His personal Web page crackled with fantasies of murder and revenge, and he liked to show off his extensive knowledge of guns and explosives.īefore the world that was Columbine blew up last spring, guess which one of the two attracted more scrutiny from school officials? He had a juvenile conviction for theft and had been reported to the police for making death threats against another student on the Internet. She liked to dress in black, and most of her friends were kids who thought of themselves as outcasts-punks and goths and skaters.Įric Harris was a senior and a very confident student. She was a freshman and a special-education student, struggling to get the services and classes she needed. Sowder was near the bottom of the intricate social hierarchy at Columbine last fall. And how some people could get away with anything."
We'd talk mostly about how we got picked on, how the school was not caring what the students did. He'd do pretty much anything for people he liked. "He was like the sweetest guy I ever knew. "I used to talk to Eric once in a while," Sowder says. And there were nice students, too-guys she met in the commons area, drinking coffee or hot chocolate and talking about what was wrong with Columbine. They didn't stop half the fights in that school."īut Columbine wasn't all bad, Sowder insists. "I think they were afraid of the students. "Teachers would see them push someone into a locker, and they'd just ignore it," she says. They shoved her friends in the halls and threw snowballs or bottles at them on the way home. "It's basically a shooting game," he said.There were a lot of things Melissa Sowder didn't like about Columbine High School. Hollenshead, whose company released "Doom" in 1993, described it as a self-defense game, with the player as a space marine stationed on Mars. AOL Time Warner also declined to comment on the lawsuit. Todd Hollenshead, chief executive of Mesquite, Texas-based ID Software, which developed "Doom," said he hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on it. Other companies named in the lawsuit include ID Software, Atari, Sega of America, Virgin Interactive Media, Activision, Polygram Film Entertainment Distribution, New Line Cinema, and GT Interactive Software. "The particular game is purely, 100 percent taken from the military and transferred over to the private sector," DeCamp said. Separately, 36 families of victims have reached a $2.5 million settlement in lawsuits with Harris' and Klebold's parents as well as people involved in providing the guns used.ĭeCamp said the families are ready to defend their latest suit with proof that the gunmen made a film explaining that their actions were prompted by the video game "Doom." The filing came a day before the two-year anniversary of the tragedy.
The lawsuit "seeks literally to change the marketing and distribution of these super-violent video games that take kids?to become addicted and turn them into monster killers," said John DeCamp, the attorney who filed on behalf of the families. District Court in Colorado-nearly two years after the shooting by two Columbine High School students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, left 12 students and a teacher dead as well as themselves. The class-action lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. They say the massacre would not have occurred without the marketing of video games, particularly the game "Doom," which they say influenced the two gunmen. Some of the families of those killed in the Columbine High School shootings are seeking $5 billion in punitive damages against the manufacturers and distributors of video technology. AOL Time Warner, Nintendo of America, and Sony Computer Entertainment are among 25 companies that face a lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of the Columbine massacre.