roommate woke me up telling me to watch the news. I had to go to work that day, worked at a pizza place. I was swamped because every news station was ordering 10-20 pies. I felt numb.

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JeffMorse2016@reddit

Manassas, VA, right outside a 7-11 I just pulled up to.

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Panda_peach5678@reddit

Sophomore year of high school. On my birthday.

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Michael_Mc_79@reddit

I was in my first year of Art School.

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Emotional_Dot_5207@reddit

freshman. I can't remember the actual day, but I remember everything after it. I was already dealing with extreme bullying forever and then the "trench coat mafia" shit took it to another level. I had to switch schools or I wouldn't be here.

I was never a Marilyn Manson, but, at the time I appreciated that he seemed supportive of us. As an adult, besides all the allegations, I see this was narcissist victimhood. He was at risk for shows being cancelled, meanwhile kids are experiencing real physical harm from peers and adults (school, family, cops). He could have been advocating for us, like ICP for the Juggalos against the FBI. (Mad respect for their efforts.) School gave us a survey asking if we felt save and if we should have IDs. I wrote that no, I'm not safe, actually. The school isn't safe for people who are different in general. and a piece of plastic isn't going to stop a bullet. (they told the only openly gay student to switch schools because he was getting death threats rather than deal with those other students.)

At the time I was raised in an evangelical church (the goth at youth group) so we were inundated with "Cassie Bernall was murdered for her faith. Are you ready to die for your faith?" Like imagine being 14 with a school shooting victim as an object lesson for Matthew 10:33. "But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven." If you're not ready to take a bullet, your faith is weak and you will go to hell. I went to a huge christian music festival that summer and there was a whole memorial for her. Fast forward 25 years and I find out that entire story is a fucking lie. And worse, her parents knew it wasn't true and still went on to publish their book and spread the lie because it was good christian propaganda.

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Eric-Lynch@reddit

School.

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OkAthlete8327@reddit

No idea. In college, and not paying any attention to the news. I probably didn’t find out that anything had occurred for weeks

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Ilikedinosaurs2023@reddit

Freshman in high school...was skipping last period and with the time difference (EST), I was at my house watching the live news coverage. After that I was convinced someone would copy cat at my school and had anxiety whenever we had to switch classes for the next couple of months, especially with the obligatory high school bomb threats, which was new to me having just left middle school. It was a weird year all around...

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grandma-activities@reddit

Second year of college, driving down one of the main roads in the city, heard about it on the radio. I knew the world had changed.

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Tamuzz@reddit

Safe. At school. In the uk

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chocki305@reddit

Because UK schools don't have a knife violance issue right?

averaging four a week during term time.

Not even US school shootings have that average. Get off your high horse.

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Tamuzz@reddit

I dont know where you got that statistic from but you might want to fact check it.

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chocki305@reddit

Channel 4 News.

Maybe you should start watching your own news before crying about US problems.

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Tamuzz@reddit

Try looking up what the actual statistic is referring to:

Injury RELATED to knife crime, but not necessarily caused by a knife.

Not deaths. Not even stabbings.

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chocki305@reddit

Either your Google fu sucks really bad. Or you just don't wqnt to admit that the UK has a serious issue with knife violance in schools. My bet is both.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-exclusive-data-reveals-150-knife-attacks-at-schools-in-england-and-wales

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Tamuzz@reddit

Try actually reading what you link

It’s possible that in some cases, the injury may not have been directly caused by the knife

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chocki305@reddit

Or you just don't want to admit that the UK has a serious issue with knife violence in schools

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Initial-Shoulder-631@reddit

Junior year of high school

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Fernet59@reddit

Eating lunch at a restaurant with my niece when they started showing breaking news on the TV behind the bar

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Mindless_Decision809@reddit

Junior in high school

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Tacrolimus005@reddit

April 20th '99? I would have been working most likely, it was a weekday. That night we probably celebrated with 420 favors, but just another day.

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GaldonTheWarrior@reddit

I was a junior in high school

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Inspi@reddit

Sophomore year of highschool.

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QueenTrashPanda816@reddit

I think I was a sophomore in high school. Watching the news on a classroom TV

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Aliceduwonderland25@reddit

GenX and Columbine (1986) alumni here. I was at work and my son was in school at a nearby school, on lockdown. I went to the park in the afternoon and cannot appropriately describe the surreality. The camera crews getting close ups of sobbing, traumatized teenagers. Sheppard Smith getting his makeup touched up before going on air. I drive on the portion of the highway now named after teacher Dave Sanders and I use the lessons he taught me (typing and other business related classes) 5 days a week. As a nation we were shocked that such a thing could happen here. As a community we were speechless. Even those that hated high-school proudly proclaimed "We Are Columbine. The following years proved only that no one/no place is immune.

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Coomstress@reddit

This happened right before I graduated high school. 😢

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Previous_Trouble_888@reddit

I was about as far away as you can get from a country that hands out guns like they're going out of fashion, and I still am.

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edasto42@reddit

I was out of school for 4 years at that point. Ironically enough my friend took me to a Marilyn Manson concert that night.

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humidititters@reddit

I was 20 and working at Blockbuster Video.

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Ok-Pin6704@reddit

Junior in high school in Denver. We didn’t really know what was happening, but we went on a lockdown (meant that we couldn’t leave campus for lunch) and then all afterschool activities were cancelled. I was supposed to have a soccer game, but since that was cancelled, some of the team decided to get ice cream. We were walking around the Cherry Creek north, pretty oblivious. We knew something was happening, but didn’t really know how serious it was until we saw the news playing on TVs in the window of Radio Shack (yes, seriously). Over the next few days, there were multiple bomb threats that evacuated our school. We had a “joke” that Columbine could never happen at our school because enough kids had guns, that the shooters would have been taken out before they got to the library (inner city “diverse” school).

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AlejandroDupre@reddit

Having a peaceful dinner in Spain and not noticing anything, I suppose. This is a forum for Xennials, not American Xennials; you're not the center of the universe.

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_R_A_@reddit

Feel free to start a thread about some major event in Spain during your formative years?

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TheOneCalledD@reddit

You’re welcome to use Spain’s version of Reddit…

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worksnake@reddit

Your dinner in Spain means nothing to me. This is a forum for xennials, not Spanish gastronomy. You’re not the center of the universe.

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AlejandroDupre@reddit

Xennials from around the world, the fact that your teenagers are crazy and armed says a lot about your society.

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Adventurous_Pin_344@reddit

SOOOO... I was actually scheduled to play the Columbine lacrosse team that afternoon. At some point midmorning, our captain notified us that the game was canceled because "there's some hostage situation over there, or something."

Fuck. I can't believe it's 25 years later, and it feels even more dangerous to send kids to school now. I'm pissed. At least my state legislature has passed a bunch of common sense gun reforms in the past 10 years. Too bad we continue to be known for our mass shootings - not just Columbine, but the Aurora Theater shooting in 2012 and the King Soopers shooting in 2021.

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MistaRekt@reddit

Not American and I feel sorry you all have to put up with that bullshit. I am beginning to suspect that 'thoughts and prayers' do fuck all.

I hope your country gets it figured out, sooner rather than later.

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tesseractjane@reddit

And Club Q.

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Next-Honeydew4130@reddit

And a couple other random shootings that only killed a few people.

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Adventurous_Pin_344@reddit

Fuck. You know it's bad when there are so many that you can't remember them all. That one was truly horrifying too!

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tesseractjane@reddit

Yeah, Colorado weather is wild, if you don't like it wait five minutes, you might be shot.

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ShogunFirebeard@reddit

We may remember it but we also learned nothing from it.

This country has devolved into such a shithole.

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FluffySpell@reddit

Things should have changed after Columbine. But the thing that made me go, "oh shit they really aren't going to do fuck all about any of this" was Sandy Hook.

All school shootings are horrific but a classroom full of 20 dead first graders, some that had to be identified by DNA, did NOTHING to make our elected officials work together to do something about it. I said "oh, they literally actual care more about money than people's kids. Ok."

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_R_A_@reddit

Seriously. I'm very 2A, but we can't ignore that our fetishism around violence and weapons has impeded our ability to have sensible measures in place. The more frightening thing about Sandy Hook for me was how ready people were to believe the "crisis actor" insanity (of course, this is the chem trails and gay frogs group too, but still).

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ShogunFirebeard@reddit

Which is also why I ignore anytime a politician pearl clutches about kids or women. It's all show. They don't care about anything but their pockets being lined.

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_R_A_@reddit

I was a junior in high school.

I was the kid who wore the black trenchcoat to school. My friends and I were the kids who went to the shooting range with our dads and talked about competitions at the lunch table (among other things, of course). We were so far removed from those Columbine characters beyond the superficial appearance, nevertheless high school is often mostly about superficial experience. I'm not saying I had a hard time after that, but things were definitely different. I realized a lot of people started walking on egg shells around me, and rumor had it administration was keeping a closer eye on me and my friends.

I do think it's funny that a couple years later, my childhood neighbor (year ahead of me) started dating someone who went to my school (also a year ahead of me). When he found out she knew me, he acted shocked and concerned about me. When she asked why he reacted that way, he apparently said: "He wears a lot of black." Her reaction was properly to laugh at him.

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Wonderful_Traffic238@reddit

In high school , 😭😭

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Saltyowl2113@reddit

Junior year of high school. It was bananas…we had a bomb scare the same week & everyone had to go out to the football field. We were terrified…

People were talking about copycats a lot, so I think we were all on edge but then it was summer break.

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throwaway992569@reddit

I was in high school. I heard the news but didn’t really understand what happened.

Same thing with 9/11. My high school brain couldn’t process it.

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Genepoolperfect@reddit

It depends on where you are. I was a freshman in HS in NY. It was a fascination bc it seemed like something that couldn't happen here. 9/11 hit us hard bc we're just north of the city. Friends parents worked in the city. Basically all our emergency services got dispatched to the city. Everyone was calling loved ones & not getting through. AP English we just had the news on the whole time & then got sent home. I had 3 classmates die in the resulting "War on Terror". Life real f*cked up when you sit down & think on it.

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E-2theRescue@reddit

Yeah, Columbine didn't feel that important to me at the time. Granted, I was busy at the time and not glued to the TV. I was also only 13 at the time.

9/11, though, was huge. I very nearly joined the Marines because of it, and my family was glued to the TV for months. Hence why I nearly joined, as I ate up all the propaganda the new spewed, including the "weapons of mass destruction" lie that I eventually unraveled.

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THORGNASH@reddit

I was in the same class with the same teacher as 9/11.

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ArchitectVandelay@reddit

Yeah I don’t recall it being that big of a thing to me either. CO might as well have been another country with how far away it felt.

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Acceptable-Smoke2908@reddit

That happened during my freshman year in high school. 9/11 happened my senior year. I still cant normalize school shootings and bombings, its was not normal then and it not normal now.

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Parisian_Nightsuit@reddit

Same graduating class as you. I was on a field trip on the day the Columbine shooting happened. The next day at our school someone called in a bomb threat and everyone was sent home early. It was a pretty scary couple of days all things considered, so I stayed home the following day. Again, another bomb threat was called in and that time, they had students evacuate like a regular fire drill, checked the stadium, and then escorted everyone there while the school was checked - no early release that day. All my friends had sunburns from being outside for several hours.

During sophomore year, the whole bomb threat thing became almost predictable since it happened so often. I started carrying sunscreen and a bottle of water in my backpack in anticipation of having to sit in the stadium. Some people brought umbrellas, little games, etc. It was so often that no students took it seriously beyond annoyance. The calls became much more seldom after that school year, but still happened on occasion.

Senior year, of course, 9/11 happened. Both happening during those formative years was incredibly awful, but at least it was rare enough to really be considered a shock and a tragedy. It’s horrid that mass shootings are so common that it’s hard to recall every one. It’s not okay.

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VibrantViolet@reddit

Same, 9th grade for Columbine and 12th for 9/11, class of 2002. I also remember Desert Storm, the Oklahoma City bombing, etc. Our entire lives have had tragedy after tragedy. 😞

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ol_kentucky_shark@reddit

Same here. I remember spending a lot of the end of my freshman year corralled in the gym because a few idiots kept making fake threats to get school cancelled.

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DeadHead2002@reddit

Same, class of 02. We watched the towers fall on a big box TV in our cafeteria.

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chadork@reddit

Same. We were the "class of tragedy" according to a Newsweek I read back then.

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protossaccount@reddit

Yes! This is the first time I’m reading about this experience, but I felt the same way. A big feeling I had on 9/11 was a feeling of detachment.

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joelkeys0519@reddit

Freshman year of high school. Had no clue violence in school was a thing. How naive.

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jgrubb@reddit

Playing an outdoor gig in the quad at App State. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

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chocki305@reddit

No idea. Most likely at work as I had been out of HS for 3 years at that point.

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inspectorendoffilm@reddit

We graduated a couple of days before school was out, then we got to skip those last couple of days due to the Columbine shooting. I still had to return my band uniform so when I walked up to the door at school they knew I was a senior and therefore shouldn’t be there. I was carrying a large black square case (my band hat with plume) and my black big uniform bag. They scanned me when I went in, pretty much had me drop the stuff there so they could return it to the band director for me. Before that we never had any kind of metal detection in our schools.

Fun fact, I am growing Columbines and I always think of the school and the kids there in 1999 when I see them.

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mADmARTigan66888@reddit

Working at my first job. Busboy at Chili’s. Remember it on the t.v.’s in the bar.

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CharlesUFarley81@reddit

Sitting in class my senior year

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DakStaraider@reddit

I was in 7th grade. I feel like they made some kind of announcement about it because I distinctly remember being in a class when I found out.

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PhinePheasant@reddit

I’m going to say probably cutting school to get Taco Bell lol

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FalseEvidence8701@reddit

7th grade science class when I heard the news. We were 15 miles away and had no idea.

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Kitchen-Plant664@reddit

Now it’s become such a regular thing people barely lift an eyebrow.

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Hmitp1@reddit

Working at Blockbuster Video having left high school in 98

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jeophys152@reddit

My high school was the next closest highschool to columbine. I remember getting in my car to drive home and they wouldn’t let us leave the parking lot. They made us all go back inside but wouldn’t tell us why. We were pissed until we got back in the classroom and turned on the news. I also worked with a couple of the kids that got shot and survived. Super nice kids that seemed to have handled it all well.

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YoghurtPrimary230@reddit

11th grade

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DaughterOfTheKing87@reddit

I was a sophomore in the back row of Ms Thornton’s journalism class.. that was the most heartbreaking surreal thing watching this on CNN.. kids after us never got what it was like to watch “that first time” even though it wasn’t the “first”, it’s too hard to describe what it was like for us.

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No_Ant508@reddit

Freshman year of high school

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Iconshero@reddit

Getting horrible looks for having a Metallica t-shirt and sleeveless flannel shirt on, like every other day since middle school started.

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CCT240@reddit

In my friend’s garage getting high. Skipped school for 420.

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ritzcrackerman@reddit

I was living in Oregon at the time, and lived only 90 minutes from Springfield, OR, where in 1998 Kip Kinkel opened fire at Thurston High School. I played high school soccer at the time, and we had a tournament in Springfield the coming weekend.

I remember precisely where I was- just outside my high school library, and there was an announcement over the intercom for students to go to their home rooms, where our home room teachers informed us what had happened.

Columbine was many times worse, but I can't remember where I was when I heard the news, but I remember the Thurston as being so utterly shocking and Columbine feeling like a nightmare repeated. There was a palpable sense of dread that we crossed a rubicon from the pre-9/11 to post 9/11 America.

I still think Sandy Hook was the last time the US had any chance to recover and regain its moral authority. And profits and bought politicians blew right past it. The US has been cultural decline since.

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VectorB@reddit

I always saw Thurston as the beginning of the school shooting era and Colombine as a copycat.

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Mochigood@reddit

The name of the tournament was "The Big Shootout" or something like that, if I remember right.

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ravenscroft12@reddit

I was a junior in college. The coverage pre-empted whatever soap opera my roommates and I were obsessed with at the time. (Either Days or General Hospital, I can’t remember which…)

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Slight_Literature_67@reddit

I was in 7th grade.

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TigerLily145@reddit

RIP

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Next-Honeydew4130@reddit

At home. Doing college homework my first year out of high school. I don’t think I even understood how horrifying it was until much later. It didn’t sound real on the news that a school the next town over with kids exactly like me was getting shot up. I figured it was a prank or something that day. I couldn’t believe it.

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rantingathome@reddit

At work.

Thought the day would change everything. It didn't.

Then Sandy Hook happened. Thought that for sure that day would change everything. It didn't.

All I know for sure now is that America is f'ed.

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auntiefuh25@reddit

My daughter was the same age as the Sandy Hook kids. I couldn’t watch any of the footage. I know very little about the details and still refuse to watch any of the news broadcasts about it to this day.

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Mattie_Doo@reddit

I’m blown away by our collective inability or unwillingness to confront this issue.

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rantingathome@reddit

To the rest of us outside of America, it's ludicrous.

But hey, the inability to move politically on this and the rise of MAGA are both symptoms of the same political failure.

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False-Cookie3379@reddit

My oldest daughter is the same age as Sandy Hook victims. I can’t believe nothing changed after that.

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jayne-eerie@reddit

Same. My husband was volunteering at her class Christmas party that day and all I could think about was how it could have been them.

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False-Cookie3379@reddit

I was at work and saw it on the news. I called my best friend at the time who had kids the same age as mine. I just needed someone to cry with for a minute.

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worksnake@reddit

We’re not f’ed, we’re full-on fucked.

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mmm_unprocessed_fish@reddit

Sandy Hook was definitely where I lost a lot of hope. Oh, we’re just going to have kids keep doing drills and adding things like locks to classroom doors? That’s it? Cool cool cool. Bullet proof backpacks, you say? Yeah, great.

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Soggy_Porpoise@reddit

Overseas on my first deployment.

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L0uZilla@reddit

8th grade was grounded for April vacation cause I got got drinking. Watched it unfold on the news

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Temporary_Solid_5869@reddit

I was home sick from school and watching the news and this broke live. I called my mom at work.

I was in jr high.

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Hyperion1144@reddit

I remember Challanger, OJ Simpson, Oklahoma City, Sept 11... But not this.

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Lesbian_Skeletons@reddit

In class, unaware that the next two years would be nothing but being beaten up and picked. Wasn't goth, didn't wear a trench, just awkward, shy, and quiet.

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Ok_Scallion_5540@reddit

Sophomore year in high school, so most likely in school.

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dheadmeat@reddit

Homeless in Seattle

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Soniquethehedgedog@reddit

I was a freshman in college, and working at Office Depot.

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Deadshadow84@reddit

Freshman in high school. I got brought in and questioned and searched because I was a goth kid. Along with my other friends, we were watched constantly and security was around us because they thought we had the same motives.

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hatesbiology84@reddit

I was home sick from 9th grade. I watched the whole thing happen on tv. It was awful.

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AbsoluteDisbelief@reddit

In lock down in our school’s hallway. We lived in the same county as Columbine. I just remember the teachers telling us all to sit quietly lined up in the halls because there was “lightning spotted in the area”. I don’t think they were allowed to say what was actually happening. Never forget.

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BallsWilliger@reddit

Walking to my plant bio class.

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ykeogh18@reddit

Eating Taco Bell at the student union cafeteria my freshman year.

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grondiniRx@reddit

Junior in high school. They banned trench coats after Columbine happened.

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NeatCrow9708@reddit

I was a sophomore and it was spring break in ny. I was in Italy for a school choir trip and just couldn’t wrap my head around it that kids my age would do something like that. Grew up with guns around for hunting deer and turkey only. I still remember seeing my friend’s mom and the other chaperones in tears over what was happening. A few weeks after, the girl that sat next to me in science class called in a bomb threat so she wouldn’t have to take a test that day.

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geekdadchris@reddit

Working at the Dish Network call center a few miles down the road from there.

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NeverEndingCoralMaze@reddit

Sophomore in college.

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E-2theRescue@reddit

I was middle school aged (7th grade, I think) and was in Utah for my half-brother's wedding. I didn't learn about it until many hours later in our hotel.

I still remember my homeroom (English/social studies) teacher telling my parents that I'd be the next school shooter because I was the quiet kid who was bullied all the time. That teacher was one of my bullies and was a disgusting, horrible woman.

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MNightmare13@reddit

Im from Colorado, was a Junior at the time. My school was not far from Columbine. That day is burned into my brain.

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justin81co@reddit

Senior year, I remember drafting the elevations for a housefor some odd reason too

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skytripper17@reddit

I remember it like it was yesterday, 6th period biology when they announced all Jeffco activities and practices were cancelled for the afternoon. We were excited to have the afternoon off until we reached 7th period English and our teacher had the TV on and we were watching live coverage. She lets us out early and said to go hug our parents.

Horrible day and the days that followed were eerie and memorable as well. Bomb threats and only 1/4 of our school was there. There were rumors they had blue prints to the rest of the schools in Jefferson County so it was some crazy times.

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Nunki1216@reddit

I was Freshman during Columbine. By my Senior year, 9/11 happened. What a world.

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123FakeStreetAnytown@reddit

I was on Spring Break in Mexico watching it unfold on the news.

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JuliusSeizuresalad@reddit

Me and Eric and Dylan were heading to school to do this thing and we stopped at the 7-11 to get slurpees and take a dump. Well I was In the crapper so long that the guys left without me.

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LongballG@reddit

Working at a Carls Jr, about twenty miles away from Columbine in Aurora, CO.

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tboy160@reddit

At work I guess? I have no idea where I was because things didn't work like that back then.

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Some_Big6792@reddit

7th grade

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pinecone_hurricane@reddit

On a bus or near the bus depot that was where the Cabela's and hobby lobby are now

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Mudcreek47@reddit

Jr year of college. Just remember feeling incredibly sad and shocked.

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HistoryGirl23@reddit

Coming home from a college class.

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Majestic-Tiger2742@reddit

Freshmen in HS. I had a trench coat prior to this bullshit and boy did I get shit from the school.

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ttttunos@reddit

I still remember all the trench coat kids being called to the principal's office for interrogations! It was wild.

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BetterOffRedThanDyed@reddit

Oh wow. Core memory unlocked

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cumdertaker@reddit

My ex husband was a trenchcoat goth and got searched every day going to high school.

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Moxie_Stardust@reddit

I'm fortunate to have graduated in '95, with my dyed black hair, trench coat, listening to metal and industrial...

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minicooperlove@reddit

Our school imposed an official rule that kids couldn't wear coats in class anymore, but there was a rumor that went around the school that a student who always wore a black trench coat said he was going to do the same thing. The rule just said "coats" but it was only enforced on black trench coats.

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Number1Framer@reddit

Did anyone ever use the phrase "trench coat mafia" in all of the social the fallout you had to deal with? This phrase caught on where I lived around the Great Lakes region and seemed to imply there was an organized element to all the copycat shootings that came after which made the adults even more paranoid and irrational.

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Bia2016@reddit

Yeah I went to school in a Milwaukee suburb and I vaguely remember that phrase being used

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New_Morning_1938@reddit

Freshman year on a field trip. Will never forget the horror of hearing about it.

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xAlice_Liddell@reddit

At work. Lived about 2 miles from the school. Had to drive home past all news vans, fire trucks, police cars and crowds of people. Cried in my bathroom just thinking “why?” Wish we’d gotten better.

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rosemerry77@reddit

I was in College

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jackofallsomething1@reddit

Junior year of college

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BillyBattsInTrunk@reddit

Freshman year of high school. We all sat around my little dorm room TV and watched in horror. Awful.

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Shiggy-88@reddit

Nobody gave a flying fuck about that outside of America.

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Lunasal11@reddit

Senior year of high school..

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thereverenddirty@reddit

It was 4/20? I don’t remember any 4/20s.

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EqualPie515@reddit

I was in 5th grade. I remember the principal pulling everyone out of class to give a speech.

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EastTXJosh@reddit

I was in my second year of college. I remember watching news reports in my dorm room with my roommate.

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morganalefaye125@reddit

I was 2 years out of high school, going to college, and working mostly full time at a grocery store

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Charming-Insurance@reddit

I was in college (night student) and at my secretary job that day. One of the ladies I worked with, her niece (or nephew) was there and died that day.

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teacher_of_twelves@reddit

World History with my favorite teacher. We had a TV in the classroom for other purposes, but she turned on the news. I remember feeling angry, scared, and confused. My brother was a senior. I remember how much people talked about the girl who refused to deny Jesus and how we were manipulated into believing she was some sort of hero. Trench coats were immediately banned

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Mahaloth@reddit

I was at home watching a tape of some movie. I had actually not heard anything until my Mom told me.

These, my friends, were the days before constant texting and looking at our phones.

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RillaBlythe11325@reddit

I was actually 13 and I don't remember anything at all about that day. I was homeschooled and very sheltered so even if my Mom was aware of it, she didn't turn on the TV and we didn't see any coverage about it.

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pghbuckeye@reddit

Home sick and my school had a very similar name. My heart sank when I first saw the news alerts on TV until I fully processed it. Terrifying.

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tht-guy-nando@reddit

Sophomore year

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marathonrunner79@reddit

College

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Overall-Scientist846@reddit

Reading Columbine by David Cullen was an experience.

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Cute_Paint_4328@reddit

My junior year of high school; even 27 years later, I still remember crying hard when I saw this on the news. May the victims continue resting in heaven 🕊

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Inside-Project942@reddit

Junior year of college--In the middle of an elementary education seminar. Most of the parents and professors came and picked up their children. We were dismissed for the day.

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jezebeljones666@reddit

I was at the Blue Burrito in Phoenix AZ. It was on all the TV’s; I remember that so clearly.

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Celtic_Witch86@reddit

I was in 7th grade. The next town over was in the process of building a middle school, or junior high whichever you know it by, that had the same layout as Columbine. It opened for students in August of '99.

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KinkMountainMoney@reddit

On a bus heading back from Canada.

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Phish_2000@reddit

Not proud of it, but celebrating the holiday and watching on tv in our apartment at college.

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RootBoy42@reddit

Freshman in college. I used to wear a long black trenchcoat that I loved. Was otherwise nothing like the shooters in personality or interests, but I put that coat away and never wore it again.

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Ingonyama70@reddit

Detention, junior year of high school. I'd fought back against a bully.

Everyone gave me weird looks for the rest of the year even though I didn't fit the "profile" of a shooter (I don't like guns, like at all, and never have) and had a solid friend group.

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FemaleMishap@reddit

In a laundromat on my Mormon mission. I had graduated in 97. My dad had been moved by the Air Force a few years prior, but had we stayed, Columbine would have been my high school.

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Usual-Asparagus-1299@reddit

I was in college at my apartment studying when the news broke, still remember it like yesterday.

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SeedsOfDoubt@reddit

1999 was my semester of college. I scheduled only studio/lab classes on Tues/Thurs. Being 4/20 I was most likely skipping class or in the dark room printing photos. I can't even remember how I heard about it.

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Disco99@reddit

Freshman in college, sitting in the common room watching something, and the news broke in. Had a girl who had graduated Columbine the year before sitting next to me, so that wasn't easy.

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Sofagirrl79@reddit

Freshman in college, although there were school shootings before Columbine they didn't have the same media attention and gravity as Columbine

Class of '98 was the last class that still had a bit of innocence to it when it came to school shootings

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Impressive_Plant_643@reddit

I didn’t have a television my freshman year so a friend on the third floor called me and told me what was happening. I went up to her room to watch…. I remember we were all so confused and shocked

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Slow_Ad3662@reddit

I was in a choir practice in college. One of the tenors walked in and said something vague about a high school getting shot up in Columbine. We had a girl in the choir from that area of Colorado, so kind of an a-hole thing to announce when we were about to be in choir practice for an hour and not able to see any news.

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nocowwife@reddit

Same.

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Lord-Curriculum@reddit

Same here but in my dorm room. I got spooked, because I liked wearing dark colored trench coats back in high school and wasn't exactly the brightest social butterfly either.

After Columbine happened... I figured no matter how bad it got, it wasn't worth that. I'm still cynical... But I'm a Dad now. Now, it's totally not worth the anger.

But really eats at me is how it's just part of the norm now.

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fyukhyu@reddit

Sophomore year of HS. I was a goth and a bunch of people asked if I was going to do the same thing. It was fucked up.

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Civil_Ad_1172@reddit

I was only 10, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I sat and watched the news, I remember my sisters not wanting to go to school for awhile.

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wendigo1212@reddit

My college class was cancelled that day and I went home early from campus. Turned the news on to see the coverage. Stayed glued to the TV for the next few days.

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LadyLoki5@reddit

Sophomore year in high school, we didn't hear anything about it until we got home from school that day. But we had 3 "threats" happen before the end of the school year. One kid got caught, expelled the week before his senior year was to end. Dumbass.

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GeetarEnthusiast85@reddit

I was in the 7th grade. Completely oblivious about what had happened until I went to school the next day and overheard some kids talking about it.

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fromsdwithlove@reddit

7th grade as well. I remember only first coming about this from the news at home. My parents didn’t talk to me too much about the news or really anything else as I was the youngest. I remember seeing footage of kids climbing out of windows and hearing there was a shooter waiting outside to pick off those that fled.

Then 9/11 happened and totally wiped my memory of anything else I would’ve remembered about that day and took over that core memory area.

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UnlikelyDecision9820@reddit

I was in the 7th grade too, in Texas

It was maybe the day of or the day after, but I remember my parents when to do some target practice at a friend’s private property , no joke, and they offered me the chance to come along, saying that I was probably old enough to try and shoot too. I didn’t want to, they didn’t believe when I told them that the news had me fucked up as my reason for declining

I also got sucked into the story of the girl that was shot because she affirmed to an attacker that she was Christian. And subsequently that story was proven false, even though her family capitalized on the whole account by writing a book. I struggled with my faith a lot, and none of that helped

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GeetarEnthusiast85@reddit

Ugh, I'm sorry you had to go through that.

You just triggered a memory for me. I grew up Christian too and the church I attended devoted a Sunday sermon to the kids who were supposedly targeted for their faith. I don't know how to explain it, but looking back, the way many people at church reacted about it, you would have thought there were death squads roaming the country looking for Christians.

It made me realize a lot of "Christians" have a persecution complex.

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59apache01@reddit

I was in college. Didn't hear about it until that night.

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Bobby_Bruin@reddit

I heard while leaving baseball practice (west coast), 10th grade I think

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RestImportant@reddit

Junior in high school. School was never the same again (still isn’t, from a current educators perspective)

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Hot-Significance-462@reddit

I was a junior in HS. I was already home from school, watching my beloved trashy talk shows when the local news broke in playing Smashing Pumpkins' "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness". I was obsessed with the band at that time, and my ears perked up because this wasn't a single. It doesn't even have lyrics. I would have been surprised to hear it on MTV, let alone my local ABC affiliate. After the shock wore off, it was replaced by the horror of the story itself.

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No-Calligrapher3043@reddit

I was in 9th grade and we didn't hear about it until the bus ride home from school. I live about an hour north of Denver so it was definitely too close to home for me. I remember getting home from school and calling all of my cousins because all I knew was they lived near Denver, I didn't know what high school they went to. Luckily, it wasn't Columbine, but I remember the panic of not knowing.

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Earsack_yeet_yeet19@reddit

High school sitting in my 2nd hour class which just happened to be Current Events

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UnhappyEquivalent400@reddit

Semester abroad in the U.K. The Brits had a lot of questions.

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ModeatelyIndependant@reddit

I gradated HS the year before "in the central timezone", and a bunch of my HS buddies had planned to spend out first 4/20 out of school playing discgolf and BBQ'ing, specifically sparking up a blunt 20 minutes past every hour. I didn't even hear about the shooting till about 3pm central. Honestly, we didn't really think THAT much of it, since we had a couple gang related shootings at our high school, and we had lived through all kind of guns being found in lockers. And the school knew better than to check the trunks of cars fridays during hunting season.

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WasteOfHeadspace@reddit

Sophomore year of high school.

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Jessica_Iowa@reddit

Middle School

I remember how weird it was listening to the news that afternoon. They covered the shooting then Furby being banned from government buildings.

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DoctorAvailable6601@reddit

I was at work. I heard about it on the radio when I got out and was like WTF listening about it on my way home.

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dblockerrr@reddit

In Grand Cayman on a family vacation. We were in KFC and they had a TV inside

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rarepinkhippo@reddit

Civics class, senior year of high school. Three years earlier, one of the junior high schools that fed into the high school had been the site of a shooting that a number of the students in class (myself included) had been present for (I didn’t witness it and didn’t know it had happened until it was over, but knew everyone involved and had previously been friends with the shooter, who survived the incident and had received a life sentence without parole by this point). It was a very heavy and awful day in class — as I’m sure it was for every teacher or student finding out about it across the country.

There had been several shootings carried out by students in school between the one that happened in my school and Columbine, but I think a lot of the general public, especially kids, may have missed — so Columbine seemed to come out of nowhere. But it very much didn’t.

Also worth mentioning for people who haven’t delved into the topic that Columbine was MUCH different than most other events termed “school shootings,” as much as it came to be seen as being sort of THE example of this type of incident. Also, the stories that emerged of the Christian victim(s) were massively exploited by the evangelical far-right wing in ways that continue to reverberate today (the second season of the docuseries Shiny Happy People is one good source that covers this imho).

The story of the teacher Mr. Sanders who was among the victims who died (specifically using that terminology because those who lived are victims too) is so heartbreaking, for those who don’t know it. He sacrificed himself for the kids and he didn’t die immediately, kids were holed up in a room with him, terrified and unable to leave, desperately trying to get him help, which didn’t come in time, and I imagine probably many or all of them have pretty intense PTSD from having to sit by helplessly as he slowly died with no help arriving. (Not clear to me whether it would have been a survivable injury, but regardless the kids thought it could be.)

Also important to remember that several victims died after the fact — one injured student just last year, another injured survivor to an opiate OD, and the mom of another victim to su1c1de (possibly more). And those who experienced it will absolutely never be the same people they were before. ❤️

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cutshop@reddit

Sophomore Biology Class, remember watching the news on TV and we had an extended period for the day

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loasdrums@reddit

I was in middle school in another state with no idea that it happened. I remember seeing something about it on some news program but not the local news. So, it was probably a while later.

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dseanATX@reddit

My senior year of high school at a large suburban school in the Southeast. I had the last 2 periods of the day off to attend class at a college. I was driving the 30 minutes or so to get there when it broke on the radio. It was a Tuesday.

First thing Wednesday morning, I get called to the office. As I arrive, I notice most of the goth/Matrix kids from the school. They'd collectively decided to wear suits and other preppy clothes. I was just in normal clothes.

Wait around and eventually called in. Asked if I had a target list because several weeks earlier I was joking around with someone and said "That's in, you're on the list" (or something similar). A teacher overheard and in the wake of the massacre reported it to the principal.

Nothing came of it. Just a brief lecture about choosing words more carefully. Like WTF? Nothing like that had ever happened before.

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JametAllDay@reddit

My freshman year of high school. Heard the news while driving on my way to a Marilyn Manson concert in Chicagoland. My mom picked my best friend and I up early from school so we could stand in line to be at the front of the pit. It was being reported on NPR, and my mom wanted to turn the car around and not let me go to the show. This was the day before Marilyn Manson was blamed for Columbine by the media.

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Sunshine33_@reddit

Skipping school and celebrating 4/20 my junior year of high school.

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West-Birthday4475@reddit

Ugh, my very first emotion was anger that I was going to have to hear about this almost every day for the rest of my life, because I immediately knew that it was only the first of the school shootings. And then, being only 3 years out of HS myself at the time, and the descriptions of the guys clothes…like, the guys I hung out with in high school had those same kind of coats. It had been such a vibe for some of them, the sort of 80s spillover, “yeah, I listen to The Cure” Man, I definitely remember that day.

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shinysquirrel220701@reddit

Freshman year of college. Came home from class, flipped on the news, and saw the headline.

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oldsmobile39@reddit

Senior year. At school.

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WickedAsh111@reddit

Ditched school to get high with friends

We all ended up stoned and staring in disbelief for hours watching it all unfold on TV

Still not over it

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Odd_Alternative_1003@reddit

Samsies!

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Odd_Alternative_1003@reddit

First day ever skipping a full day of school. I was a freshman. It was also the first time I ever got eaten out!

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Mindless_Jicama8728@reddit

In school suspension my freshman year.

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sleepyguy007@reddit

i was a senior in high school, and after hearing about it, my friends and i debated quite a bit if we should downplay how much we were the outcast nerds of our school adn also enjoyed playing quake 2, lan parties etc.

it was a weird time, ill admit i really sympathized with these guys back then, high school was a rough time, i wouldn't have been shocked to been friends with them if i went to their high school

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Slim_Margins1999@reddit

Boulder, CO. Sophomore in high school about an hour away from where it went down. Super crazy day for sure.

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MiamiViceGuy@reddit

I was in Boulder as well, working at the CompUSA in the King Soopers shopping center on Baseline.

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Mother_Second368@reddit

8th grade

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BlueMeBeWhoMeBe@reddit

Freshman year, 30 miles north. A week later got called into a meeting with the school administration because multiple teachers reported that I may do the same because I had been writing 4/20 at the top of every paper turned in since I arrived at the school. Was kinda hard to talk my way out of it, but had also been caught smoking weed on the property, so I guess they bought it. Horrible event. Changed so much of high school freedoms.

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Cthulhu_Dreams_@reddit

Ain't shit changed...

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godofwine16@reddit

I was installing DirecTV dishes and as soon as I finished the install I was testing out the box and CNN came on with the Breaking News and me and the homeowner sat there for like an hour watching all of it unfold.

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jimmerific@reddit

smokin weed breh

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Calm_Drummer2591@reddit

This happened during my gap year. I actually still have the People and US weekly magazines featuring the tragedy..

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Crayola_ROX@reddit

Out getting stoned. Then I went to work. Came home at 1am and learned from the daily show lol

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Sierra_Baker@reddit

Freshman in a high school just across town from Columbine (18 miles away). We were under lockdown most of the day, and the rumors were insane. Mostly to do with the bombs having been planted in other places, but also that there were multiple shooters rumored to be targeting multiple schools.

Which meant my senior year of high school was 9/11. It was a hell of a time.

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projectkennedymonkey@reddit

That doesn't make sense, how were you a freshman in 1999, 9th grade but a senior in 2001? 12th grade, did you skip a grade?

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Sierra_Baker@reddit

Class of '02 had em both

Columbine 4th quarter of Freshman year, 98-99 99-00 00-01 9/11 1st quarter of Senior year, 01-02

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projectkennedymonkey@reddit

You're right! I was class of '02 and I get confused with the school years because I live in Australia now and the calendar year is the school year here. Also because it's been more than 20 years...

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Sierra_Baker@reddit

According to K-12 School Shooting Database - online https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings, there have been 2586 school shootings since 1999.

(This information includes gang shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games and afterhours school events, suicides, fights that escalate into shootings, and accidents.)

According to Washington Post as of 7 months ago, https://wapo.st/4tpc6o3, there have been 435 school shootings since Columbine, which exposed more than 390,000 students to gun violence at school. The were 218 killed and 512 injured.

(Shootings at after-hours events, accidental discharges that caused no injuries to anyone other than the person handling the gun and suicides that occurred privately or posed no threat to other children were excluded. Gunfire at colleges and universities, which affects young adults rather than kids, also was not counted.)

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DestroyerTame@reddit

I just found out last week that my current manager was born on April 20th 1999

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Available-Reward7722@reddit

I was 17 and new to the US as an immigrant from South America. I was taking morning and evening classes to learn English, in between, I worked at a gas station in a fairly sketchy neighborhood in Miami.

Public transportation was (and still is) horrible, so the bus would be always late, it was also expensive for a broke immigrant kid working under the table, so I’d walk the 3 miles from work back to school in the afternoons.

A cop stopped me during my walk to ask me where I was headed; I was covered in sweat because Miami, so I probably looked suspicious. I told him where I was going, I was definitely scared, didn’t know how to deal with the police here in the US, and didn’t speak much English. He actually offered me a ride to school, asked me a few questions about my goals in life, and dropped me off, telling me to be safe.

I had no clue Columbine had just happened and I didn’t connect the dots until I got back home late that evening after returning from my second job and watching the news while I ata something and got ready to go to bed.

I don’t think that interaction would’ve been the same nowadays.

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star_b_nettor@reddit

Junior year of high school.

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lazyrainydaze@reddit

I remember coming home, putting on the TV and then sitting there watching the whole thing unfold in total shock. Definitely rattled 19yr old me.

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XOM_CVX@reddit

I didn't even found out about it until the next day.

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scroopydog@reddit

I was at a Denver elementary school volunteering judging a science fair. I was a senior and it was related to my AP Chem class. I wasn’t allowed back into my HS when I tried going back so I went to a friend’s automotive repair shop and watched it on TV. I called my mom to let her know that’s not the school I was volunteering at.

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Personal-Office-9662@reddit

7th grade.

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Traditional_Cat_60@reddit

Ahh yes, school shootings. In order to prevent additional school shootings since then we have attempted NOTHING and we are all out of ideas.

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sarcasticundertones@reddit

a girl from my area shot herself today in the cafeteria in honor of them.. (reportedly).. so scary.. made me sick to think about how something from so long ago still impacts the youth..

i was a freshman in high school and a senior for 9/11 like other folks here.. currently a teacher and feeling quite ill.. i didn’t even think about the anniversary today until i heard the news..

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Due-Set5398@reddit

Had a kid in my class who liked trench coats. Didn’t wear them much after this. The weirdo kids got treated worse after this somehow.

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Bacch@reddit

At school, my senior year, wondering if the couple of kids I knew there were okay. I had recently moved away from Colorado--previously (and currently) lived in the same county and had attended debate meets at Columbine. Used to prepare my extemp speeches in the library. I skipped the assembly we had about it when I heard the news--I was at an American school in Argentina at that point because my father's work took us abroad.

My wife was in lockdown at her high school, the same one I had attended when I was here in Colorado (we knew each other but weren't friends back then). Her current boss is a Columbine survivor and witnessed a lot of what went on, even had to testify in court about it.

The shots of the kids jumping out of the window and running down those stairs--those windows were the library, and the stairs were where we went to smoke during those debate meets. I hardly remember the other schools I was at for those meets, but I can't get the mental images of Columbine out of my head now knowing what happened there only a few months after I moved away.

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izovice@reddit

I was in 7th grade at the time. I didn't know about it until the next day at school. 8th grade was nuts because there were suddenly threats and lockdowns monthly.

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cigarandcreamsoda@reddit

Deployed at sea. The news spread fast even to the middle of nowhere.

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_pray4snow_@reddit

I was in Okinawa and heard about it when we met up outside the barracks to head to company formation.

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KatzenXIII@reddit

I was in 10th grade. My school decided to ban trench coats after but I still wore mine because I didn't have a jacket or a coat (and I was goth). My Latin teacher actually advocated for me. A lot of kids were afraid of me after that, which honestly, I didn't mind. We also had tons of bomb threats every week after and spent so much time outside.

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Lby54229@reddit

11th grade. I remember we were having exams bc the next day, I brought my small pillow (the same one I had brought on 4/20), and my teacher first felt to make sure no weapon was inside then took it from me. Weird the things you remember.

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nneighbour@reddit

I was in my first year of CÉGEP. We were all pretty shocked and thought it could happen there. Unfortunately, we were right. It happened at the college 8 years later.

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zsrh@reddit

I was in Grade 9, remember watching it on the news, seeing all those students running out of the school and those killed, it still feels like it happened yesterday.

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Nichtsein000@reddit

Jail

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Legitimate-Produce-1@reddit

That's so weird. They are all either my age or older than me at the time but now they just look like babies ❤️😭

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Nightstands@reddit

Sophomore year of college, in the meadows at Guilford College, iykyk

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Badfish1060@reddit

Watching that shit live between classes with my gf

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Jubilies@reddit

Junior year

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1pt20oneggigawatts@reddit

Oh shit, this happens like every other week in the US now. No big whoop.

Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004 and nobody has been able to pass any sweeping gun legislation since, but now we got redneck boners with open carry and stand your ground laws.

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madlibs13@reddit

In the USAF

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Candytails@reddit

I’ll say this, I have absolutely no memory of any of those faces.

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ExperienceFantastic7@reddit

I was two months from graduating high school. Everything changed that day, and then two years later we got 9/11. Ugh.

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sloppy_sheiko@reddit

8th grade in school 2hours north of Columbine. I was late for baseball practice and came in to my coach telling us all that he was here for us if we needed to talk. Was the only time in 17 years of playing a sport that I didn’t get punished for being late to practice.

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ripestrudel@reddit

I was a 3rd grader living in Colorado Springs, CO. We went into lockdown and didn't understand why all the adults were freaking out. None of us had any idea how much that day would shape the rest of our lives.

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coolchadmcrad@reddit

At the Arapahoe county jail on a law class tour. Went to high school in the next county over. Essentially heard it unfolding live over police radio. Was absolutely terrifying.

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Ok_Education_5095@reddit

Anyone else remember being on spring break at this time?

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Nephite11@reddit

I was living in Japan. Specifically Izumi city in the Sendai prefecture

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seanzthekid@reddit

I was a freshman in high school. I remember a couple of my teachers talked about it but I don't remember any school-wide announcement or anything.

2 years before, when I was in 7th grade, a kid from my school got arrested for threatening a girl with a knife at school. They found a hit list in his backpack and searched his house and found parts that could be used to make a pipe bomb buried in his back yard. I remember a bit shook up at the time, but I don't think the full implications of what could have happened hit me until Columbine.

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Crazy_Buffalo3782@reddit

I was in my mothers kitchen. She had the crt tv above it turned on. Square thing. I remember, she came over and hugged me and cried. I was out sick at school that day, i think. We were in colorado. It was the first mass shooting I'd ever heard about.

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CRB429@reddit

Senior year of school, found out after school, within 48 hours everyone in my school decided that since my friends and I were the metal kids that we must also be “planning something”…….was a real blast

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Final-Entertainer807@reddit

I was at work that night listening to the news. I had graduated the year prior.

When I went back to visit my high school everything had changed in terms of access.

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SixStinkyFingers@reddit

Sophomore in high school. A few days later while in chemistry class, my teacher was doing a presentation where he put calcium carbide in a homemade cannon with a little bit of water. He loaded a tennis ball in it. He lit it, it went boom and the vice principal came running down to see what had happened. I mean out of breath running. I think most teachers besides my chemistry teacher was a little on edge after what happened in Colorado.

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ArtisanalMoonlight@reddit

I was a Sophomore in high school. I don't think I heard anything about it until I got home that afternoon.

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vuhrukuh@reddit

My 16th birthday, it was all over the news after school (I'm in NJ)....

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Yo_momma_so_fat77@reddit

I was maybe 15 and didn’t understand it. It didn’t really hit me until after HS. Not sure why. Maybe because it was so uncommon- like that would never happen at my school

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jayb40132@reddit

My senior year of high school

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craig0930@reddit

Junior in High School

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ThanksALotBud@reddit

On a bus going home. Heard in on the radio

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DeviationConcession@reddit

I was 1/2 mile away from the high school going to work. I was told I could enter the area with my work credentials, but the police didn’t know if I would be able to leave once I was parked. I could hear the explosions and can remember all the helicopters overhead. Many people I worked with had family and friends in the school and nobody was getting any status updates ( no cell phones back then). It was a long and terrible day for everyone. Never forget those teachers and students who had to endure that trauma. We are Columbine.

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Starbreiz@reddit

Honestly, I was a senior in college and was so busy trying to finish my double major that I didn't hear about it right away. However my most recent job was with a team based in Westminster, CO, and several of them were there or directly impacted by this event which made it feel very raw.

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BilingualClothes27@reddit

I was home sick with my mom. When the news started spreading, she called our local high school (in Maine) and was advised that all students were being sent home right then. My older brother and sister were seniors and freshmen. I was only in middle school but I remember the look on my mom’s face. That wonder of, if it can happen there…

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bbq_menace@reddit

High school. I wore heavy metal t-shirts and a black trenchcoat too. Not a good day.

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BKiddo_88@reddit

High school freshman

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Infamous_Tie5605@reddit

sitting at a table in the cafeteria... grade 12... in canada

i do remember our principal coming to us and asking if we were all ok. i dont think anyone realized the seriousness of it

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affectionateanarchy8@reddit

In class

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emmyg85@reddit

I was in middle school. I asked a teacher if they would take a bullet for any of us. She said there wasn’t a single one of us worth dying for.

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No_Sympathy_359@reddit

Lived in CO sophmore year. Listening on the radio on the way to truancy court for not going to school. That was the last I heard about truancy court..why are you ditching class asked the judge..have you listened to the radio, I said.lol!

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Jenn-Vee@reddit

8th grade

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ThreeSixMafs@reddit

I was 8 years old and remember my mom crying watching the news and then my older cousins talking about it and distraught from it. Like the weight of it actually hit them. I was confused and young and didnt understand the weight of it at first

In high school, Rachel Scott's brother came to speak with us

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wesborland1234@reddit

At JC Penney’s returning my new trenchcoat

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greenerbeansheen@reddit

Stoned as hell in front of the school smoking a cigarette. I remember a group of us were just like “whoaaaa dude, that sucks”

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bigrob5554@reddit

Black week.

The third week of April

Boston Marathon Bombing Columbine Oklahoma City Bombing Nashville hit by tornado Waco Siege Titanic sinking Colorado movie massacre

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rohm418@reddit

Skipping school with my boys to go get high. It was 4/20, after all.

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brilliantpants@reddit

Sophomore year. I wasn’t a “trench coat kid” but a bunch of my friends were. They were under so mimic scrutiny for the rest of the year. And even in the following years. And the ridiculous thing is that they were totally gentle and chill people. The least likely to cause any trouble or do anything violent. They were just sweet outsider nerds.

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projectkennedymonkey@reddit

Yeah and that was the problem, there was no nuance, it was all just so binary, normal and not normal.

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jbenze@reddit

Work I assume. As someone only a few years out of high school, it did hit really hard. There was so much outrage and then just nothing. Nothing over and over and over again.

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bsbsbsbsaway@reddit

Vacation week, so home and whatever I was watching got interrupted by the coverage.

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ExcellentIntention57@reddit

Just about to finish freshman year. Then we had an anthrax scare the next year. Then 9/11.

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SweetCosmicPope@reddit

Freshman year of high school. I remember walking in the door and my phone was ringing. Answered and my friend told me to turn on the news. I’ll never forget seeing the kid falling out of the window onto the adjacent roof as soon as I turned it on.

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EarlJWJones@reddit

I was 5.

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UnlimitedScarcity@reddit

i was 2 years out of HS, playing DooM, oblivious to news at that age.

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CROBBY2@reddit

High school track meet in a horrible downpour. Of course this was the meet my coach made me run the 2-mile as well. Had a teammate false start so he didnt have to be in the rain those extra 10 minutes.

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avindictiveprinter@reddit

I skipped school that day to hang out with my college aged boyfriend while he smoked hella weed. We watched it on t.v. all day, though. The next day, a bunch of people came up to me to inform me that they called my name over the intercom repeatedly until the attendance for the day was filed. Apparently all the weirdos at my high school got herded into the auditorium all day just in case. I was weird enough to be notable. :b

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mongooser@reddit

I had pink eye. I was sitting in the school nurses office when it came on the tv. I’ll never forget it.

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ForwardClimate780@reddit

At my babysitter's house, but I was too young to recall everything.

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Churlish_Performer@reddit

Iirc I was in 8th grade and I only really remember coming home and hearing about it. I don't really remember talking about it a whole lot. I just remember the Charlton Heston thing like a couple days later saying "from my cold dead hannnnnds!" I remember people blaming Marilyn Manson a whole bunch as well as video games, rap music, and trenchcoats kinda became taboo for a long time.

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Capital-Coconut-9389@reddit

i was a freshman. we were all very much on edge for the next 4 years....

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GenericRedditor1937@reddit

It's interesting. I feel like this event somewhat splits the xennials in two. I was a freshman in college so I was fortunate to go through high school in the pre-Columbine days where we did not have school lock down drills. And although, there had been school shootings before Columbine, I didn't fear a school shooting happening. I feel bad for everyone that did and does today. It's awful.

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psian1de@reddit

I was going to a Marilyn Manson concert later that night... Little did anyone know that he would soon be scapegoated for the tragedy.

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kronik419@reddit

Coming home from 10th grade. Getting high like everyday after school and then I gotta watch THAT all over the tv.

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altroutes83@reddit

I knew this happened on my birthday, but just now remembering that it was my 16th birthday.

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projectkennedymonkey@reddit

Freshman year. I think it's where a lot of my issues about hiding mental health issues started because yes the shooters had a lot of problems and were not getting help and took the most extreme option, but there was no nuance for a lot of people. It was you're either normal or you're not and if you're not you're a danger to yourself and others and must be separated from the herd. So many kids that were just depressed or not mainstream got treated like they were going to do something like that the next day. I wonder how many that weren't going to suddenly did because of all the stigma and bullying, kind of like well you already think I'm a school shooter, what do I have to lose? Not saying that's a normal or healthy reaction at all, but that it's not the same as someone who is a complete sociopath that no matter how they're treated was always going to hurt others.

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No9No9No9No9@reddit

10th grade, I was home sick and watched it live on the news. Unreal and scary as hell.

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egot42@reddit

Junior year of high school. When I say this touched me deeply, it's an understatement. Just a little over two years later, my freshman year of college, 9/11 would take place. The world changed so much in my 19 years.

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123bumble@reddit

Senior in high school. 6 weeks from graduation.

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DramaticErraticism@reddit

I was in a place where I thought this disaster would change the world. I would not have predicted that mass school shootings would just become a normal part of life and generally ignored as a natural part of life that cannot be helped.

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monkeysknowledge@reddit

Neighboring state. We had goth kids that were part of the “Trench coat mafia” - I remember them being walked out of the school. I had friends that were permanently homeschooled after.

Couldn’t imagine after all these years and incidents we’ve only made access to weapons of war more easily accessible. We’re a nation of idiots.

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FunInjury6@reddit

We had to stop wearing coats and hoodie in school.

I also took care of a family memeber of one of the lead investigators for that. She was in a different state and him and his wife would come visit from time to time. He had the utter most respect for the victims. For everyone involved. Such a professional guy with a heart of gold.

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WoofinLoofahs@reddit

Freshman year of high school. After this we had a bomb or shooter threat every single week for the rest of the year. Then it happened again the next year. We returned from spring break and were sent to stand out on the football field once a week because some schmuck thought they were funny or wanted one more day to not study for a test. That was starting to peter out by my junior year but it never did stop completely. By then I was wishing they’d just do it. Shit or get off the pot.

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OGDocMalpractice@reddit

I’m still enraged by this event.

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PeaceSoft@reddit

I feel kind of bad for laughing so hard at asking this question to this group of people but lmao jesus christ

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Necandus@reddit

Junior year, skipping school and smoking with two friends. No cell phones so found out much later, truly shocking. High School, and later college, would never feel truly safe again.

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Brave_Finish8862@reddit

My junior year of college. Saw it on CNN when I got home in the afternoon.

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carinosa34@reddit

Junior in college. It was surreal. I always felt safe in school.

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abcbri@reddit

Junior year. Biology class. It's weird thinking about how we didn't really have the internet then, not as prevalent as it is now, and no social media, and not nearly as much 24/7 news, so it was kind of just us learning about it from teachers when they saw it on CNN, etc.

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blessedbelly@reddit

‘Twas the day after I was born.

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bophadesnuts69@reddit

Freshman in hs. The next day some jackass came in wearing a trench coat but they suspended the hell out of him.

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nola_mike@reddit

It was my sophomore year of high school and I was in class when there was an announcement for teachers to turn on the tv in their rooms and tune to whatever channel was covering it.

I was literally forced to watch it unfold until my mom came and checked me out of school about an hour later.

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OffMeta13@reddit

Junior year of HS, so wild

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wtfworld22@reddit

Sophomore in high school.

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str8sin@reddit

I think i was at a motel in San Jose waiting for a Stones concert. I think the concert was canceled because Mick was really sick. I might be mixing memories. It was so stunningly bad. So sad that it's become almost common. The shootings i mean.

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RobotPhoto@reddit

In a school in the same district. They were our rivals. The teachers knew Sanders well. My science teacher cried the whole period.

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BigIron53s@reddit

Freshman

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Torchness9@reddit

Sophomore in HS; older brother was a senior. Seemed unfathomable. Then, my college roommate was from there and was there when it happened

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SplakyD@reddit

My junior year of high school. I was one of the people who got mock elected to county level positions at my school and was on a field trip to the courthouse for "County Government Day" and I found out when I got back to school. I got to leave early and I stopped by my grandparents' house (where I now live) and watched coverage on CNN with them.

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Raebelle1981@reddit

They were the same class as me so I was pretty freaked out. Then there were so many bomb threats after that.

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jahneeriddim@reddit

I lived in Arcata CA (Humboldt County) and it was obviously 420. There were easily a few 1000 people hanging out in a park smoking weed and listening to som bands. Also maybe less than 10%of the people there had cell phones.

Watching/feeling the news traveling through that large of a crowd was so surreal. You would sort of notice people were very sad and the vibe slowly got somber. Slowly but surely the word spread through the crowd.

I remember being asked if I heard about Columbine and I said “ what, the wildflowers”

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rojoshow13@reddit

I don't know. I was probably working, but I don't know where. Either Video to Go, Citgo, or Northland College. Those jobs overlapped I think.

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JJHall_ID@reddit

Senior year of high school. This happened 3 days after a shooting at my school, where thankfully nobody was injured beyond one student getting a scratch on his chest from a piece of floor tile turned shrapnel. It really made it hit home for all of us how lucky we were that nobody was seriously injured as we could have been mourning our friends instead of it just being another school day about a month prior to graduation.

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jaxknitsandknits@reddit

Junior year of high school. I remember getting home after school and seeing it on the news. I don't really remember it making much impact where I was living, but that was probably because I was focused on my own problems (pregnancy) that seemed like a bigger deal (to me) at the time.

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ODeasOfYore@reddit

I was a freshman in high school. I’ll never forget that day

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humble_cyrus@reddit

Working. I remember listening to my headphones and...my heart sank.

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Hot_Frosty0807@reddit

In the computer lab in my first year of community college. The librarian wheeled in an AV cart and turned on the news so we would all know what was happening. A couple of buddies and I went back to their apartment to watch the news for the rest of the day, because we couldn't believe what we were seeing.

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ArticulateRhinoceros@reddit

On a trip with my High School marching band in Hawaii on a tour bus about to go see a volcano.

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Usual_Ice636@reddit

I didn't actually know what happened for days. Everyone talked around it.

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Ippus_21@reddit

College, Freshman Year. Santa Barbara.

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g33zuzz@reddit

Watching that kid fall out of the library window. Shocked. 12.

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aytchdave@reddit

I was a freshman in high school. Oddly I don’t really remember anything about that day. I don’t remember where I was when I found out. I just sort of remember the blur of news coverage and that morphing into political fighting and then suddenly school shootings didn’t feel so rare. Very sad.

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Optimusprima@reddit

College: saw the headline on one of the computers at my school’s main library.

Was absolutely shocked and gutted.

Now? 8 kids murdered in Louisiana this weekend? Just another day in America.

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lone_cajun@reddit

Freshman year in high school

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wrathofthewhatever2@reddit

Getting back from Disney world from our senior trip. We thought all our parents would be happy to see us but some of them were crying and hugging us way too tightly than we expected after a 4 day trip. They had to tell us what happened

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pnw__halfwatt@reddit

Sophomore in highschool.

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Girl_Back_There@reddit

I was a junior in high school and in Algebra class when the news broke. I remember my teacher before sending us home for the day said that we were going to hear about something horrible that happened (they were told not to tell us about it to not create panic), but we needed to remember that this was not normal and not to be afraid. I think about that every time news of a school shooting happens. We as a society had a chance to keep this from becoming the norm and we fumble it because we valued guns over human life.

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LowlySparrow@reddit

I was an American studying in Canada. My Canadian colleagues said it happened "because teenagers are idiots". I still remember how nice it was of them to spare my feelings by not bashing Americans specifically.

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starwestsky@reddit

Mazzio’s Pizza with my band mates. Crazy stuff.

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twinkiesandcake@reddit

My college freshman dorm watching the news.

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EddieMcMuffer@reddit

Was just out of HS and remember seeing those pictures and seeing them as peers…now they look like children.

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SurviveDaddy@reddit

I had graduated two years before, and was glad I didn’t have to put up with all of the new school regulations, post-Columbine.

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cortesoft@reddit

I was a sophomore in high school in California, but our school didn’t make any changes afterward.

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stormer1_1@reddit

Same. I was a total outcast and it just would have gotten so much worse in my case.

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Funandgeeky@reddit

I was also already out of high school. So I was watching it happen with my college roommate. There had been other school shootings before, but nothing on this scale at the time.

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OhFudgeBars@reddit

People here keep comparing it to 9/11, and rightly so. I was a sophomore in HS, and the already-fearsome zero tolerance policy went into high gear after Columbine. Cameras in the halls, having to watch every word you say, kids getting expelled for leaving table knives in their cars, the list goes on. The worst part is that it didn't work; look how often a school shooting exceeds the Columbine body count.

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SoTiredYouDig@reddit

I am so glad I had already graduated. I was a basket case in high school. I think it would have made my growing paranoia accelerate. (I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2002).

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krazybones@reddit

This was the beginning. A prelude to 9/11. School shootings and mass shootings have become normalized. Thank god no 9/11 level events but that event has forever changed people’s thinking. Unfortunately not Columbine but to have kids schooled in a prison environment to prevent these types of things is really torture.

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Carpeteria3000@reddit

Same - class of ‘97. Still hit pretty close, though.

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Relative_Progress946@reddit

I was living in my early 80s Subaru Station wagon. I had just made 18 years old.

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ShakeItUpNowSugaree@reddit

Junior year of HS. The next year bookbags were banned, but girls could carry "purses." I carried a messenger bag all year as a "purse."

I'm seeing a lot of you saying that you remember this as a one-off event at the time, but I specifically remember several less-deadly shootings in the years leading up to Columbine.

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Upnatom617@reddit

Someone mentioned those here and there were at least three. Jonesboro, Paducah, Springfield, OR.

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ShakeItUpNowSugaree@reddit

Pearl, MS was also about that time.

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Octavya360@reddit

I have no memory of that day. Weirdly enough it’s not burned into me like the Oklahoma City federal building bombing and 9/11. I have a lot of brain fog though so my memory isn’t all that good.

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GarciaWolf@reddit

Probably smoking weed

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Taint_Flicker@reddit

That makes so much sense as to why this one never hit me as hard as some of the others. I was also a senior in HS, but had graduated early and was in boot camp, so zero outside news with the exception of the Kosovo bombings in March.

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Eviltwin325@reddit

Highly recommend reading Sue Klebolds book. So good and heartbreaking.

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jennyann726@reddit

Junior year of high school.

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Arcades_Samnoth@reddit

I watched it on the news with my friends on the tv. I thought my friends were being insensitive by saying they're going to crack down on the gothic/weird kids (that was us).

They were right too, our school started having us screened and all sorts of shit. Bad way to respond

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gwhh@reddit

In college.

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PlatypusDependent271@reddit

Working I graduated in '97

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Upnatom617@reddit

Same. Heard about it at work. I worked a few years between hs and college. Was glad to be out of school but my sister was a hs sophomore so we had to be concerned about her. Both had gone to the sane high school. It was very open to the neighborhood around it as it was near the downtown area of the city we lived within

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Disk_Good@reddit

Sophomore in high school. Felt so unreal and unusual. I don’t think school shootings were as frequent then. It’s like this was the beginning of it.

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ette212@reddit

I was on spring break during senior year in high school. I was watching it live, it was horrifying and immensely sad.

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6ynnad@reddit

Sophomore NYC. We couldn’t bring any electronics to school, the metal detectors were upgraded. A teacher freaked out over a gameboy with the giant magnifying glass and light attachment. The anarchists cookbook was readily available online. A kid printed it out and got in trouble. They “map quested” his ass out of the school system.

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Throwaway_inSC_79@reddit

School. Around this time somebody was also calling in bomb threats from the pay phone in the entryway. So we’d walk down to the middle school. But I do remember being walked down there for this too.

Not sure which, if it was this or a random bomb threat, but a bunch of us skipped. As we’re walking, a bunch of us just turned and walked away from the crowd. The seniors that had cars, they got in their cars which were lined up along the football field. I didn’t drive, and was smart enough that if I was ditching, I needed to walk far away from the school to get home.

The next school day, all those kids were called to the auditorium to receive Saturday detention. The teachers and principal watched each kid get in their car, and their friends too if any jumped in. Then I got called. Because I was more of the vice principal’s “pet”, she just called me down to help her with the paperwork. I told her later on at graduation, she said she figured but because they didn’t see me they couldn’t do anything.

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MusicalTourettes@reddit

I was a freshman in college and have no memory of that day. How strange.

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jenguinaf@reddit

8th grade and I remember not much about feelings about it but I am sure I had them. The next year there was a pretty bad one localish to me and that one really fucked me up. I don’t remember a ton of changes at school, we still had an open campus and stuff tho that would change around my senior year.

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Golden_Enby@reddit

It was honestly like a blur to me since I was already going through a lot at the time. I was a Junior. I don't recall what happened at school on the day it occurred. I only remember the aftermath. Dumb kids calling in bomb threats thinking it was funny, all the temp evacuations because of it, kids bringing weapons to school, weapon/drug sniffing dogs searching backpacks the weeks following, and a metal detector was put at the front gate. The school was on high alert for months afterward. It was an unnerving time. I remember seeing what happened at Columbine on the news when I got home from school. I recall feeling terrified to go to school for a couple of weeks.

It's incredibly disheartening that nothing has ever or will ever be done for stricter weapon laws in this country. Doesn't matter how many kids lose their lives to mass shootings or toddlers getting ahold of dad's pistol in the closet. It doesn't change a damn thing. I hate it. It's far too easy for teens to buy or build guns in this country.

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Mac_A81@reddit

Junior in high school. Following Columbine, we missed so much instructional time because idiots kept pulling the fire alarm and then we’d have to stay outside until the police and fire departments came to give the all clear. They threatened to add days to the end of the year to get it to stop.

A few days after Columbine, one of the trench coat kids brought a pipe bomb to school and was only caught because he tried to go into the library and the things you had to walk through to make sure people weren’t stealing books beeped. It was such a sad and scary time, and I think it was the beginning of all the mass school shootings that are still happening. I know it wasn’t the first, but it was certainly the biggest one I can recall back then.

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Adorable-Escape7149@reddit

High school, was skipping school and cut through the library, I was an aid, and the vice principle, the librarian, assistant librarian and I watched it for about 20 minutes of the live coverage before someone asked why I wasn't in class.

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Accomplished-Bee6892@reddit

In school, and I think heard about it during the day but thought it was a weird rumor that started. It was all over the TV when I got home. Everyone saw it. The next day, everyone was kind of quiet at school.

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After_Preference_885@reddit

In college and sincerely not sure why it was big news, several kids in my high school had been murdered, we had shootings all the time, and no one ever cared

The next year I started learning about racism and since my school had been an inner city school full of kids of color it started making sense

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Expert-Photo5426@reddit

In sixth grade study hall

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NotSoFastLady@reddit

Was working my after school job. Everyone was out staring at the TVs. Which was a huge no no, boss was fair, but you did not want to cross the man.

I just remember everyone looking up at the tvs and the looks on their faces. The kids all running, it was messed up.

I'd end up moving nearby from another state about 15 years after the fact. It was still so surreal for me to even drive by that school.

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ollie81578@reddit

At home, like the challenger explosion

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greenearrow@reddit

Senior in high school. Job shadow day. We were shadowing the local doctor at the clinic. I don’t know how many other students had access to tvs that day, but it was surreal.

It was also the day I learned about pharmaceutical reps and got a better than expected lunch.

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WithoutCaution@reddit

About 20ish miles away. I got booted out of high school the next day and the school pretended I had made a bomb threat to justify it. Good times.

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TheFoxandTheSandor@reddit

We had a soccer game after watching it and when we lost, our coach started throwing dog poop at us and the other team mooned us on the way out of our parking lot. It was my brothers last high school game and he made me drive him and a friend around while they got hammered.

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To0n1@reddit

Home sick, watching on TV mouthing what the fuck

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Partis25@reddit

Sophomore in college, spent a whole week discussing this tragedy in sociology class

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pizzaduh@reddit

In fourth grade. I remember my teacher got a call on the class phone and got really somber. She turned on the class television to the news and had us all stop and pay attention. Then she discussed the severity of mental health and finding someone to talk to.

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andy312@reddit

Skipped school to smoke weed all day.

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ThrashyTrashyTom@reddit

Sophomore. My best friend knew Eric Harris well before he moved to Colorado. Sad. All of it.

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FlipJenss27@reddit

In school🤔

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NoneOfThisMatters_XO@reddit

Senior in hs

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PorgCT@reddit

I was on a Boy Scout trip to DC. Security was noticeably greater the next day.

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UpstairsReading3391@reddit

Freshman year of college. Felt grateful to have been done with HS because it would lead to copycats and then felt guilty for feeling that way.

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chloe_xo22@reddit

Not a Xennial, but I still remember that day vividly even though I was a small child. I was living in the Denver suburbs at the time. Neighbors came out to the street to cry and pray. There was a teenage girl that lived a few houses down from me who was hysterical because her friend was shot and she didn’t know if they would make it. It absolutely devastated the community. Back then, it wasn’t just a normal day of the week the way it is now.

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StuffIDid@reddit

Currently reading Columbine by Dave Cullen (audio) and it’s been very helpful to hear more details and more importantly facts about the incident - did you know it was mainly supposed to be a massive bombing?- as well as the victims and aftermath. Highly recommend.

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TimeCadet@reddit

I was in middle school, 8th grade and the following day our school did a search of every student's bag and some kids got in trouble for what they had on them that day, none of which was a weapon

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slowfocus2020@reddit

That was my junior year of high school. I thought it was a sentinel event. Instead it became a one of many shootings that my country won't do anything about. Those of us that vote and donate to passage of gun control bills are apparently just in tbe minority.

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thenewyorker1@reddit

Freshman at CU, had a lot of siblings of the attacked students crying and calling home.

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ljf137@reddit

No idea. Dropped out of college a couple months prior to it so likely high as fuck on a couch or at a park.

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Sufficient-Quote-431@reddit

First year of college. I remember all the professors starting off his dicks and then after this happened, they all got a lot nicer.

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cobygirl517@reddit

I was a junior in high school. I heard about it while sitting in the dentist chair for my routine cleaning.

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Fun_Committee1478@reddit

Sophomore year in high school. Then later (or maybe a day later) watching Oprah break down on live tv.

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DaveinOakland@reddit

Smoking weed on the couch with all my friends because we cut class on 4/20

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anonymoose_2048@reddit

I was 16 and a Junior in high school. I had just got home and my parents were watching it on tv. I remember it was when a boy that I think was injured was trying to climb out a window to escape to an officer in a cherry picker.

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mesosuchus@reddit

This is now every other week in the US. Honestly I have forgotten.

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AndrogynousBirdtale@reddit

10th grade English.

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jayne-eerie@reddit

Study abroad in London. We were watching the coverage on the TV in our little student flat, and it was just so awful we couldn’t really process it.

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WorkingItOutSomeday@reddit

I had a late, optional study all that was held in the cafeteria. They typically had some cable news on but muted.

It was already confusing but I feel like it hit different because we were reading the ticker as it was playing it.

Also....this wasn't too long after Jonesboro AR school shooting.

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MoulinSarah@reddit

In 9th grade at school

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EricRShelton@reddit

I was in Saudi Arabia, my first military deployment. Obviously I heard about it somehow, but it didn’t hit me the same way as Challenger or 9/11 and I’ve wondered why until I just sat and thought about it right now.

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BurnesWhenIP@reddit

I was teaching with a private music org and I had 2 students that went to Columbine. It was a frightening situation until I found out they were safe, even to this day I keep up with them and they are still not ok

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United_Bus3467@reddit

I was 6 getting ready for school and it was on the TV. Burned into my brain.

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Sea_Grab_5152@reddit

My 18th birthday

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Ckn-bns-jns@reddit

Not trying to be funny or cool but I was smoking weed with my friends and watched it on the news in the wrong state of mind.

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EffectiveCycle@reddit

Junior year. I don’t think we knew during school, but I had stayed after for some work with my English teacher on a paper we had and I feel like the tv may have been on then.

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_Edward__Kenway_@reddit

My sophomore year US History class.

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RipleyCat80@reddit

In my dorm, freshman year of college.

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A_Curious_Skeptic_@reddit

Skipping school with my sister and friends. I’ll never forget how the tone of the whole gathering shifted so dramatically and the wind was instantly knocked out of our sails. And the challenge of going home and acting like we didn’t see everything unfolding live on TV.

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Hungry-Target6642@reddit

Because of 4/20 I was so high when I heard about it. I couldn't believe it was real. It was shocking back then but now this shit is commonplace.

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Yep_why_not@reddit

I have distinct memories of 9/11 but zero about Columbine. I don’t even remember people talking about it. Until Bowling for Columbine came out and then I feel like we heard a lot about it.

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Foxy_locksy1704@reddit

A freshman at the school about 3 miles away. My school was the one then President Clinton gave his speech from in the days after the shooting.

All these years later it’s still very weird to think about that day.

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GoodMourning81@reddit

I was a senior and today is my birthday. It was pretty awful.

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PieInTheSkyEngineer@reddit

Sophomore year. I don't remember the day of, but I remember the day after because my dad dropped me off like normal at the music & field house wing and when I walked in the doors there were 3 fully armed cops standing there. They were checking/watching as we entered because we had several copy cat threats.

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phirleh@reddit

I was at NAB in Las Vegas - I worked for a television station in Toronto, Ontario. We had actually just met with a company that did automation scheduling from Colorado called Columbine JDS Systems.

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itsjakerobb@reddit

A month away from graduation, and not super aware of what happened at Columbine.

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Suitable-Echo-3359@reddit

A college freshman across the country. I first heard about it after a class when my friends had the news on their TV. I remember being oddly relieved for a moment that I was no longer in high school.

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bonefish@reddit

About 15 miles away. What a surreal day (and the weeks following).

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Puzzled-Bonus-3456@reddit

going to see Marilyn Manson.

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sed2017@reddit

In 10th grade, we had just flown back from Denver the night before for a choir performance… it was sad to think kids were just at school just like us and they lost their lives. That was the end of our innocence for sure…

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Minimag2125@reddit

In school. Away track meet ended up getting canceled as well. RIP to these souls.

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dmaul17@reddit

Was my freshman year in college, after a gap year. Heard about it when I got back to the dorm room and people were watching the news in a friends room.

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HOT-SAUCE-JUNKIE@reddit

I was fishing. Beautiful day. Got in my car and turned on the radio and they were talking about it.

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Yucatanomlette@reddit

In school. Away track meet ended up getting canceled as well. RIP to these incredible souls.

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Eikthyrnir13@reddit

Stationed at Ft. Bliss.

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NetflixandJill@reddit

Senior in high school. I cut that day because of anxiety and watched it all live on TV.

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po_ta_toes_80@reddit

Working on a golf course a few miles away watching the cops speed by and helicopters circling overhead.

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DirectorLanky466@reddit

I was in 7th grade and it changed everything in my school! I was in a secondary school (7-12 grades in 1 school). My teachers freaked out! No one knew what to think or how to react. It was terrifying. The next year we had a active shooter drills. My school was very new and had some features most schools didn't for the time ( like the ability to lock parts of the school with michaniclly driven walls) the teacher would move students away from and lock all doors and windows. Closing the blinds and being silent till the all clear call over the loud speaker!! As a kid it changed the feeling of being safe at school!! A few years later my school put on a controversial play bowling for colombine. I went to see it twice!!

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nochickflickmoments@reddit

About to ship off to the Army

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Lopsided_Bet_2578@reddit

Honestly, it didn’t seem like huge news at first. Which is sad to say, but there had been a string of school shootings before. Honestly, I’m still a little confused as to why it stands out so much. I guess just the plotting and effort that went into it? And high body count?

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Lucy_Loves@reddit

It happened during my senior year of high school but I can’t remember details of hearing the news, like I do with 9/11. It was awful but felt like a one-off, and not the beginning of something sinister. Now we know it very much was.

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etanna@reddit

I was in my junior year when that happened. Unfortunately I don't remember it as much as I do the shooting that happened at Thurston HS in Springfield, OR (a school we completed with regularly) in 1998. They stopped class and put on the news and everything. It was so scary and shocking.

I never thought this would become so normalized in our society. 😞

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upliketrump@reddit

9th grade high school Crazy how time flies

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diredachshund@reddit

I don’t actually remember. But I do remember, prior to this, I had asked my parents for a .22 for my upcoming birthday (it was still months out) so I could learn to shoot cans and stuff. After this happened, I told them I’d changed my mind.

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thisgirlsaphoney@reddit

Struggling with panic attacks at home after being released from school, which had a major shooting one year earlier.

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GlitteringCobbler987@reddit

I was working a shift at Blockbuster Video

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PotsMomma84@reddit

I was being homeschooled and watched it unfold live on TV.

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PedalBoard78@reddit

Listening to Third Eye Blind in the local supermarket parking lot with a dreamy gal.

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AmericanWanderlust@reddit

Eight grade — at a middle school just a few miles away.

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Sharp_Revolution5049@reddit

I was in freshman year of college- and I remember picking up the free 'Time' magazine about a week after it happened, and just wondering why anyone would do what they did.

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rdldr1@reddit

Nothing was learned after Columbine. In fact, everything got worse.

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Pbtomjones@reddit

Senior year of high school. I remember we had a ditch party for 4/20 at my girlfriend’s house. It was like a handful of friends that all ditched and we watched it live on TV. Pretty crazy.

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Amazing_Poem5740@reddit

I was a freshman in high school. My brother was a senior slated to graduate in May, so this hit close to me

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PropertyTraining4790@reddit

Junior in high school. We didn't hear about it during the day, but I was at my friends house smoking pot after school when the friends parents rushed home from work unexpectedly to make sure their son was safe. They were minimally concerned about the dope smoking and said "we'll talk about this later" and very happy we were safe. I asked my friend weeks later if his parents ever brought up the the pot and they had not and if they ever told my parents.

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William_Shaftner@reddit

Sitting in a house in Isla Vista with about 20 other people having the biggest smokeout sessions I've ever seen because it was 4/20.

It's wild to think how disconnected we were then. No idea of what was going on in the world outside of that room. I don't even think I learned about columbine until the next day.

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sarbah77@reddit

Driving home from a college tour in upstate NY.

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kipribley28@reddit

I was in High School, 2 days later we all had to be evcuated from a letter sent by a copycat killer.

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DeathandHemingway@reddit

My junior year of HS, we were making jokes that it wouldn't happen at our school because they would have gotten shot back at.

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A_Stones_throw@reddit

Freshman year of HS in CA, had an immediate effect on dress code going forwards i remember

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hereforthebreakdown@reddit

Sitting in 8th grade social studies when our teacher broke the news. Made for a stressful week growing up in a gun loving state as it was unfathomable that something like that could ever occur. It sparked many (inappropriate) conversations among the student body about who among us could be capable of doing such a thing.

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Green_Mtn_Man@reddit

Was in the college lounge looking at my teaching licensure classes I wanted to take in the fall semester. I did not become a history teacher because of that day.

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Personal-Aioli-367@reddit

In high school, different Denver metro school. I remember my Marketing teacher getting called outside to the hallway, came back in a minute later looking a bit shaken, she didn’t say anything. In the passing period it started to circulate from kids in lunch. A girl in my Biology class told everyone what she was hearing, I specifically remember her talking about ‘the kid who crawled out the window’. I was done with classes and went home, I think shortly after the school went into lockdown for a the final couple of periods.

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PuzzledExchange7949@reddit

Probably finishing exams in my second year of university. Getting ready to start my first job that wasn't babysitting.

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MushroomAdjacent@reddit

Having an asthma attack in the same emergency room as the victims, unbeknownst to me.

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scotgekko@reddit

Junior year of high school. Got home for the day to see this on CNN and couldn’t stop watching. Was an eerie feeling considering school shootings weren’t yet a “normal” part of life in the US and all these kids were our age.

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Electronic_Male@reddit

I was in highschool

Definitely was considered an outsider

I was sitting in class and the teacher said this is a good lesson to teach people to be inclusive, and maybe talk to people that seem to linger in the social margins.

I said that it's kind of insulting that folks would try to talk to me because they're afraid I'd shoot up the school.

No one clapped, and I didn't make any new friends because of this.

But I was invited to update the school website DURING that class in exchange for an A, shortly after.

I... Never put that together until now. Hahaha, wow

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Extreme-King@reddit

At the gym in college

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Larryville-1980@reddit

Freshman year of college I have family members who live in Littleton, but do not attend the school. My aunt was a nurse and got called in to the trauma unit to help some of the victims. She also had to deal with the Aurora shooting many years later, what a nightmare she had to deal with.😕

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Seattle_chickey@reddit

Working at Brown bear car wash in Bellevue. I was the opener and it broke on the news over the radio.

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GlenBaileyWalker@reddit

I was a junior. The next day or so after changed me. I was a hardcore kid but was involved in the local goth scene as well. I worn a trench coat. Once the whole Trench Coat Mafia stuff came out along with the KMFDM connection (i worn their shirts often) I was called into the principal”s office with the guidance counselor. I won’t say they accused me of being a potential shooter but they asked a lot of questions and insinuated a lot like I was violent and on drugs. Never mind the fact that I had giant Xes on my hands from seeing Earth Crisis or Snapcase (can’t remember which) a couple days earlier, never touched a firearm before, and I was staunchly opposed to violence. I just looked weird for a rural school and that was cause for suspicion.

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Alice_600@reddit

I was on my gap year about to leave for my part time job. It was weird.

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TheDnBDawl@reddit

A small group of us cut school for the stoner holiday. I took a nap at some point and awoke to it unfolding on TV. It was terrifying and surreal.

I always think of those kids on this day.

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thundrbud@reddit

I missed the news because I went to a Marilyn Manson concert after school, the last one before they cancelled the rest of that tour. Showed up to school the next day as usual in my black trench coat and got pulled aside pretty quickly by a teacher whose first words to me were, "do you really think it's a good idea to be wearing that?!?" I had to tell them I had no idea what they were talking about and then had the whole situation explained to me, it was super awkward to say the least!

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_Bdoodles@reddit

Sophomore year of high school

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ambiguousredditname@reddit

I was working for a painter and I got sent off by myself often. I took my lunch at noon and the tv in McDonald’s had it on cnn or one of those. I watched for about an hour. Went back to work thinking to myself “we had shotguns and rifles in the back windows of trucks in the parking lot, not 5/6/7 years ago, damn…” The kids didn’t stand a chance against semiautomatic rifles. I still think that’s when the kids in America changed. That and 9/11. Nothing in school has been the same

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zoominzacks@reddit

My dad had gone into the hospital on April 13th to have a brain tumor removed. I don’t remember much between then and walking into his hospital room April 20th and him looking at my mom and I, pointing at the TV and going “have you seen this shit??!!!!”

Yaaaaaaaaay trauma sandwich!

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Immortal_Sailor@reddit

At Navy / Marine Corps Relief Society asking for a small grant to help pay an unexpected bill.

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EducationalAssist739@reddit

I was 11, in elementary school. Hating division.

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Kiethblacklion@reddit

I was a Senior in high school. I think I was in the library when I saw a headline while cruising the limited websites we had access to at the time.

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fleebleganger@reddit

I’ve seen far more columbine related stuff this year than most years.

I wonder why. (Genuinely)

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FearlessFixxer@reddit

Senior in HS. Guatemala City. A few days later our school had a talent show and one of the entries was a couple of guys playing Du Hast.

I was one of the MCs for the show and that moment was super awkward. Total silence during and after. The performance was really well done, but no one knew how to react.

I really wish one of the adults would have had the foresight to pull the act from the lineup.

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Turtlegirlh@reddit

Sophmore in High-school about 20 miles north. Then there was a shooting at that high school the year after I graduated (no injuries thankfully).

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OkCryptographer524@reddit

I was at work. Had the coverage on the tv all morning.

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EfficientAd3634@reddit

In 4th grade at Leawood Elementary, where the high schoolers at Columbine evacuated to while we were on lockdown and couldn’t leave until our parents came to get us.

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Ricanzanity@reddit

NYC 10th grade chilling with my friends. Didn’t get word until late that night when I watched the news

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DenvahGothMom@reddit

I was an RA in the dorms at CU Boulder, about 45 min - 1 hr from the school. I was the "teach-the-girls-self-defense and hand out rape whistles" kind of RA, who just wanted a leadership position for my resume and free housing, not the bust you for drinking in your room without disturbing people kind. Weed was still illegal in CO in 99, and I ethically didn't believe students should get in legal or academic trouble for having a smoke. BUT, the big Farrand Field smokeout happened right in front of our dorm every 4/20, and I knew the hall director would be knocking on my door and calling my landline to come help the others write tickets. She did not have the number to my Motorola Star-Tac flip phone, however, so I decided to ditch campus and spend the night of the 19th at my boyfriend's frat house.

We had a lazy morning on the 20th, probably partaking of a toke ourselves, and then all horror broke loose. My boyfriend had graduated in 97 from another Littleton high school, and many of his best friends, including many guys in the frat, were Columbine grads and some even had younger siblings in the school. They were trying to find out if their family members were ok in an era when maybe a third of people and less high schoolers had cell phones. We were watching LIVE coverage and feeling so helpless as we watched the SWAT teams refuse to go in. It just went on and on--horrific speculation, horrific footage, and almost no real information. A guy on the basketball team with my best friend's boyfriend lost his little sister, but didn't know until late that night. My mom was an elementary school teacher in a Jeffco School and was on lockdown for the first time in her 20 year teaching career with painfully few details. Just trying to protect those sweet babies from... who knows what, but they did know kids were being murdered in a local HS. I was a sophomore in the CU journalism program, and because there were no camera phones, no skype, no nothing except satellite news trucks to send coverage cross-country, and the news networks were scrambling to get reporters on airplanes, they sent the seniors in my program down to tape (yes, on VHS) interviews with traumatized teenaged survivors as quickly as possible. No trauma informed training, just some kid asking a younger a kid, "You just watched your friend get shot; what was that like?" CU had a blood drive and we all went. And for a day or two, it was a 9/11 feeling of "we're all in this together." That's when people got greedy. People (and churches) started trying to exploit the tragedy for money and fame/attention and their own personal agendas. It was an absolute circus and I'll never forget how it broke my heart. I feel like Colorado could have changed forever in that moment for the better, but we chose greed, self-promotion, self-interest, etc. I could give a million examples, including the debacle over the memorial license plate and fund. But today, I prefer to remember the victims, the loss of innocence, and be the change I wish to see so that this never happens to my kids, or yours.

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Intelligent_Pass2540@reddit

Jr year of high-school definitely wearing my trench coat plaid skirt and black boots....getting side eyed from the teachers. I worked at hot topic it was a rough month or so following the shooting.

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StillhasaWiiU@reddit

I was at basic training, the only news story we were told about durign that time was a big tornado hitting Oklahoma city.

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MurkyDismal18@reddit

I was a junior in HS. Also, a bit of an outsider with outsider friends. It felt terrible to have people looking at us after this all unfolded, thinking that we were capable of doing something like this too.

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smikkelhut@reddit

I was a student in Amsterdam.

Seemed like something really remote and not related in any way to The Netherlands or even Europe.

I have that with a lot of things pre 9/11

It’s funny how much smaller the world seems today

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mrwynd@reddit

Senior at Highlands Ranch, a rival to Columbine in sports. A friend who went there wasn’t answering her phone. We finally got a hold of her and she had no idea because she had ditched school. Later that day I saw her interviewing on TV talking about hearing gunshots and I know for a fact she wasn’t even there.

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thatstwatshesays@reddit

I went to CU and was being operated on at a hospital in Denver. My surgery was postponed all day bc of the shooting, obviously. My roommate’s brother was in his senior year at Columbine, but I didn’t understand the scope of it until the next day. My orthopedic surgeon operated on a few trauma cases before he got to me, I understood that all the kids in our hospital survived.

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Exotic_Page4196@reddit

In Denver at school. That weekend we went as a youth group to pray and stand in solidarity with our peers at Columbine. Had crown burger for the first time that day.

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McCrazyJ@reddit

I was 19, at AIT in Ft Gordon, GA.

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HisMrsAraya@reddit

Senior year of high school. I remember it being all over the news and getting woken up by my mom yelling "There's school shooting! It's all over the news... hurry"! I watched parts of the news but it was a school day, 2 months before graduation. At school it was all over, everyone talking about it and in history we watched the news for "current events " and that's all we watched. It was surreal since it wasn't happening where I was, but terrifying once hearing the aftermath and of course, another pair of Killers who end their own lives to avoid penalty. I always have been into behavioral science and why people behave the way they do. Never got to hear their side, as much as it doesn't matter, still. I remember it all. The news blaming Marilyn Manson and Metallica and Video Games. I remember everything. The footage was terrifying, and the survivors stories still shake my core. Their parents had zero idea what they were doing in that basement. The rules still apply to kids as teens. Quiet for long periods of time usually means bad news 😂

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scacco_foraneo@reddit

Y2K vibes had me thinking computers were ending us tbh

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cloudydays2021@reddit

I was a senior in high school, and since it was 4/20, my friends and I had cut school and were walking around Central Park, blazing up. Didn’t hear about it until that night when I saw the news.

Sometimes I think back to that afternoon with my friends and how we were having an afternoon of dumb, silly fun while people our age were murdered en masse by their peers.

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username__0000@reddit

We were smoking weed in the woods and then went to my friend’s house to watch tv.

I think the line up was usually jonovision and some cooking shows around that time.

But this was all that was on TV. It was an unpleasant 420 that year.

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ailish@reddit

I was a nanny for a family of kids. I had picked them up from school, and we ended up watching it on TV. Scary stuff.

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Familiar-Hunt-3792@reddit

I was at a local park for the 420 festival that day. I also was wearing a black trench coat and combat boots. I hadn't heard anything about the shooting yet. Several hours after the shooting happened, people began showing up who heard what happened. Someone called the cops on me because they thought i was there to shoot up the park. 6 police officers with their hands on their holsters came over to where we were hanging out and told me to keep my hands where they could see them. They slapped cuffs on me and searched me. They started asking me if I was a part of "the trench coat mafia." I had no idea what they were talking about. They told me that 2 teens had shot their classmates at a school in Colorado, and both were wearing trench coats. The police still had no clue yet that the term "trench coat mafia" was just a nickname that students gave to Klebold , The news outlets had given the impression that it was some kind of gang they had never heard of. They asked if i could put my coat up somewhere, so I took it back to my car. We left shortly afterward as that killed al the fun we had up until that' point.

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MmmSteaky@reddit

Junior year, TA for a math class, where I just scrolled the internet, and heard the news that way.

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Prior-Natural2073@reddit

I remember that tragic incident when I was in highschool about the mass murder of dozens of students and at least two teachers were murdered by the two young men in trench dark black coats and I saw the it on the news on TV and the front page on the newspaper when I came home from school and I was about 16 to 17 years old at the time. Still one of the most tragic moments in the world and in this country. So many lives of great friends and families destroyed because of this situation

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bibbityboo2@reddit

I was in my last year of Secondary school, probably getting ready to sit exams.

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windsorZ@reddit

Watching teletubbies probably since I had just turned two.

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LeakyAssFire@reddit

I posted this in another thread, but since we all lived through it in the same age group, I'll shared it here....

I grew up in Colorado and attended Columbine's sister school to the north. I was a junior when the shootings happen.

If you all remember the news coverage that day, there were three young men arrested in the playing fields attached to Columbine. Two of those young men went my school.

There was the unfortunate knee-jerk reaction from the district and the administration at the school that the boys were somehow involved with the shooting. As a result, we were told to report them immediately on sight. I knew one of them really well - Matthew Akard. Him and I had been in drumline for a couple of years. The other guy, Jim Brunetti, I only knew through his younger sister and by reputation alone. Neither one of them were bad guys.

Despite them being proven innocent, the district and\or administration never let them back on campus. They were both seniors at the time and both set to graduate. Neither one of them were allowed to walk with their class.

Coincidently, Matt wasn't even supposed to be there that day. The drumline and color guard had returned home from WGI finals in Dayton, OH just hours before the shooting. We did a performance for the school and then were given the rest of the day off for our placement at WGI, and because of the shooting. Akard wasn't with us because he had been cut from the program months before due to personal issues with the staff.

Oh, yeah... and then there was this that happened a week after the shooting.

Finally, about a year before the shooting, my best friend and I met both the shooters. They were friends with a mutual friend of ours. We met them on a night out at the then Red & Jerry's located in Sheridan, CO about 10 minutes north of the school. One of them was really chill. The other one was kind of... I dunno, defensive, I guess? But we all got along and bonded over computer games and horror movies.

I still live in Colorado, and I am close to the school. Once a year, I go down to the memorial and pay my respects to the victims.

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acr1119@reddit

I had a friend working just down from the school at a dry cleaner - he was providing me regular updates throughout the day. Being “just a teenager” and doing teenager things seemed to change after the atrocity at Columbine. Innocence of a generation was gone in an instant.

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nucl3ar0ne@reddit

Don't remember, probably in class at my university since it was a Tuesday.

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tesseractjane@reddit

Bad shit happens on Tuesdays.

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StormyStenafie@reddit

It was my senior year and I went to a HS about 15 miles away. I had ditched school for 4/20 and my friends and I watched it unfold on the local news station.

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gordonstsg@reddit

I was a Junior, but we were off due to a conference day. The next day, a bomb threat was called in. Never identified the caller. All Senior privileges were canceled the following year as a result of Columbine.

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Roderto@reddit

Grade 11. We had a school-wide assembly later that week to discuss what had happened. And we weren’t even in the U.S.

I can’t overstate how immense that event was. The fact that mass shootings have become so common in the U.S. that it’s now just one of many is so incredibly sad (and should be anger-inducing to Americans).

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Righteous_Fire@reddit

Civics class. 8th grade.

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qwerty-game@reddit

Second year of college. I don’t remember where I was this day like I do 9/11.

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tesseractjane@reddit

8th grade. Denver public. We watched the news coverage in class.

I live in the neighborhood now.

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6inchVert@reddit

Sophomore in college in podunk Utah. All of my roommates stood in the living with me watching the initial news reports. I remember one remarked that it was similar to watching the coverage of the OKC federal building bombing. Very somber, we were all confused and no one went to class that day.

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Proud_Midnight7096@reddit

In High School as s Freshman

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littlemama9242@reddit

8th grade

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False-Cookie3379@reddit

Same here, we watched it on tv. A few weeks later we started active shooter drills.

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TacoNomad@reddit

Same.

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osddelerious@reddit

I was in Sweden at a school with lots of North American students. We heard about that day it but it seemed like it was a million miles away in another universe.

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V1ncentAdultman@reddit

In class at UC Boulder. People in my class went to or knew people from Columbine High School and it was all around depressing.

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pantheroux@reddit

I was writing an exam. I had an A in the course without even doing the final, so I finished very quickly. I was supposed to meet my dad after the exam to go to a concert. I accidentally left my backpack in the gym and the proctor wouldn’t let me back in to get it until the exam was over. He also wouldn’t bring it to me. My phone was in my backpack so I had to find a pay phone to call my dad, but I couldn’t remember his cell number. It was that weird time when people had cell phones, but they weren’t smartphones and weren’t ubiquitous.

I was pacing around campus waiting for the exam to end when I heard about Columbine.

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fromthedarqwaves@reddit

And of senior year. Highschool was pretty much over by that point. Last day of classes was early May I think so we were all done. I don’t remember it being discussed in school so I was probably hanging out at home or working.

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heyitscory@reddit

I wasn't allowed to wear my cool black oilskin duster anymore.

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pismobeachdisaster@reddit

Sitting in French class. The tv was on for some reason.

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verba_saltus@reddit

I was having lunch with my then-very-soon-to-be-ex. We were trying to figure out what was happening, squinting up at the TV over the bar. That kind of thing seemed impossible. Now it's expected.

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LongjumpingMall283@reddit

Sophomore year of high school. I remember my biology teacher putting the news on and watching the live coverage. The next year a group of friends and I were called into the principal’s office and our parents were contacted; apparently a “hit list” had been found with our names on it and we were instructed to stay home for our safety for like two days. Completely surreal. Probably didn’t help that I had also read Rage by Stephen King around the same time.

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OrigamiTongue@reddit

At school. Celebrating my birthday.

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esomers80@reddit

At home..I was 19..I remember watching it sadly unfold live on CNN...it was the most horrific thing I had seen at the time..I still remember it vividly sadly...

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AdRadiant9379@reddit

Senior year of yeshiva. Plenty of us regularly got into fistfights, nobody was plotting mass murder

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optimaloutcome@reddit

I think I had been at college and work that day. I was done with high school at that point. I remember seeing it on the news when I got home.

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spareparts969@reddit

In my first apartment with my best friend at the computer. That place cost us $500 together. 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a pool. I miss that place. Now, you can't get one unless you make $40,000 a year and have roommates.

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rileyotis@reddit

6th grade. Jefferson County School District (same one as Columbine). My school was (still is) about 45 min northeast of Columbine.

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viking_linuxbrother@reddit

The first of many to come. Sad times.

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liltinyoranges@reddit

Bartending in a steakhouse in South Florida

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Electrical_Resource6@reddit

I was a junior in high school in Colorado about an hour away, I have an interesting story about it. I was working as a teachers aide at his desk when a phone call came through from a colleague of his at Columbine. The colleague said he had heard explosions and wasn't sure what was happening, I heard a very loud noise in the background before I handed him the phone. At the time, bomb threats were pretty common, kids would do anything to get out of class, so I didn't think a whole lot of it. Once I got home and heard what actually happened, I was pretty shook. I remember maybe 30% of kids showed up the next day at school.

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literanch@reddit

Sitting outside in Driver’s Ed

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NextBestHyperFocus@reddit

Outside Columbine high school?

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literanch@reddit

No. My high school in Florida. Sorry for the confusion.

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NextBestHyperFocus@reddit

All g. Was gonna say that would have been real hectic

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Allureme@reddit

Somewhere celebrating the holiday unbeknownst to me…

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Mochigood@reddit

I was a junior at Thurston High School, which had had a shooting almost a year earlier. The principal came on the intercom to announce "It's happened again", to which there was a lot of confusion that maybe there was another shooting in our school. I remember being in chemistry class and almost dropping a beaker.

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Main_Paramedic_292@reddit

At the beach

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AdPsychological7926@reddit

7th grade at a middle school roughly twenty five minutes north of there.

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PancakeBandit82@reddit

Sophomore in high school.

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AttilaTheFun818@reddit

Senior year of high school. It hit us all very hard and we’ve learned nothing from it.

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gnartothecore@reddit

I was in 11th grade, but 4/20 was always a skip day. I didn't know what happened until a news report on the car radio when my mom picked me up from my friend's house that night.

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Hossflex@reddit

Sophomore in high school. I remember watching it on the news when I got home. The next day we had an assembly to talk about it.

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barefootincozumel@reddit

In class. In my junior year of high school. It absolutely affected us as peers and shifted our perspective. Back then, it was unthinkable

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DisgruntledTexan@reddit

Freshman, supposed to have a lacrosse game at columbine that day.

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DizneyPhile@reddit

Freshman in college - caught the news while I was eating lunch. I will never forget watching those kids streaming out of the school.

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SonoFactori@reddit

I was in my senior year of high school. They put us in lockdown and had us turn on the TVs to watch the news.

I recall the teacher saying, “the saddest part about this to me, and I guess this is something we can talk about after class if you want to, is that everybody who died there today will go to hell.”

That was such a crystallizing moment in my youth. I couldn’t fathom any sort of God permitting that kind of cruelty.

It didn’t make me an atheist, but it taught me to question the motives and beliefs of anybody who claimed to speak for God.

Unintended side-effects, I suppose.

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lordhumongous40@reddit

I had just graduated. I was hanging out with a less than reputable crowd then. There had been school shootings before Columbine but never to that degree. It was really shocking.

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IshtarsBones@reddit

Yep- high school. What changed for me after that day; every room I walk into now, I have at least two points of exit that I’m hauling too if someone decides to flip. People in my high school thought I was crazy, ‘oh it’ll never happen here.’

Nope- not taking those odds.

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Intelligent-Invite79@reddit

At school, a few days later someone called and said they were going to to the same to my school. I remember the usual jock, popular, rich dude crying and praying in the corner. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy, I tried to tell him we’d be okay, they were evacuating us. He shot me a look that could kill.

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misanthropoetry@reddit

At work at an indie record store - I hearing that the shooters were “alternative” kids like us who were sick of being bullied and feeling like I understood. Later I realized they were mostly just assholes with too much of their parents’ money and time on their hands.

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thecicilala@reddit

I was a Senior in high school and we ironically had just did our PEACE day where the whole school went outside to form the word PEACE and an arial plane took pics- we celebrated that bc of the yogurt shop murders (the older girls went to my HS). I’ll never forget when GWBush later let the Brady bill expire in the 2000s and I thought this won’t be good- look what happened at Columbine. Heh. School shootings haven’t ever gotten better.

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mistersongbird@reddit

Getting my braces off. Heard about it on the radio on my way back to school.

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joejackson62@reddit

My senior year of high school. Our school administration heard about what was happening and had all teachers and students evacuate to our football field. We had security check the school grounds and lockers for any issues, took roll inside and outside, and eventually returned to class.

Our principal explained what was happening over the loud speaker when we all got back inside, and honestly I didn't feel sad or anything until I got home later that day. I think we were all in shock at first from hearing the news.

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themaninthemaking@reddit

Sophomore year in high school. It was quite a wild situation. Two events where things were never the same afterwards for us. This and 9/11.

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Hbush1986@reddit

8th grade

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wombatrunner@reddit

God, in high school thinking this was one horrible event. Had no idea I would get confused when people mentioned a school shoot in the future and wouldn’t know which of the many hundreds they would be referencing…

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SailNW@reddit

8th grade. Just getting ready for high school.

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ebzees@reddit

My junior year of high school but I was on a college visit that day. I saw it on the news in my hotel room as it was happening.

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drc500free@reddit

Don't remember the news breaking. Do remember all the adults freaking out and over-reacting because they thought - since we were also a white suburb - we must have a similar culture to a school with such an intense bullying problem that kids were paying protection money to stay safe. I was friends with the theater kids and the AV kids and the nerds. None of them were fucking sociopaths, and none of them were getting their asses kicked for not playing lacrosse.

It really drove home a lot about the worldview of parents in "safe" suburbs. They were a lot more worried about two white kids 2000 miles away than dozens of gangbangers 20 miles away, had no idea what was really happening, but still thought they were informed enough to helicopter in out of nowhere and make bad decisions.

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JonasSharra@reddit

The day before I told my friend about a school shooting dream I had. The first thing we did when we saw each other after Columbine: “Holly shit! Did you predict it!!”

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dddubstep@reddit

I was in second grade, maybe wrong sub for me haha

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Moons_of_Moons@reddit

I was a senior at a HS an hour south of there

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Bad-Touch-Monkey@reddit

Junior year. At home on suspension for beating up twins that jumped my buddy.

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Chicoern@reddit

Sophomore in high school. Our PE teacher took us out to the far softball field and gave the class a heart to heart talk. About a month later a rumor started that there was gonna be a shooting at our high school on a certain day, made the local news and everything. ~30% of kids stayed home. My mom wasn’t buying it, my siblings and I went to school. Nothing happened.

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FloridaGirlMary@reddit

2 years out of high school…working at Kmart

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gertrudeblythe@reddit

Watching Buffy at my friend’s house

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remoteworker9@reddit

It was the day between my grandmother’s death and her memorial service.

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Bubbly-Stretch8975@reddit

I was a junior. I don’t remember how we heard the news or even discussing it much. I was a self obsessed teen. Just looking at that picture now breaks my heart. Those kids could be any one of us. My own kid is a junior and so much has changed but children’s lives continue to be lost in this awful way. I think we need a reset button.

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Mr_Coach_Pat@reddit

Senior year of HS. Skipped school with my buddies to go smoke weed in the park. Didn’t find out til we got home later that day

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Asleep-Elderberry260@reddit

High school. It was tragic, and the idea of it was scary. But it seemed like such a one off event. I remembered people being afraid of something like that happening at my school and immediately dismissing them as dramatic. Oh, the innocence I had.

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DeadHead2002@reddit

I think we all did though. This kind of stuff didn't happen...

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davwad2@reddit

I was in 11th grade and would have been at school.

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Lil_Erick81@reddit

I just graduated High School (I was a Senior) - Yeah

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Vancouverreader80@reddit

At home

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Constant_Roof_7974@reddit

College in MN. And a friend’s sister was there. 💔

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spoung45@reddit

Just got home from a college class. I remember the aerial footage seeing the one kids body just in the grass...

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qwikh1t@reddit

Couldn’t tell you

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MrsSamT82@reddit

Senior year, 5th period. Mr. Julien’s chemistry class. You could see the heartbreak on his face as he told us all what had happened. The world changed that day.

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SensitiveArtist@reddit

Junior year. I got to meet one of the survivors the next year. He was in town for surgery and our school band was supposed to meet him at the appetite paying the Columbibe fight sung but his flight was delayed and we sat around for a few hours. The county made it up to us by taking us all to Six Flags to meet him.

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GlitteringHotMess@reddit

My freshman year of high school

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thehotttrock@reddit

First year in college. I was in a class to learn how to be a mentor to middle and high school students as I was hired to work for the TRIO program. It felt surreal and I kinda became scared to go to my campus library. I started experiencing anxiety attacks for the first time. But I was never scared to mentor the students I was assigned to.

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mmm_unprocessed_fish@reddit

Working. Found out about it later that day when I was on my way to see Marilyn Manson in Chicago. Didn’t watch the news until the next day.

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highvibes19@reddit

I was a junior in high school. I remember getting home from school, going into the kitchen to get a snack and turning in the tv. Watching it unfold on the news and trying to process it all, while home alone really sucked. I remember feeling shaken to my core and hoping this would never happen to another student.

I’m so angry that nothing is being done to prevent these shootings.

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tarabuki@reddit

I was working at a software company. The CEO sent everyone home early that day.

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DeadHead2002@reddit

Freshman in high school. This was supposed to be an outlier, some crazy and horrific event. Our algebra teacher just sat at his desk in shock and we all just talked about how crazy it was. Now, it is almost the norm. You just read a headline and shake your head. At the time though, this kind of stuff didn't happen. Our small rural Indiana town didn't lock the doors; older kids or a parent would walk right in and you could see them and say hi in the hallways. Kids would leave shotguns in their trucks during hunting season. It really is weird to think back just how much the world has changed since then.

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ElleAnn42@reddit

Studying for finals, my freshman year of college.

My time at university felt like it was bookended by big news events. Freshman year ended with Columbine and Senior year started with 9/11.

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Taanistat@reddit

Senior year of high school. Had just turned in one of my senior projects and was allowed to leave early. I went home, turned on the TV which was already on a news channel. I watched about 2 hours of the coverage live.

Our school was cancelled the next day. The day after, they introduced new rules including a much stricter dress code. No band t-shirts. No trench coats. No combat boots. No wallet chains. No pocket knives or tools other than those provided by the school (was a Vo-tech high school). Random locker and bag searches, although they initially wanted to ban backpacks. No Walkmans or camcorders. Student cars subject to search on demand. You get the picture. They had metal detectors installed before the beginning of the next school year.

We were far more free than the classes who came after and I'm glad I was in the class of 99' and not later.

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heresmytwopence@reddit

With no disrespect intended, I have no memory of when or how I heard about it. Freshman year of college was pretty tumultuous for me.

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ammodramussavannarum@reddit

Fishing with my brother on Boyd Lake in Loveland, CO. I happened to have a small handheld radio and was listening to NPR news just to annoy my brother. We both stopped fishing and listened as we slowly rowed to shore. I’ll never forget that experience.

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nothingwascool@reddit

A couple friends had caught rumor of some tunnels under our middle school. We found the entrance and went under to explore one day after school (small 4’x4’ tunnels for utility access I assume). Well me mapped it as we went and marked strange stuff we encountered down there.

This was right around the Columbine shooting and my friends parents found his map along with some firecrackers. We were all accused of planning to bomb the school and it was very uncomfortable for all of us. In the end we convinced them we had no nefarious plans but it was bad times.

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serioperocabron@reddit

School and the lock down happened. Not know why? Then we got sent home without an explanation.

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Garth_W00kz@reddit

I was taking the final test to get my GED, after dropping out of school a year earlier. The instructor let us know after we finished testing.

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SmallSaltyMermaid@reddit

I was driving back to college and heard the announcement over the radio.

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left-of-the-jokers@reddit

Senior year

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bluekillgore@reddit

Freshman in HS ..... some jackass called in 3 bomb threats the week after.

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Illustrious-Group-99@reddit

Junior in highschool 15 to 20 minutes away. I was in my art class

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bigfancydelta@reddit

JR in HS. Some kids got picked up early, and the teachers and staff got real weird for a couple weeks. We had also just had a school scandal where a portion of the student council were pulled from class and arrested due to being involved in a drug ring. Girl that sat in front of me in English had $3k in cash and another $2-3k in coke and ecstasy in a bag in her car. It had spilled out in her back seat and a security guard saw wads of cash just laying there. Crazy shit!

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Jaleou@reddit

My dorm room, 2nd year in college. Watched it live on the internet, like cnn.com or something. My roommate talked about how he would have been one of the guys in is high school walking around in trenchcoats.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

I was in my fourth year of college. I remember watching the story on CNN in my dorm room.

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DjCyric@reddit

Freshman in high school. They wheeled in a tv and we watched it live in my social studies class.

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too_old_to_be_clever@reddit

The tail end of my 2nd year of Community College. I was in the library writing a report on Steve Earl for a writing class.

I still remember the kid being pulled out of the library.....just damn

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Alaska_Pipeliner@reddit

Driving to school trying to decide what to listen to, massacre at the school or massacre in Bosnia.

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thrance@reddit

I was in history class at a high school about 10-ish miles as the crow flies away. Same school district. I was in summer school the summer before at Columbine.

It was a weird and a bit scary of an experience with the students at my school being escorted out by police. As they thought there was a threat to our school as well.

I still think about the people affected by Columbine. It was horrible

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Architorture_66@reddit

Freshman studio classes were about to start that day when someone came in describing what they'd heard on the radio. Someone in our class who had a radio on them put it on a news station to where we could follow along until we went home to see it on the news.

It was my wife and my "one month wedding anniversary" that day and we were going to just go out and do something random to celebrate it. Instead we just canceled and stayed that night at the apartment and later did something else on the weekend.

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Happy_Brief_2199@reddit

In a college dorm lounge watching it unfold on tv

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GreatMoloko@reddit

Junior in high school half way out the school door to skip school and "celebrate the holiday" when the news came over the loud speaker.

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Doc_Hollywood@reddit

Freshman year of high school. Boyfriend’s mom picked me up from school, showed up bawling. Pretty much changed all our lives that day, no?

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besttobyfromtheshire@reddit

Towards the end of 8th grade. On suspension, for fighting.

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yerederetaliria@reddit

Ooooh!

OK! I was attending Colorado State University (an hour and a half away) and I was dating and nearly begging my husband to marry me. He was also attending Colorado State University. He graduated from Evergreen Senior High School in 1998 which was in the same district and began attending University, he was studying chemistry, I was studying education. It was April so we were living together and were "common law" at the time, he proposed in May. He had friends in Columbine, he knew the school inside and out. No, he didn't know the victims or shooters but he was familiar with the whole thing. My husband is a Stoic and rarely loses control but he wept hard and it really scared me. Then he just shook it of and told me that it was mainly caused by neglect and then we pursued our lives. I have wondered if the shooting motivated him to propose. I wanted to marry immediately but he was being a gentleman. Our wedding was in August. Our marriage started off with such glory and love and happiness but there was this Columbine cloud near us. We were attending InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at CSU and there was a huge outpouring from the club.

So yeah, part of our story.

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Fun-Preparation-4253@reddit

At home. That was the day we were to all take the ASVAB so my mom made me stay home. My mom called me because she wanted to hear my voice. Here that I was ok. We live in Arkansas.

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Holiday_Bit_5664@reddit

I was a freshman and stayed home from school that day because I was sick and watched it unfold on tv.

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Serious_Lettuce6716@reddit

Laying on the floor in my cousin’s bedroom, stoned, watching MTV.

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drawredraw@reddit

Senior year of high school. I’m glad I graduated that year and feel sorry for anyone who has to go to school in the era following Columbjne.

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natertheman1980@reddit

MCT (Marine Combat Training) in NC. Came back from the field a few days after. CNN was on TVs in chow hall and it was all coverage about it.

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ChaucersDuchess@reddit

Junior in HS. We heard rumblings from students who had seen the TV in the office or were coming from Dr appts. We didn’t really know until after school just what had happened.

Then we spent the next 6 weeks having copycat threats every single week and evacuating everytime. The final week they had a loud speaker and told us to just call our parents to call the office to sign us out if we wanted to leave.

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HYThrowaway1980@reddit

In Brazil, having the best time of my life before going to uni…

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ObjectiveFlatworm645@reddit

I was with my girlfriend getting an oil change. The TV was on in the waiting room. I will never forget that day and that feeling.

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sasser8675309@reddit

Getting stoned

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Cool_Atmosphere_9038@reddit

I graduated a year before. I was on an airplane headed home when it happened. I landed, got home and was absolutely shocked.

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moarlo@reddit

I had ditched school that day and was watching tv when the breaking news came through

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dandelion-tea-@reddit

Same

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levioh_snap@reddit

On mushrooms with my cousin and then boyfriend. We ran around like idiots most of the day. We went back to my cousin’s and sat down for dinner with my uncle and he said “hey, did you hear about that guy? In Colorado? Who shot up a high school?” We all said no and he put on the news.

Not a great end to our trippy day. I still think about Columbine often. I read the books. Someone I knew was actually on a Telnet BBS with Eric Harris and she wasn’t even a little bit surprised.

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Neither-Mycologist77@reddit

Tenth grade, but homeschooled. Homeschooling circles were quite smug about how THEIR children were safe from such things.

My best friend, however, was in public school and was a social outcast who liked long coats and the color black... She said people finally stopped bullying her and started giving her a wide berth.

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Allrojin@reddit

Home sick, I didn't even know it happened until someone called me after school.

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HighSeasArchivist@reddit

Working.

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fermentedradical@reddit

Freshman in college. Don't remember the day specifically but it was mid-spring semester so in some class or other.

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Aol_awaymessage@reddit

Eyeing up the kids in trench coats 👀. No offense guys and gals!

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princetrunks@reddit

Freshman in high school

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LiluDallasMultiPass_@reddit

Military

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Stinky-Pickles@reddit

Senior in CO. My teacher was pretty shaken because his friend was a teacher there.

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Malaguy420@reddit

School. Sophomore year.

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9_of_Swords@reddit

Jr year, playing hooky. Watching this go down on tv while grandma was chatting with her friend. Said friend was making my prom dress.

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HiddenUser1248@reddit

I was at work...just a few miles away.

Utterly horrific. Even more horrific that it has happened again and again since then.

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BeenisHat@reddit

Junior year of HS.

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humanist-misanthrope@reddit

We had just finished initial manifest for a jump, and the jump masters had dismissed us for a bit. A buddy and I ran across the street to the Airborne PX to grab food. While we were in the food court, CNN was running on all the TVs showing live updates. That was probably the shittiest pre-jump experience I had. Nothing like see kids being murdered just before doing some of the scariest shit I could have been doing at that time.

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melydi85@reddit

On spring break in Myrtle beach

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Cisru711@reddit

In London doing study abroad. Didn't even hear about it until maybe late summer after I returned home.

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sarithe@reddit

Our school had TVs and played the news during homeroom, which was after 1st period. So we watched it all unfold on CNN. I was the weird goth kid, so I got stares and whispers for a bit.

Fun story; I got called into the guidance counselor's office a little over a week after Columbine. There was another student in there when I got there. Apparently he and I had a plot to shoot up the school together in the same vein as Columbine. Here's the kicker though: we didn't know each other. I had seen him around school, but had never interacted with him. He was a senior and I was a freshman so we had zero classes together. We didn't even have the same lunch period. We left that meeting friends though.

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slyseekr@reddit

Mr. Emerson's 11th grade english. I distinctly remember walking into the class and he had it on the television, we watched the coverage for the first 15 minutes of class and then discussed what had happened as a class for the rest of the period.

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Trixie1143@reddit

Where were you yesterday?

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acvillager@reddit

I was a little kid, still so sheltered from the world I didn’t hear about it until much later.

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BayouLuLu@reddit

Freshman in high school.

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WheezyGonzalez@reddit

In high school 😢

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yumeryuu@reddit

I was at my violin lesson. While my sister was doing her lesson, I watched tf at my teacher’s house. Watched it live.

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PotentialPlum4945@reddit

Sophomore year. Hanging out at my friend Chris’ house playing Golden Eye. I’m not sure which one brought it up, whether it was before or after Columbine, but we did agree at one point that the floor plan of our high school would make a great level for the game.

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jmac11281@reddit

I got my driver's license that morning. Such a weird day.

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ryaca@reddit

Cutting class to celebrate 420!

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LovelyGh0ul@reddit

I was in class. I was a sophomore in high school.

I remember watching it unfold on Channel One News, but that could have been coverage of it the following day.

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ttttunos@reddit

Sophomore in high school. Went back to school the next day and kids were making jokes and conspiring about who was going to do it at our school. 😮‍💨

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redbanner1@reddit

At the gym. I have never spent so much time on a treadmill, and it was just because the TV was perfectly centered over it and I wanted to see what was happening.

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itadapeezas@reddit

At my first apartment. With my new boyfriend. About to be pregnant lol.

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Denali973@reddit

It was 4/20 so I thought it was a hallucination until 4/21 when Geraldo was ranting and raving about it the next day.

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Beautiful_Finger4566@reddit

still in high school

I hung out with the freaks in trenchcoats

... it was not a fun time

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Illustrious-Lead-960@reddit

No idea.

…Probably at my high school.

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Human-Acanthaceae749@reddit

Senior year of high school, planning our senior trip to VA Beach. After this happened they heightened security the night we left, thoroughly checking bags before we boarded the buses

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Ok-Bat8712@reddit

Ditching school. Wasn’t too far from there.

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NYTravelerBD@reddit

My junior year of college. I remember watching the news about this and being absolutely floored. Sadly, today it barely registers when a mass shooting occurs.

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skeptical_hope@reddit

Spanish 3, junior year, northern Virginia

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OldArtichoke433@reddit

I worked in the main office in high school answering phones in the afternoon and I just remember when that happened the very next day and for a few days later there were so many parents calling their kids off from school.

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Lost-Wanderer-405@reddit

Freshman in high school.

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Bulky_Pop_8104@reddit

Senior year of HS, and the weird thing that got me was how many of them had cellphones. I grew up in a well off Canadian suburb, but next to nobody had cellphones at that time (outside of the dealers) - had something like that happened at my school, it’d be very dependent on getting that info to the front office for someone to call 911

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ilrosewood@reddit

Jr year of high school - in no way was I prepared for the scrutiny I’d get in the next 6 months.

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WadeoftheWoods81@reddit

Skipped school to celebrate 420.

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adjust_your_set@reddit

I was a freshman in high school, I don’t remember it as vividly as others. I feel like one of my periods had the news playing, but it was not imprinted on me like 9/11 was.

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mtnmanfletcher@reddit

Freshman year for me.

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2099AD@reddit

In school, and then a Rob Zombie concert afterwards. Heard about it on the radio after the concert, and at first thought it was some kind of joke story, because, what the actual fuck?

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beeswax_swiffer@reddit

In history class and the teacher put live news on the TV for a bit. What an awful, weird feeling.

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beekaybeegirl@reddit

I was a freshman in HS. Attended public school k-8 & Christian school 9-12.

I was convinced Christian schools would be the next persecuted target.

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snwbrdngtr@reddit

Junior in high school in Denver. Right after the news broke my school was evacuated due to a credible bomb threat.

It always hit me hard cuz I was the heavy metal listening loner stoner kid… I got weird looks the rest of that school year

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DarksunDaFirst@reddit

Sophomore year.

I’ll be honest - I skipped school with a bunch of friends and celebrated the “holiday”. I didn’t hear about it until later.

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ddiknosaj@reddit

Wrapping up my first year in college. Can’t remember exactly how I heard about it.

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No-Comment-6631@reddit

In my classroom, teaching.

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DetroitsGoingToWin@reddit

I was a Freshman in the dorms, thinking about how we had kids in my grade the year before, that were rocking the black trench coat look, complete outcasts that would threaten things like that, and we never took them seriously.

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_TalkingIsHard_@reddit

10th grade. I remember the day after (or shortly thereafter) they had kind of a "see something, say something" lesson during English class talking about what to do if someone's making threats, things seem off, etc.

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Shortbus_Playboy@reddit

Sophomore in college, watching the news updates live while high AF (it was 4/20, after all).

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NeganSaves@reddit

Senior year. It was supposed to be our senior prank day. Student council went from homeroom to homeroom telling us not to do it.

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Lil_Brown_Bat@reddit

Shop class when I heard

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QualityParticular739@reddit

Junior year of high school. For a while after that, there was at least 2-3 lockdowns a week at my school from kids calling in fake threats and leaving "hit lists" laying around campus.

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SkyRadioKiller@reddit

Fasten your seat belts.

So when the tragedy occurred, I was a tragic a remote boarding school in the Southwest.

81 kids from around the world on a dude ranch (outdoor themed boarding school...camping and ish).

We were in a Canyon so no radio signals ...and because of thr thrme/culture of the school we had NO TV, NO internet access, limited computer access, and only a 5 minute phone call weekly with your family during a designated time slot.

So in the days/weeks following the incident, we had NO IDEA it even happened. Nobody told us ANYTHING. Counselors. Kitchen staff. Admins. Receptionists. Even the groundskeepers. Zero. Zip. Nada.

I imagine the staff was concerned on what night happen/how we might react, especially a small number who had juvenile criminal backgrounds.

The only reason we found out is because we would get mail and various parents had gotten subscriptions of magazines for their kids like Newsweek, TIME, etc.

Also days/weeks after the tragedy kids started getting magazines with this horrible thing that happened that we had no clue about and everyone was just like "huh??. THAT SUCKS!" and that was it.

Like it wasn't even talked about from what I recall.

Miraculously, nobody flipped out and tried to kill anyone etc. To us, it seemed, we were in our own little world with our own set of problems. For me as a senior by the time we found out we were prepping for finals (our school year ended at the end of May) and we were all trying to pass our tests and go home.

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RelevantNothing4653@reddit

Junior in high school.

I had thought prior school shootings (West Paducah KY, Springfield OR and Jonesboro AK) were isolated things.

Now they're a fucking epidemic

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beck33ers@reddit

8th grade. They actually evacuated our school and the high school to the football field and made an announcement because a bomb threat was also called into our school that day in the afternoon so they took it super seriously. At first we didn’t understand what was going on until they started telling us what was happening in Columbine (I was in South Jersey)

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Immediate_Walrus_776@reddit

I was at a business meeting in Naples Florida. My wife was traveling with me.

I came back to the room after the morning meetings and my wife was glued to the television with tears in her eyes.

This event was such an incredible shock, especially since our kids at home were high school and middle school aged. We called her parents who were staying with the kids to make them aware.

We simply could not believe something like this could or ever would happen.

Here we are 27 years later and all 6 of my grandchildren tell me about the active shooter drills they do at school. My 7 year old granddaughter with a Spectrum disorder doesn't understand what it is, but is aware she has to do this drill twice every year and asks me why.

It's one of the saddest things I've ever experienced and I'm ashamed our country has had so many more of these things happen since then. But God forbid we can't change any gun laws or we'd violate the 2nd Amendment.

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Workamania@reddit

Junior year of college.

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MysteriousFee2873@reddit

4/20 played hooky got stoned and my shows were cut out due to breaking news

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BrokenDeity@reddit

Being slammed against my locker by my principal for wearing my biker jacket because I didn't know what had happened. My bus driver, usually the first person to tell me if something major happened in the news didn't have enough time to watch it that morning so I was completely in the dark. But he was always that way with his punk rock and goth students. Threatened me with expulsion because of the fact that I wore the same jacket I'd been wearing since returning from Christmas break and all because I had no idea but he did. His secretary overheard the whole thing, was a friend of my mother's, took me into her office, hung onto my jacket until the end of the day and made me watch the news with her. Once I understood - I was fine. At least with her.

He got arrested a year after I graduated for beating up a student pre-internet days.

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Subosc@reddit

I was in technical training, just out of boot camp in the USAF. We were all in the break room watching it.

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ShortBrownAndUgly@reddit

Sophomore year

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endofmyropeohshit@reddit

Watching it all unfold on TV at home.

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Due-Dentist9986@reddit

Salt lake City, watching it on the news. A close friend who was in the Prom group with the killers was getting harassed by the local news. all day, night and for days after... Watching a kid shot up trying to escape falling out of window into police arms... is something I will never forget.. truly a horrific day and nothing was ever the same afterward....

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LeopardDue1112@reddit

I was a senior in college. I was in a cafeteria eating lunch as students were fleeing the building. It makes me so angry that people were in there suffering and bleeding out long after the perps unalived themselves. Glad police modified their school shooting procedures because of it.

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The_broken_machine@reddit

Freshman in high school. Then nearly everybody was weird with me because I had KMFDM and other industrial and metal shirts I wore.

One person in my circle ate it up and became a weirder edge lord to make himself feel better and be more interesting. The fact he did this off the backs of their deaths and such chaos never sat well with me.

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jesusmansuperpowers@reddit

I’m from Colorado but had left school (kicked out for truancy) for the year. Was in Michigan being a roofer

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Primary-Strawberry-5@reddit

I was working as a stacker at a sawmill and I got off at 4pm and cruised up to my friends’ apartment (we were soon to be roommates because my mom had to sell the house in the divorce) and we sparked up at 4:20 on 4/20 because that’s how we rolled, or bowled technically.

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WhoYouBoo_eek789@reddit

Junior year, it may have been Senior Ditch Day or a 4/20 Pimp n Hoe Party?? My bff (a Sr) and I arrive at her house in the morning after dropping off her lil brother for school. We turned on the TV as we got ready and saw it all unfold. It was horrifying. We both said, I bet it was trenchcoat kids.

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Way_2_Go_Donny@reddit

Senior in college playing indoor golf when it came on the TV.

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ElectricPenguin6712@reddit

Junior in high school and I watched it after getting home from school. Made me angry and sad at the same time. I remember getting on AOL at the time and everyone was looking for the trench coat mafia in profiles. Wild

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Swarley_Marley@reddit

I was a freshman in high school. The next year two dumbasses wore trench coats to school and got expelled.

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Just-a-Guy-4242@reddit

I was a Junior. I wore trench coats (and fedoras). But, I was into Swing Music/Dancing (it was big at the time) and Marching band and was an overall cheerful and well liked kid at my school, so I only got pulled into the office once because of the trench coat.

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gravteck@reddit

I remember where I was for OKC bombing, and 9/11, but Columbine was freshmen year of HS getting towards the end of the day. I don't remember what happened at school, but I was glued to the TV until dinner when I got home

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sapphireskiesx@reddit

I was a sophomore and don’t think I learned about it until I got home that day. There some loner kids that wore black trench coats at my school so I remember things felt pretty tense through the end of the year.

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JamesTheLockGuy@reddit

What a bummer on 4/20 no less…

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putitontheunderhills@reddit

Freshman at SF State. Felt very close, despite being hundreds of miles away.

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Jerzee_Implant2012@reddit

In the cafeteria at my college.

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ShazRockwell@reddit

I graduated from Oxford High School in 1989. When I saw Columbine I thought it would be a one time craziness, never to be seen again. Little did I know….

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tgerz@reddit

I was a junior in high school. I wasn’t doing great so I started independent studies. I remember having a lot of thoughts about how the world worked around that time. Thought this was just one really terrible tragedy. I didn’t know it was a symptom of something truly awful in American culture that would just get worse with no real effort put into meaningful change by all of the people that would get voted in to do just that.

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wheniwaswheniwas@reddit

10th grade getting my hair cut after school when I first heard about it.

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GreedyComedian1377@reddit

Junior year. Of coarse me and my boys started with the most misguided claims of shutting that shit down if some asshole tried it at our school

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Rock_Creek_Snark@reddit

Following the news at work.

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LazerShark1313@reddit

In rehab

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

College

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CaptinEmergency@reddit

Senior year of high school, I don’t remember which class but I remember it was on the tv. I enlisted two months later and ended up heard about 9/11 over my squad leader’s car radio.

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LT381@reddit

I was a junior in high school.

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Ok-Spring-4898@reddit

I was 20 working in a doctor’s office. There was a small tv in a back waiting room that had the news on. I was helping an elderly patient fill out paperwork and just remember staring at the screen as it was unfolding.

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1980pzx@reddit

In Indianapolis, in my welding class (3 hr block) my senior year of high school. Metal detectors were installed the very next day.

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-OccultOfPersonality@reddit

Driving around with a friend (smoking cigarettes and what not); we were exempt from state testing stuff and were allowed to be off-campus. Friend happened to have a cell phone and his parents told us to come home to see the news.

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whywires@reddit

Senior year of high school. I lived on the east coast so while I was at school, the only thing I heard was there had been a school shooting. This had happened occasionally. It wasn't until I got home that I really got the full scale of what had happened.

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Quato815@reddit

Every school had a group similar to those kids who did the unbelievable, which is what made it creepy. I could picture them in my school.

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lobsterbandito@reddit

A senior in HS, recovering from surgery. I was watching the live coverage all day.

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Agreeable_Mouse6000@reddit

I was on a trip to Disneyland with my high school band, and that morning we all gathered to watch the whole thing play out in each other’s hotel rooms before we left. It was a complete trip because on any other day we would have been in school without access to any kind of visual media, but I watched it unfold live on TV with my high school peers.

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Least-Blackberry-848@reddit

HS health class

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snow1868@reddit

It was just another normal day of my senior year. I didn't hear anything about it until after school when I stopped by my girlfriend's house. She'd been home sick that day and had been watching the news all day. A week or so later, so jackass planted a fake device in the bathroom and they evacuated the school before sending us all home for the day.

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MulberryEastern5010@reddit

I had just turned fifteen and was about a month away from finishing my freshman year of high school