(Originally published by the Daily News on April 21, 1999. This story was written by Helen Kennedy.)
Two teenagers wearing ski masks members of a misfit clique dubbed the Trench Coat Mafia marched into their suburban high school near Denver yesterday, scattering pipe bombs and giggling as they shot dozens of students before committing suicide.
As many as 25 people students and possibly teachers were feared dead at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., said Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone.
It was the fifth recent massacre at a U.S. high school, and if the death toll goes that high, it will be the deadliest ever.
The gunmen, who were known to draw swastikas on their clothes and school books, struck on Adolf Hitler’s birthday, singling out minorities and “jocks” for death.
Student William Beck said the gunmen “were out to get revenge on the school for being mistreated.”
Many slain students were found riddled with bullets in the school library, near the bomb-ringed bodies of the two suspects, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, both 18-year-old seniors.
“When we did make entry into the library, it was a pretty gruesome sight,” said Stone, who called the attack “a suicide mission.”
Other bodies were found in the cafeteria, the hallways and outside the school. They remained where they lay last night, even as a prayer service was held for the dead, as police continued to comb the bloody hallways for bombs.
Parents of missing students waited late into the night outside the school.
Investigators were pulled from the building late last night after they found at least 17 bombs, some connected to timers, some in duffel bags, others connected to 4-foot-tall propane tanks. The arsenal included bombs wrapped in nails and BB pellets, with some near the bodies of victims.
“It’s like walking through a minefield,” Stone said.
A bomb rigged to a timer exploded at 11 p.m. No one was hurt, but police feared more would detonate. Two robots were sent into the building to continue the search.
Witnesses said the gunmen laughed and joked as they turned the hallways into a shooting gallery.
“There was a girl crouched beneath a desk, and the guy came over and said, ‘Peekaboo!’ and shot her in the neck,” said sophomore Bryon Kirland, 15.
“They were having the best time of their lives,” said Aaron Cohn, a 17-year-old junior. “They were laughing, hooting and hollering.”
Stone said explosives also were found at the home of one of the suspects, and that they were armed with automatic pistols. “What are these parents doing letting their kids have automatic weapons?” he asked.
A heartbroken father said his twin daughters were among those who died as bullets ricocheted off lockers.
At least 20 students were wounded 10 seriously, including a girl who survived nine bullet and shrapnel wounds to the torso and a boy being operated on for five gunshot wounds.
“They [Harris and Klebold] were all in black. They were just shooting anybody and everybody,” said student Jonathan Ladd, a student who saw them stalking through the sprawling, 1,870-student school.
Students said they recognized the gunmen who removed their masks during the rampage as members of a group that wore trademark black trench coats and played with guns. “They talk about Hitler a lot,” one girl told the Denver Post. “They take a real pride in him. It’s creepy.”
The Trench Coat Mafia emerged several years ago, students said, one of them calling the group of about a dozen students “the scum of our school.”
“They are really strange, but I’ve never seen them do anything violent,” said classmate Jason Greer.
Student Brooks Brown told KUSA-TV he saw Harris walk into the school late yesterday morning and told him he had missed a test.
Brooks quoted Harris as saying, “I don’t think that matters anymore. Brooks, I like you. Get out of here. Go home.”
Brooks said he heard the first explosions and gunshots a few moments later.
A hysterical, blood-spattered student named Janine wept as she told reporters one suspect put a gun to her face and said it was all because people were mean to him last year.
“You could hear them laughing,” she said, adding that she begged for her life. “Everyone around me got shot. He shot the girl next to me. He shot the black kid because he was black.”
Another student said one of the shooters entered a room saying, “If there are any jocks in here, they’re dead.”
When someone survived the initial round and cried out in pain, “they just kept shooting them until they were dead,” Aaron said.
Three camouflage-clad former Columbine students, friends of the suspects, were arrested some distance from the school a few hours later. Stone said they had been “advancing on” the school.
The rampage began apparently with a large explosion about 11:30 a.m., when some 900 students were at lunch in the cafeteria.
The gunmen walked through the school, opening fire near the office on the top floor, in the library and in the cafeteria.
“At first, we just thought they were firecrackers until we saw the guns come out of the trench coats,” said student Justin Woods.
“They walked down the stairs, and they started shooting people and throwing grenades and stuff,” Janine said. “We didn’t think it was real, and then we saw blood.”
“I was in the library, and the room filled with smoke,” said a student named Emily, who hit the ground when the gunmen began shooting.
“I was under the table, and the girl who was sitting across from me got shot in the head right in front of me,” she said. “Blood was everywhere.”
Students who survived in the library said the giggling gunmen saw people hiding and sprayed bullets under the tables. Witnesses outside the school heard at least eight large explosions and saw windows blow out, spraying glass. “It was like we were in a war zone,” said a woman who lives near the school.
As the tense afternoon wore on, the sprawling school was surrounded by cops and frantic, crying parents.
Inside, teachers locked their doors and tried to keep classrooms of scared students calm and quiet. At least one led the youngsters in whispered prayer and encouraged them to hug each other.
Some students climbed into ceiling air vents.
“I saw a good friend with his face blown off,” one student said.
After several hours, an armored vehicle was sent into the cafeteria area, and SWAT teams began to creep through the hallways, finding pockets of students and teachers cowering in locked closets, classrooms and bathrooms.
In groups, they were led to a ground-floor window and door, and sent running across a parking lot to a nearby sheltered corner with their hands on their heads.
SWAT team members frisked each one to make sure a gunman didn’t escape posing as a terrorized student.
President Clinton, who hosted a White House conference on school violence six months ago, said, “We have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t make 1999 another year like last year, that we don’t have another rash of this.”
