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| LITTLETON GRIEVES | |
 April 21, 1999 
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JIM LEHRER: And now a NewsMaker interview with Jefferson County District Attorney Thomas. I talked with him a few moments ago. JIM LEHRER: Mr. Thomas, welcome. DAVID THOMAS, District Attorney, Jefferson County: Thank you, Jim. JIM LEHRER: First, I want to make sure that our basic facts are correct and up to date. There are 15 confirmed dead, is that correct? DAVID THOMAS: That is correct. JIM LEHRER: And the breakdown is twelve students, one teacher, and the two suspects, themselves, is that right? DAVID THOMAS: That's correct, Jim. JIM LEHRER: Now, have these -- any of these people been officially identified?
JIM LEHRER: Sure. DAVID THOMAS: -- there have been two that have been formally identified. |
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| A very complex crime scene. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVID THOMAS: The other bodies remain in the school, and we have made tentative identifications of all of the other students and the one teacher and the families. Each of those have been notified that there's been a tentative identification. JIM LEHRER: Now, has everybody been accounted for? In other words, once you count the number of people who are dead, known dead, and the people who are in the hospital, everybody has been accounted for, nobody is missing? DAVID THOMAS: That's correct. JIM LEHRER: All right. Now -- why are the bodies still in the school? DAVID THOMAS: The reason that the bodies are still in JIM LEHRER: Now, give us a feel for what these explosive, these incendiary devices were all about. What were they like? What were they made of? How large were they? DAVID THOMAS: Well, they varied in type and they varied in size. There were a number of devices, a great number of devices, which appear to be small canisters with fuse type attachment, probably stick matches, that would then explode and propel shrapnel, nails and beebees. That's one kind of device.
DAVID THOMAS: They are homemade. JIM LEHRER: I see. DAVID THOMAS: There were also incendiary devices which are containers, look like Molotov cocktails, glass containers with what we believe to be a combination of gasoline and soap, similar to what might be a napalm device, also with the same kind of fuse device that, when ignited and thrown, would explode. I don't know whether or not any of those actually were detonated. And then there are some larger devices which are basically pipe bombs -- we know that at least two of those detonated within the school, because we've seen the remnants of those -- and there are also some devices that used butane or propane tanks as the exploding device, which are bigger. Some of these devices were located in automobiles outside the school; some of them were in backpacks. At least one of the pipe bombs is in a backpack inside the school on a table. JIM LEHRER: So -- and there are about 30 of these various kinds of explosive devices found at this point, correct? DAVID THOMAS: That's correct. There are at least 30 that we've been able to document.
DAVID THOMAS: I believe that some injuries did result as a result of these explosions. We have reports from some of the hospitals that there appear to be shrapnel wounds to some of the individuals. It's my belief from the examination of the crime scene that all of the deaths were probably as a result of gunshot wounds. JIM LEHRER: Now, how many weapons, how many guns were found? DAVID THOMAS: Well, I'm a little unclear, but I know for sure that there were two shotguns. Both appear to have the stock part of the gun shortened, sawed off, so it's like a pistol grip. There is one semiautomatic assault weapon type gun, rifle, long rifle, that I was able to view, and I've been told by investigators that there was also a semiautomatic handgun located close to one of the suspects. |
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| The Black Trench Coat Mafia. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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DAVID THOMAS: Well, there's a lot of speculation about whether or not other people assisted, knew about, or in some way aided these people primarily because of the large number of devices and how difficult it would have been to carry all of these devices into the school. We are pursuing that; we are currently interviewing a large number of people, but at least eight or ten who have some association with this group of people are being interviewed; three were interviewed yesterday, who were actually taken into custody; they have not been held, but they were, in fact, interviewed, and we're pursuing that angle aggressively. JIM LEHRER: And are all of these people fellow students there at Columbine High School?
JIM LEHRER: And they're that part of this, what's called the, what, the Trench Coat Mafia, is that the -- DAVID THOMAS: Yes. The Trench Coat Mafia or Black Trench Coat Mafia. JIM LEHRER: Yes. DAVID THOMAS: That seemed to be their way of dress. JIM LEHRER: And there are how many of these people, do you think, involved in this group? DAVID THOMAS: Well, we have identified about ten we know from other people who have said that they were associated. We know these two for sure, and there are at least eight or so others that we are trying to interview and contact.
DAVID THOMAS: That's correct. And, as you may know, there is a Web site connected with these people and a lot of the students have reported that they were aware of the Web site and had accessed the web site. JIM LEHRER: What was on this Web site? What was that all about? DAVID THOMAS: I actually haven't seen the contents of the Web site, but I understand, from what I've heard, that it outlines some of these threats and is very angry in its tone, but I haven't had an opportunity yet to view the actual contents of the Web site. JIM LEHRER: Do you have any informed speculation or evidence at this point to what this was all about, what were these kids trying to prove, if anything?
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| These kids were isolated from the mainstream. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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JIM LEHRER: Do you know where they learned how to make these explosive devices? DAVID THOMAS: Well, no, I don't. There has been some discussion about
whether or not they actually learned some JIM LEHRER: What about the weapons, do you know where they got them? DAVID THOMAS: No, I don't know where they got the weapons. JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Thomas, were there any warning signs at all that anybody picked up? I know obviously in hind sight people have said, oh, my goodness, I should have said -- told somebody about the fact that these kids did this, or said this or that, whatever. DAVID THOMAS: Well, you know, I think there were warning signs, but they're warning signs that we see in a lot of kids today. These kids were isolated from the mainstream; they dressed unusually; but, you know, for any of us that have been in the system for very long or -- I mean -- even just citizens, you see kids today and they don't dress the same way as we used to dress and they have pierced body parts and it's very difficult to really see what those signs were that we could predict this behavior. Both of these kids had some contact with the juvenile justice system here in Colorado. But they were property crimes; they were not what I would put on a scale of real serious crimes; they weren't crimes against people. They had been through a diversion program in my office and had successfully completed that. JIM LEHRER: That's a probation kind of program? DAVID THOMAS: Yes, it is. It's a probation kind of program, and they
had done okay. They completed that. But I think one of the things that
this community is going to do and other communities need to do is to
look at the behavior that was observable and really explore that and
hopefully, maybe we can find the signs, help prevent future incidents,
because this is not the first. I hope it's the last. But JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Thomas, thank you very much. DAVID THOMAS: Jim, thank you very much.
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DAVID
THOMAS: Yes. Two of the victims have been identified and, in fact, have
been removed from the scene and taken to the Coroner's Office, and I
believe their families have been notified, but I do not have confirmation
yet of that notification to the families, so I can't disclose the identities,
but --
JIM
LEHRER: And the other bodies remain in the school, is that correct?
the
school is because this is a very complex crime scene. There were more
than 30 explosive or incendiary devices which were located in and around
the school, and it has taken us most of the last 24 hours to either
remove those items or render them harmless. And we now are going through
a geographic processing of the crime scene and we don't remove bodies
until we process that portion of the scene and document where the body
is with measurements and photographs and videotape.
JIM
LEHRER: Were they homemade? Did they look homemade?
JIM
LEHRER: Do you know whether or not any of these devices actually resulted
in any deaths or injuries to anybody in the school?
JIM
LEHRER: Now, the two suspects, is there any evidence at this point that
there were more than two people involved in this?
DAVID
THOMAS: They're either fellow students or former students. Some of the
people who are associated with this group are not students because they've
either been expelled or dropped out of school.
JIM
LEHRER: So you could speculate that just because of the number of devices
and all of that that there had -- these people had to have some help,
or at least to have some other -- other people had to know about it,
is that what you're saying?