ABSTRACT
On the morning of April 20, 1999, two students walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and opened fire. Armed with shotguns, a rifle, a handgun, and homemade bombs, Eric Harris, age eighteen, and Dylan Klebold, age seventeen, went on a forty-nine minute shooting spree that resulted in the death of fifteen people, including a teacher and the two shooters (who committed suicide), and the injury of twenty-three others (CNN 2000). The activities of Harris and Klebold that day were caught on video surveillance and broadcasted across the major television networks, despite protests from students’ parents and school officials (BBC 1999). It is ironic that although the school’s surveillance system and an on-site, armed security guard were unable to prevent the killings at Columbine, the terrifying shooting has become a key reference point in justifying increased surveillance and security systems in schools throughout the United States.
