Before the Columbine massacre, Brooks Brown was more or less a regular teenager. By that, I mean he was within the spectrum of what a "regular" teenager is. That spectrum is pretty wide. As he points out in his book, that particular demographic features a wide tableau of independent cultures, which always seem to germinate under one roof; that of the High School. They are young, growing minds each struggling to find their own voice, desperate to stand out against a world that seems homogenized and indifferent to their concerns. In the incubator of high school, where everybody is struggling to find out who they are, identity experimentation expands far and wide in groups which are self-segregated according to tastes in activities, attitudes, and preferences in pop culture. These groups usually seem to vary as thus: The athletic jocks, the trendy and popular preps, the band geeks, the wallflowers, the dark and moody goths, and the rebellious punks. In some schools the lines of these groups are blurred to a point where everybody can get along with each other, regardless of how you identify yourself. In other schools, these lines are nearly as clear and rigid as those between warring factions. Columbine was the latter. As a young man who seemed to feel pushed into the margins of scholastic society by aggressive jocks, and athlete-worshiping faculty who turned a blind eye to their bullying, Brooks seemed to fall into the last group- the rebellious punks.
Falling into place with Columbine's other outsiders, Brooks found himself in the company of other people who felt bullied and marginalized by the society they grew up in. Two of these people, who I feel uncomfortable mentioning by name, would go on to pull off what was at that time, one of the most terrible crimes to pierce the public consciousness. These kids would go on to be lionized by TIME magazine as "The Monsters Next Door." Their crimes would serve as a template for other unstable people, as future murderers would end up citing them as their inspirations. Faced with the sheer brutality and heartlessness of the killings, a shocked nation seemed to think that nothing could have stopped the killers from bringing down the rain of death on that Colorado High School. Brooks Brown and his family knew better.
A year before the tragedy, Brooks became embroiled in a heated and prolonged battle with one of the future murderers of Columbine. This person, feeling burned by Brooks took to his website and unleashed his vociferous and unrelenting rage into the relatively new forum of cyber space. This rage included threats to murder large groups of people. He wanted to "kill everybody," and as an afterthought, "Brooks Brown." The specifying afterthought is ironic, because, to my knowledge, Brooks Brown would be the only person specifically spared by the murderer that day.
At the time of their discovery, long before the massacre, the Brown family submitted copies of the webpage to local police. The officer assured the family things would be "taken care of." When the murders happened, the local Jefferson County police department claimed that there had been no red flags. No warning. They said nothing could have been done to stop what had happened. Brooks and his family disagreed and publicly refuted the department, granting several media interviews saying they had handed the them the information the killer had posted on his website, and asserted their belief that if the police had adequately investigated the threats, the budding stockpile of arms and pipe-bombs would have been discovered, thus preventing the massacre. Humiliated by this, Jefferson Country Sheriff John Stone went on TV and publicly named Brooks as a suspect in the Columbine murders.
As Brooks became a public pariah, he had to face perhaps one of the greatest struggles of any of his living uninjured classmates, He had to juggle living with crippling grief and heartbreak while navigating his ostracization from the rest of a deeply bereaved community. Branded a murderer in public, and called out as such by strangers on the street, it became his mission and that of his family to clear his name.
The book is many things. It's a story of horror, as Brooks explains in great detail where he was and what went through his mind as he heard the first shots of the massacre echo across campus, and the state of his panicked mind as he ran for his life. He explains his trepidation later in the day as he spend time desperately trying to figure out which of his friends were alive, and which ones were dead.
It is a front seat ticket to a disturbing evolution as Brooks offers a hindsight perspective of two mixed up kids slowly becoming bloodthirsty murderers. The book is as much of him trying to make sense of what he feels is the ultimate betrayal by his two friends, as it is a rousing criticism of what he thinks are fear-mongering hypotheses that fall short of accuracy.
It is, albeit briefly, a somber requiem for the victims of the murders. He particularly makes note of his affection for Rachel Scott, the first person killed in the attacks. One moment that hits home is how he describes watching one of his friends fall to his knees in tears when he sees Rachel's casketed body after her funeral. The heartbreak is vividly described, and felt.
It is a modern day crucible, as Brooks is named a suspect, and various people in his town either avoid him, or confront him, publicly screaming at him for his part in a crime he wasn't involved in. The officials pulled so many shady tricks, that are exposed in the book, that it is hard not to feel angry while reading it.
It is all those things, and it is also an extremely easy book to read. It is 277 pages, and chapters alternate between those written by Brooks Brown, which is a memoir, and those of Rob Merritt, which is more of an omnipotent perspective which draws on interviews with Brooks' parents, and various news stories. The pattern becomes quickly apparent. Once you get used to it, it is a very easy read, albeit dark and heartbreaking at times. You can finish it in a day or two.
On a final note, many things written on the subject of Columbine seem exploitative or sensational. The killers are often turned into dark folk anti-heroes. This book gives us a straight perspective, from a guy who spent years close to them. There was nothing special about these guys. They were just bullied teens who didn't have the courage to survive their misfortune. They were cowards who murdered thirteen innocent people before their own suicide and thought it was glory. As Brooks Brown would readily tell you, there was nothing glorious about it.
The book is great, and I recommend it highly.
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