New Post - Columbine conspiracy theory

I said in my last post in 2007 that I was going to stop blogging for awhile so I could concentrate on a 9/11-related paper. I’ve been working on it on and off since then, but I’ve been having problems getting much beyond the information gathering stage. So instead, I’ve decided to write about individual violent events that have possible connections to me. I am basing these connections on the theory that these events seem to be related to significant events in my life through some sort of process that was begun since at least around 1989 when I was being harassed and surveilled in Los Angeles by I believe Scientology and others and my subsequent fleeing of L.A., eventually ending up in New York City in 1991 where the harassment and surveillance continued.

I noticed a few of these types of events in Los Angeles, but on a smaller scale. In New York, especially in the early 1990s, these events seemed to become larger, more frequent and more violent. Possible supernatural or not-yet-explainable occurrences like mind reading or weather control, especially in the early years, plus the seeming involvement of a sometimes mysterious, powerful organization like Scientology made the possibility of these otherwise implausible-seeming connections seem more plausible, though I had no direct proof of this. I wrote to many public agencies and officials and private organizations about my circumstances and theory in the early ‘90s, but didn’t get too many responses. Those that did respond either said they couldn’t do anything or didn’t really address the issue. A good overall view of my circumstances and theory can be found in a 1994 paper I wrote which I originally called the “38-page letter” and later changed to “Scientology, Christians and Crime” when I posted it to my website, musicalsandconspiracy.com, in 2004 along with similar writings.[1]

The first new event I’ll cover is the April 20, 1999 killings at Columbine High School by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

The thing that first caught my attention was that Eric Harris and I have the same first name, Eric. Later I noticed that we also had the same middle name, David.[2] Eric and Dylan were students. I was a student at the time, but in college, not high school. Eric (and Dylan to a lesser extent) were being harassed by some students at school, mostly the athletes. I was being harassed at my school by some students and some professors, too. But it was more indirect than what Eric seemed to experience, things like students and professors saying negative things near me, but not directly to me, or from certain students who I found annoying frequently being in my vicinity. While harassment had been an ongoing occurrence in New York City to varying degrees, being harassed in a school setting was a similarity to the Columbine situation.[3]

In terms of significant events in my life, since around the end of 1998 I had been having problems with my welfare payments, food stampsmay have been and Medicaid due to my non-compliance with workfare requirements in 1995. I had not complied because of harassment at the workfare assignment. I wanted the people in the workfare department to investigate in the context of my conspiracy-like situation which I believed the harassment was may have beenrelated to, but they wouldn’t do it.

I had various administrative “fair hearings” by the New York State Department of Social Services to try and possibly get my benefits restored and to get my allegations investigated. My benefits had continued for awhile after my workfare non-compliance as I made my way through the fair hearing and appeal process. I won the first administrative fair hearing in terms of benefits, but lost the last two, including the final hearing in August 1996. I appealed the August decision to the Supreme Court of New York State which referred my case to the next highest court, was the Appellate Division, which ruled against me. At the time of the Columbine killings, I was trying to get permission to appeal to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. I was very late in applying for this appeal, however, since I was not aware that the Appellate Division had issued its decision on April 28, 1998. I had not been notified by the NYS Attorney General’s office, which was representing the Department of Social Services, that the decision had been issued as they were supposed to. Nor was a copy of the decision mailed to me as had occurred with a previous decision on a procedural matter. I did not find out what the decision was until January 28, 1999 when I called the court to see if anything had happened yet. In order to appeal to the Court of Appeals, I first had to submit a motion with the Appellate Division to either reargue my case or appeal to the Court of Appeals. The Appellate Division denied my motion in a decision dated March 30, 1999. I then began the process of submitting a Motion for Permission to Appeal directly to the Court of Appeals. I received a Permission to Appeal form and instructions from the Court of Appeals, postmarked April 2, 1999. I mailed the motion to the Court on May 3, 1999, but it denied my motion on July 1, 1999.

Another big event occurred on April 16, 1999, a few days before Columbine, when I handed in a required annual statement of income to the public housing development where I was living. I was told that student loans, which I was using to pay my rent and other expenses after my welfare benefits had been discontinued, could not be counted as income. People living in public housing need an acceptable source of income to live in public housing. Welfare was an acceptable source of income, but since my welfare had been discontinued, I no longer had that acceptable source. The public housing staff and I were able to work something out eventually, but as of April 20 my eligibility for public housing had been uncertain.

In addition to Eric Harris and I having the same first and middle names and our both being students who were being harassed, another thing that caught my attention was that some students would sometimes call Eric and Dylan “freaks” and other names as a kind of insult.[4] I believe an episode of Nightline on ABC on April 21, 1999 even had a video of Eric say the line “the freaks of the school.” I had written my first musical called Freaks the previous year and had mailed inquiries to different New York City theaters in November 1998 to see if they might be interested in producing it. By the time of the Columbine killings on April 20, I had received some responses (polite rejections) and was waiting for others.

Dylan was friends with the theater students at Columbine High and would work behind the scenes at school plays.[5] A few of the victims had theater or music connections also. Rachel Scott had the lead role in a non-musical school play the previous month. She had also written a play about a piano player who couldn’t read music, but wrote music in his head. Rachel is said to have written songs in a similar manner.[6] I couldn’t read music much and wrote songs mostly in my head as well. I am not a piano player, but I would play my songs on an electric piano keyboard that was connected to songwriting notation software in order to have a record of my songs or bits of songs. I completed the songs for my musical using the piano keyboard and songwriting software. Another victim, Kelly Fleming, also wrote songs and other things.[7] A third victim with music connections was Isaiah Shoels who wanted to become a record company executive.[8] His father, Michael, owned a small independent record company, Notorious Records, and a company that promoted black musicians, Ft. Knox Entertainment.[9]^{, [10]}

On April 28, 1999, about a week after the killings, I picked up a letter at my PO Box from a company called Columbine Records in Hollywood, California. It was a form letter that said I had been referred to them by one of their sources as being interested in songwriting. They wanted me to send them some of my songs to possibly record and help promote. The envelope had an April 20, 1999 postmark and another marking that said April 21, 1999. So apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking about a possible connection, assuming the letter wasn’t just a coincidence. Or maybe they were just playing with me. But this was another music connection and one with a significant name and date attached. The Columbine Records’ letter wasn’t the first such letter I had ever received, however. Prior to the killings, I had gotten somewhat similar letters, also unsolicited, from a song production company called Hilltop Records, also from Hollywood, California. I had sent a few songs in response, sometime in the summer of 1998, though nothing came of it after I found they wanted money to produce my songs.

Christianity also played a prominent role in the stories of several of the victims. Cassie Bernall famously was said to have died a martyr after Dylan asked her if she believed in God. Cassie, a devout Christian said yes, and then Dylan shot her.[11]^,[12] Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels and another victim, John Tomlin, were also said to be very devoted Christians.[13] Christianity had also played a role in my original conspiracy situation, mostly in the form of Christian-run or affiliated shelters I had stayed at after fleeing from Los Angeles. Later, I began noticing that several of the events that I included in my theory also had a Christianity connection.

One of the bigger events, at least in terms of notoriety, was the Branch Davidian standoff at Waco in 1993. The Branch Davidians were also described as a cult-like group. Since my conspiracy theory involved Scientology, which I and others described as a cult-like group, this made me think there might be a possible connection. The lead FBI investigatorFBI ,, psychologist Dwayne Fuselier, was part of the FBI Crisis Management Unit at Waco. He was also the lead investigator for the FBI in the Columbine killings. Dwayne had previously worked for the Air Force like Eric’s father, Wayne. His son, Scott, had attended Columbine High School which was apparently how Dwayne got involved in the FBI investigation.[14]^,[15]

Columbine had some New York references also and since I was living in New York City, this also caught my attention. The after-prom party on April 17, 1999 that the parents threw for the Columbine High School students had a “New York, New York” theme.[16] Eric had also said in his journal that he and Dylan would hijack a plane loaded with bombs and crash it into New York City if they escaped and could not find a safe haven.[17] But the New York link that made me pay the most attention was that Eric had lived in Plattsburgh, New York for two years before moving to Littleton, Colorado in 1993 with his family. Though this is several hundred miles from New York City, it’s still in the same state. I was also in the preliminary stages of appealing my workfare-conspiracy case to the New York State Court of Appeals which is located in Albany, New York.[18] Albany is not especially near Plattsburgh either, but it is curiously almost halfway between Plattsburgh and New York City, 141.4 and 134.8 air miles respectively, in an almost perfectly straight line.[19]

Eric was living in Plattsburgh because his father was stationed at the Air Force base there. Wayne had been stationed at a number of bases around the country prior to this as well. He was a decorated Air Force pilot, flight instructor and trainer who had helped develop and modify the Air Forces’ EC-18 (JSTARS) electronic warfare plane and others. He had had the type of high level military career that might put him in a position to be involved, either wittingly or not, with a conspiracy as complex as the one I am proposing, though I could find nothing specific beyond his high level career. Though he had retired from the Air Force after leaving Plattsburg for Columbine, Eric’s father still had active Air Force connections through his new job training pilots at the Flight Safety Services Corp. which had contracts with the Air Force and Department of Defense.[20] 

During his two year stay in Plattsburgh, Eric’s two best friends were said to be black and Asian.[21] I am Asian-American. Another possible Asian connection is the owner of Blackjack Pizza where Eric and Dylan worked. The owner, Christopher Lau, who had bought the store only six weeks before the killings, could be Asian based on his last name.[22] Pictures of most people I’ve seen on the internet with the last name Lau are Asian-looking, but there were a few people who looked white also, so it isn’t certain that Christopher is of Asian descent based on his last name alone. I was only able to find one picture of Christopher on the internet. Based on this, it appeared he could be of Asian or part Asian descent, but he’s facing away from the camera so it’s hard to tell.[23] And Blackjack Pizza’s address was 6657 West Ottawa.[24] I connect things with the number “57” to myself since my birth year is 1957.

One of Eric Harris’s psychologists, Kevin Albert, was said to be “affiliated with the Colorado Family Center at 26 W. Dry Creek Circle in Littleton.”[25] In addition to 57, I connect things with the number “26” to myself because my birthday is on August 26. I had several experiences in the early 1990s with psychiatry or psychology also, though I was never in therapy. I had told several social workers-types I was seeing as a result of my homeless or jobless condition about my theory and being harassed and some had repeatedly urged me to see a psychiatrist and arranged interviews for me with apparently psychiatry or psychology-related people. Some of these people would also urge me to take some sort of medication which I declined to do.

Eric Harris was taking a psychotropic medication, Luvox, to help deal with mental problems at the time of the killings. Some questioned whether the Luvox helped cause the killings, though others denied this connection.[26] Scientology has a long history of criticism against psychiatry, including the use of psychiatric medication.[27] So it was able to benefit from this aspect of Columbine through a well-publicized example of the possible negative consequences of psychiatry. I could find no direct connections between Scientology and Columbine, however. The closest thing I could find was when Scientology’s anti-psychiatry watchdog group, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, had given an award in 2005 to an anti-psychotropic-drug activist, Lisa Van Syckel,[28] who had helped fund a lawsuit against the maker of Luvox by one of the shooting victims, Mark Taylor.[29] Though they may have given her the award more for her other anti-drug work rather than for supporting the suit.[30] Another item I found was a 2002 Columbine-related fictional film Home Room that starred Erika Christensen who has a background in Scientology.[31]

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[1] The best writing on the early harassment and fleeing of Los Angeles and why I feel Scientology was involved is probably the Yanny letter, also on my website.

[2] Lynn Bartels and Carla Crowder, “Fatal Friendship: How Two Suburban Boys Traded Baseball and Bowling for Murder and Madness,” Rocky Mountain News, 22 Aug. 1999, 1N.

[3] The harassment may have been more intense in the last semester or two at my college, possibly because some people may have not been happy with my changing my major from Graphic Arts to Art and Advertising Design the previous semester, even though a representative of the Art and Advertising Design department had come to one of my classes to promote their department and the Graphic Arts professor of that class had personally urged me to switch to Art and Advertising Design. The harassment may have also decreased in the weeks leading up to Columbine.

[4] Ann Imse, Lynn Bartels and Dick Foster, “Killers’ Double Lives,” Rocky Mountain News, 25 Apr. 1999, 24A; “Columbine Students Talk Of the Disaster and Life,”

New York Times, 30 Apr. 1999, A1.

[5] Bill Briggs and Jason Blevins, “Harris, a Consummate Actor, Hid Secret Yen For Revenge,” Denver Post, 2 May 1999, A-18; Lynn Bartels and Carla Crowder, “Fatal Friendship.”

[6] Steve Caulk, “Slain Student’s Car Becomes a Shrine,” Rocky Mountain News, 22 Apr. 1999, 7A.

[7] Corky Siemaszko, “Columbine’s Tragic Roll Call,” New York Daily News, 23 Apr. 1999.

[8] James Barron, “Father of Victim Says Son Had Dispute With Suspect,” New York Times, 22 Apr. 1999, A26.

[9] Andrew Guy Jr., “Shoelses Fight Clouded Image,” Denver Post, 26 Sept. 1999, accessed http://extras.denverpost.com/news/shot0926.htm.

[10] Mike McPhee, “The Victims: Isaiah Shoels,” Denverpost.com, 23 Apr. 1999, accessed http://extras.denverpost.com/news/shot0423r.htm.

[11] Carla Crowder, “Martyr for her Faith: Youthful Christian Confesses Her Belief to Rampaging Gunman, Then Pays With Her Life,” Rocky Mountain News, 23 Apr.1999, 5A.

[12] Others say this had happened not to Cassie Bernall, but to Valeen Schnurr, a student who was not killed after she said yes. Dan Luzadder and Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, “Accounts Differ on Question to Bernall: Shooting Victim May Not Have Been Asked Whether She Believed in God,” Rocky Mountain News, 24 Sept. 1999, 5A.

[13] “Inscriptions For Each Victim at the Clement Park Monument,” Rocky Mountain News, 22 Sept. 2007, 24.

[14] Dave Cullen, Columbine, New York: Twelve, 2009, 108.

[15] There were also some other interesting connections between Fuselier’s two sons and the events at Columbine which I won’t go into. See Hector Gutierrez and Kevin Vaughan, “Video Produce by FBI Agent’s Son: 1997 Columbine Grad Is Not Considered a Shooting Suspect,” Rocky Mountain News, 7 May 1999, 5A; Howard Pankratz, “FBI Agent Downplays Son's Film: Columbine ‘comedy’ Won't Influence Work,” Denver Post, 13 May 1999, B-03.

[16] Sara Rimer, “Good Grades, Good Teams and Some Bad Feelings,” New York Times, 22 Apr. 1999, A27.

[17] Charley Able, “Attack Was Long Planned: Harris Diary Shows Details In Motion Year Before Shootings,” Rocky Mountain News, 7 July 2006, 21A.

[18] The state’s Department of Social Services and Attorney General’s office, both of which were involved in my welfare-conspiracy case, had their headquarters in Albany also, though I dealt mostly with their Manhattan branches.

[19] Distancefromto.net; Maps.google.com.

[20] Dick Foster, “Harris’ Dad a Military Man of Distinction,” Rocky Mountain News, 27 Apr. 1999, 26A.

[21] Kevin Simpson and Jason Blevins, “How Team Players Became Loners: Friends Remember Two Suspects As Bashful, Ordinary Children,” Denver Post, 23 Apr. 1999, A-04.

[22] Christopher Cooper. “The Pizza Franchise Was His Dream; Then The `Unfathomable' - New Owner's Model Cooks Became Littleton Killers,” Wall Street Journal, 23 June 1999, A1.

[23] Kevin Moloney, “Christopher Lau 33 Owner and Manager of a Blackjack Pizza Franchise in Littleton Colorado,” Getty Images, 23 Apr. 1999.

[24] Peggy Lowe, “Pizza Jobs Gave Connections: Killers Made Contacts Who Helped Them With Guns, Explosives They Used In School Attack,” Rocky Mountain News, 22 Nov. 2000, 25A.

[25] Karen Abbott, “Harrises Question Therapist’s Care: Parents Cite Their Son’s Psychologist in Papers Filed with Federal Court,” Rocky Mountain News, 19 Sept. 2000, 5A.

[26] Carla Crowder, “Rage Fueled by Antidepressants? Psychiatrists Dispute Beliefs Medication Was Connected to Murderous Events,” Rocky Mountain News, 30 May 30 1999, 60A.

[27] Katharine Mieszkowski, “Scientology’s War on Psychiatry,” Salon.com, 1 Jul. 2005.

[28] Terence, “CCHR: 36^th Annual Human Rights Awards,” ablechild.org, 26 Feb. 2005.

[29] Jeff Kass, “Columbine Victim Pursues Lawsuit Against Drug Firm: Mark Taylor Claims Drug Luvox Partly At Fault For Rampage,” Rocky Mountain News, 19 Oct. 2002, 19A.

[30] In a 2009 document listing successful lawsuits against psychotropic drug manufacturers, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights cites Lisa and her husband for their 2003 lawsuit on behalf of their daughter who was misdiagnosed as depressed and had a negative reaction to a psychotropic drug that was prescribed to her. Citizens Commission on Human Rights, “Chronology of Psychotropic Drug Lawsuits,” 2009, accessed www.cchr.org/sites/default/files/downloads/chronology.pdf.

[31] “Home Room (film),” Wikipedia.