SECTION: NATION; Littleton; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 2277 words

HEADLINE: Moving Beyond the Blame Game

HIGHLIGHT:

From the NRA to the PTA, Eminem to 'The Matrix'--a special NEWSWEEK panel probes the intersection of youth culture and youth violence

BODY:

A month after the Littleton tragedy, the conversation continues--in schools, in homes and at this week's White House conference on youth violence. The theories of why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on their rampage have given way to a broader discussion of the deeper sources of the problem and where to go from here. Obviously, there are no quick fixes; everything from more values education to better supervision of antidepressant medication has been introduced into the debate. But Americans have singled out a few issues for special attention. According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, about half of all Americans want to see the movie industry, the TV industry, computer-game makers, Internet services and gun manufacturers and the NRA make major policy changes to help reduce teen violence. Slightly fewer want the music industry to change fundamentally. Younger Americans are less concerned about media violence than their elders are. On guns, there's a racial gap, with 72 percent of nonwhites and 41 percent of whites seeking major changes.

To further the conversation, NEWSWEEK assembled a panel last week to explore the complexities. One after another, the people who actually make heavily violent movies, records and games declined to participate, just as they did when the White House called. This could be a sign that they are feeling the heat–or perhaps just avoiding it. Those who did take part in the NEWSWEEK forum include Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the NRA; Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America; Hillary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America; Doug Lowenstein, president of the Interactive Digital Software Association; Marshall Herskovitz, TV and movie producer and director, and Jonah Green, a 15-year-old New York high-school student. NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter moderated the discussion. Excerpts:

ALTER: Youth shall be served, so I want to start with Jonah. You seem to think that there's lot of scapegoating going on.

GREEN: Well, I have to say that America is very confused and scared. There's no one simple answer to teen violence. It's understandable because we're seeking answers, but right now people are focusing too much on putting the blame somewhere. We should be focusing on solutions.

OK, Wayne, wouldn't making guns less easily accessible be at least a partial solution?

LAPIERRE: You can't talk about easy access to guns by people we all don't want to have guns without talking about the shameful secret that really hasn't been

reported. Which is the complete collapse of enforcement of the existing firearm laws on the books by the Department of Justice the last six years. The proof is in the statistics. Six thousand kids illegally brought guns to school the last two years. We've only had 13 [federal] prosecutions. And only 11 prosecutions for illegally transferring guns to juveniles.

Do you think that if an 11-year-old brings his father's gun to school, the child should be prosecuted?

LAPIERRE: Yes, I do. They did not prosecute Kip Kinkel out in Oregon after he was blowing up cats, threatening people. He walks into school with a gun. They do nothing to him except send him home. And he comes back to the school two days later with a gun and shoots those kids. I mean, the fact is we're either serious about this situation or we're not.

How about Clinton's gun-limit proposal? Why does anyone need to buy more than one gun a month?

LAPIERRE: That's just a sound bite.

Doug, some of your industry's games are a long way from Pac-Man, right?

LOWENSTEIN: Oh, absolutely. There are some very violent videogames, although they represent only a small fraction of the market. There's a critical parental role here: It costs over $1,000 to own a computer. A hundred dollars plus to own a videogame machine. There's a very conscious choice involved in bringing this kind of entertainment into your home. And the parent needs the tools to make an informed choice.

You don't think it desensitizes kids to violence to play games over and over?

GREEN: Personally, I think some kids use videogames, especially the violent ones, just as some violent movies, as a vent. You know, they like to live vicariously and vent their anger through that. And Doug was right that we can't really map out everything a kid has and how they use it and what makes them able to kill somebody.

Hillary, MTV is doing a stop-the-violence campaign, but then they air--and you supported--something like Eminem's song about stuffing a woman into the trunk of a car. Don't you see a contradiction here?

ROSEN: Young people are so much smarter than anybody--the media or politicians or most adults, in fact--may give them credit for being. They understand the difference between fantasy and reality, and that's why giving them concrete steps to take when they face personal conflict or when they face a gang conflict or school bullying, or those sorts of things, are much more productive means for giving them tools to be nonviolent in their lives than taking away their culture.

Do you think that a music-rating system just makes it forbidden fruit and makes kids want to play or see it more?

ROSEN: We've done surveys that show it doesn't encourage young people to buy artists. People buy music that they connect with, that they like, that has a good beat, that sounds good. The label is there for parents and for retailers.

GREEN: I actually think artists like Eminem are very sarcastic. It is more playful than hard core. I find rap being a little more human than it used to be. Gangsta rap isn't as big anymore, and now sampling is.

ROSEN: It's true.

GREEN: Edgar Allan Poe talked about death --he was dark, but he was a celebrated poet. It's about having an edge, a hook. That can be violence.

You don't have any problem with Marilyn Manson naming himself after a serial killer?

GREEN: I think it's in bad taste. It was just stupid and controversial.

Hillary, how about you?

ROSEN: Well, I agree with Jonah that it's bad taste, but that's the point. Marilyn Manson is an act. It's an act that's sort of designed to create a persona of empowering the geek. Unfortunately, Charles Manson was a real person. People don't have to make up horrible tragedies in this world.

GREEN: Entertainment and the media were never really for getting across good, moral messages like I love my school and my mother. People rarely feel they need to express bland feelings like that.

ROSEN: But it is on some level, because Britney Spears sells more records than Marilyn Manson. You know there's been a resurgence of young pop music. B*Witched and the Dixie Chicks and Britney Spears and 'N Sync. I mean, these artists are selling a hell of a lot more records than Marilyn Manson.

Do you think that kids have kind of gotten that message and are less interested in gratuitously violent lyrics than they used to be? Because they've seen so much death, either in their own neighborhoods or on TV?

ROSEN: Well, there's no question that what used to be known as gangsta rap is definitely played out. Rap is much more light-hearted. It's about getting money and getting women. The music has evolved.

Why is that?

ROSEN: Well, this might be controversial, but I'm actually one of those people who believes that young people are a lot more positive about the world today than most of the media is giving them credit for in the last couple of weeks. Surveys have shown that young people are more optimistic about their future, they're more positive, they're more connected to their parents than they have been in generations. And these all speak to really good, positive things.

Marshall, what do you think are some of Hollywood's responsibilities in this area?

HERSKOVITZ: I think we now have virtual reality available to people that is nihilistic, anarchic and violent. And it is possible for a person to so completely live in that virtual reality that they come to confuse it for the real world around them.

But you know from firsthand experience that violence sells.

HERSKOVITZ: Legends of the Fall was a very violent movie. I think violence has a potentially strong part in any artistic venture. It's not something I would ever want to talk about legislatively. I would like to talk about it in terms of individual responsibility, yes.

So where should the thoughtful consumer of all of this draw the line between gratuitous violence and necessary violence for dramatic purposes?

HERSKOVITZ: Oh, I think that's the point. The thoughtful consumers feel it in their gut. I think the problem in this culture is that thoughtful consumers are not particularly influencing their children.

But isn't it a little too easy to just say it's all the parent's responsibility?

VALENTI: Well, I don't think the movie industry can stand in loco parentis. Over 30 years ago I put in place a movie-rating system, voluntary, which gives advanced cautionary warnings to parents so that parents can make their own judgments about what movies they want their children to see.

I think what a lot of parents wonder is, why is it that NC-17 is not applied to gratuitously violent movies?

VALENTI: Well, it's because the definition of gratuitous is shrouded in subjectivity. There is no way to write down rules. I think Marshall can tell you that creative people can shoot a violent scene a hundred different ways. Sex and language are different, because there are few ways that you can couple on the screen that--there's only a few. And language is language. It's there or it isn't. But violence is far more difficult to pin down. It's like picking up mercury with a fork.

A movie director told me recently that he went to see The Matrix, and there was a 5-year-old at the film with his mother. Isn't that a form of child abuse?

VALENTI: If a parent says he wants his 5-year-old to be with him, who is to tell this parent he can't do it? Who is to tell him?

But if it was NC-17, that 5-year-old wouldn't be allowed to go, right?

VALENTI: Well, that's right.

So why allow them in when it's R?

VALENTI: Because the way our system is defined, we think there's a dividing line.

When parents aren't doing their job properly, where does the responsibility of everybody else begin?

LAPIERRE: I was talking with John Douglas, the FBI's criminal profiler. And he said, Wayne, never underestimate the fact that there are some people that are just evil. And that includes young people. We go searching for solutions, and yet some people are just plain bad apples. You look around the country--the cities that are making progress across the board are really combining prevention and working with young people when you get the first warning signs. And making sure they find mentors. Making sure they're put into programs. And they're combining that with very, very tough enforcement of things like the gun laws.

HERSKOVITZ: I have a fear that modern society, and in particular television, may be beyond the ability of parents to really control. I think movies are different, because the kid has to go out of the house and go there. TV is a particular problem because it's in the house.

But Marshall, maybe that's because the values that are being propagated by the media, broadly speaking, are so much more powerful that parents can't compete as easily as they used to.

HERSKOVITZ: I don't believe that. I accept a lot of responsibility for the picture the media create of the world. But I don't think there's a conflict between that and the responsibility of parents to simply sit down and talk with their children. Most violent crime is committed by males. Young men are not being educated in the values of masculinity by their fathers.

So why then let all of these boys see scenes of gratuitous violence that don't convey human values to them?

VALENTI: There are only three places where a child learns what Marshall was talking about, values. You learn them in the church. You learn them in school. And you learn them at home. And if you don't have these moral shields built in you by the time you're 10 or 12 years old, forget it.

I'm not sure that people in Hollywood are thinking, Is what we do part of the solution on this values question, or does it just contribute to the problem?

HERSKOVITZ: The answer is the people who aren't contributing to the problem are thinking about it a lot, and the people who are contributing to the problem are not thinking about it.

VALENTI: Well, how does NEWSWEEK then condone its putting on the cover of your magazine Monica Lewinsky? What kind of a value system does that convey?

Well, that's a separate discussion.

VALENTI: Oh, I don't think it is.

Well, let me say this. We very explicitly did not put Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris on our cover the first week. We're wrong in these judgments sometimes, but we do at least try to think about the consequences of what we put out there, instead of just saying it's up to the parents. That seems to me a cop-out.

LOWENSTEIN: What you're looking for is an elimination of any problematic content.

No, I'm not. I'm looking for a sense of shame and a sense of responsibility. I'm wondering where it is in all of the industries that we have represented here today.

HERSKOVITZ: Most people, especially in electronic journalism, don't think at all about this, and their role is incredibly destructive, just like most people in the movie and television business don't think at all about this. And their role is destructive. I think there's a great need for shame. Most people I know and speak to are

very ashamed, but unfortunately they're not the people who make violent movies.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Wayne LaPierre: Executive director of the NRA ; PHOTO: Hillary Rosen: Head of the Recording Industry Association

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: May 10, 1999
 

Document 3 of 4.

Copyright 1999 Newsweek

Newsweek

May 10, 1999, U.S. Edition

SECTION: NATION; Pg. 30

LENGTH: 1321 words

HEADLINE: Searching for Answers

BYLINE: By T. Trent Gegax and Matt Bai; With Daniel Glick, Peter Annin and Sherry Keene-Osborn in Littleton

HIGHLIGHT:

The town of Littleton has buried its dead. But did anyone help Harris and Klebold stage the Columbine siege? And did their families have any idea what was going on? The lingering mysteries behind a national tragedy.

BODY:

Columbine high and nearby Chatfield High used to be bitter rivals. But this week Chatfield will open its doors to the traumatized students of Columbine, and everyone is doing what he can to make the cross-town kids feel at home. Last week Chatfield students built a healing tree out of construction paper and posted it

just outside the school cafeteria. I've learned that hate is destructive, said one leaf on the tree. Lining the halls and the lunch room itself were more signs: It's not home, but make yourself at home. Chatfield student leaders gave tours of the school and were struck by some of the questions they were asked. Columbine's

shaken parents weren't so interested in food or lockers. They wanted to know how many exits there were, and where.

Most of the questions being asked in Littleton, Colo., last week were harder to answer. Now the healing begins, declared the pastor at the last funeral, for 18-year-old Isaiah Shoels--but two weeks after the guns fell silent in the worst school shooting in American history, investigators were still struggling to figure out

how it happened. The Jefferson County sheriff, John Stone, seemed to be continually misspeaking about the investigation. First he said three students detained during the shooting were suspects; then they weren't. He said officers had apparently sealed off an escape route for the two gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, before they killed themselves; turns out there is no reason to think so. And there were new and compelling allegations that the sheriff's office had failed to act decisively on explicit threats made by Harris that foreshadowed the massacre, in which 12 other students and a teacher died.

Investigators continue to sift through the mountains of forensic evidence, chasing down some 1,100 leads and examining 10,000 pieces of evidence. They now say they doubt there was a third gunman in the school, but cops were still talking with lawyers for at least two people who may have known about Harris and Klebold's twisted plot, and could even have helped carry it out. The only arrest in the case so far is a hardware-store employee who claimed he sold Harris and Klebold bomb-making materials and duplicated school keys for them. Police now say the clerk was lying.

One question investigators seemed close to answering is where the boys got the four guns used in the siege. Three were apparently sold at a Denver gun show last year to Klebold's prom date, Robyn Anderson, whom he met in advanced-placement calculus. But Anderson's friend Tiffany Burk, 18, insists Anderson had no idea what the guns were for. Anderson was in the school parking lot when the shooting started and squatted under the steering column of her car the entire time. She's very, very nonviolent, Burk says. There's absolutely no way I'd believe she had anything to do with it, or knew what was going to happen. Police apparently agree; for now they're treating Anderson as a witness.

Investigators believe Harris acquired the other gun, a TEC-DC9 assault weapon, through a contact he made at nearby Blackjack Pizza, where he and Klebold spun pizzas. Police were negotiating with a lawyer for the possible seller of that gun last week. Chris Lau, who took over the pizza place just six weeks before the

shooting, said he'd never heard any talk of guns. They appeared to be normal high-school students with normal camaraderie, Lau recalls.

Did their parents have any idea? Last Friday night Tom and Sue Klebold, Dylan's parents, met with sheriff's detectives for a formal interview. Sgt. Randy West described them as very cooperative, adding: They were devastated about their loss and everybody's loss. Friends said the Klebolds were shocked when police arrived at their home in the hours after the shootings. Police made the confused parents leave their house, but they didn't know for sure that Dylan was the gunman until, standing on their driveway, they heard from a friend that his name had been on television.

The attorneys for Harris's parents, meanwhile, have received informal advice from an attorney who worked for John and Patsy Ramsey. It was suggested that they not do any media interviews, especially before talking to the cops. But the parents have refused to talk to police until they get a promise of immunity. It would be foolish for the Harrises not to talk to us, an investigator told NEWSWEEK, adding that the parents need the opportunity to set the record straight. But with some officials saying that the Harrises could face charges, and with civil suits likely, the parents want to know they won't be punished for telling their story. Sources tell NEWSWEEK the family has also hired a private investigator.

Although the Harrises have been criticized for being out of touch--police believe the boys made bombs in their garage, and a sawed-off shotgun and an incriminating diary were found in Eric's room--there is mounting evidence that they may have known their son was in trouble. The Marine Corps confirmed a New York Times report that Harris had recently tried to enlist but was rejected after his parents told a recruiter at their home that he was taking the antidepressant Luvox, commonly prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Others should have known Harris was dangerous--including the cops. They were alerted after Harris, writing on his Web site, threatened to kill a schoolmate, Brooks Brown, and many others. I don't care if I live or die in the shootout, all I want to do is kill and injure as many of you pricks as I can, Harris wrote in his profane, rambling prose. In an eerie passage, Harris wrote: god damnit, DEAD PEOPLE DONT ARGUE! God DAMNIT I AM PISSED!! Brown's parents brought the writings to police and filed complaints, saying Harris boasted of making bombs. They even warned the neighbors to watch out for Harris and Klebold. The Browns say they spoke to Harris's mother (who cried). But Harris convinced his father, a retired Air Force officer, that he didn't mean what he'd written.

Just weeks before Harris was to be sentenced for stealing from a van with Klebold, the Browns say, they spoke with a sheriff's investigator and a bomb-squad specialist. The investigator had Eric's file in one hand, and our Web stuff in the other hand, and he never took both of them to the judge, recalls Randy Brown. They could've stopped it right there. Instead, both Klebold and Harris were put into a diversion program and given kudos by their program officers. On the day of the killings, according to Brooks Brown, Harris passed him on the way into school and told him: I like you now. Get out of here, and go home. He did. After the shootings one of the victims, Brown's friend Lance Kirklin, woke up in his hospital bed and immediately scrawled a note to Brooks that read: We're going to have to get on that detective for not taking us seriously.

In response to the Browns' allegations, the sheriff's department says there was little it could do because the Browns refused to swear out a complaint with their names, fearing for their son's life. Without the ability to speak to a victim or positively identify a suspect, elements of a crime could not be established, a sheriff's

spokesman says. The sheriff asked the deputy assigned to the high school to keep an eye on Harris, but the student's behavior never raised any red flags.

For Littleton, the second-guessing comes too late. Last week's funerals drew thousands of mourners. (A handful attended services for the killers.) Scores of people vented their grief in front of 13 wooden crosses erected on a hill near the school. In a gesture of forgiveness, someone put up two more crosses for the killers. Then a woman scrawled Evil Bastard on Harris's memorial, and a scuffle broke out. Later, a victim's father removed the two crosses altogether. The children had all been buried, but it was hard to find peace in Littleton.

GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC: (map) A Scary Slew of Copycat Threats (graphic omitted); PHOTO: Saying goodbye: Littleton mourned both at individual funerals (Isaiah Shoels is buried, above) and at a mass memorial that drew 70,000 ; PHOTO: On alert: Authorities search John F. Kennedy High in Cheektowaga, N.Y., after a threat is phoned in to the school; PHOTO: The inspiration: Some of last week's threats referred to Harris and klebold's actions

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: May 5, 1999

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