'Trenchcoat' Member
Describes 'Pure Hell' And
Torment On Columbine Campus
By Susan Greene
Denver Post Staff Writer
www.denverpost.com
4-25-99
Hell.
The word has been used so often this week to describe the
bloody rampage at Columbine High School.
But one member of Columbine's now-notorious Trench Coat
Mafia invokes the same image of hell when describing life at
the school before the carnage.
The 18-year-old, who demanded anonymity, said he was taunted
and terrorized by his schoolmates - so-called jocks who
called him "faggot,'' bashed him into lockers and threw
rocks at him from their cars while he rode his bike home
from school.
"I can't describe how hard it was to get up in the morning
and face that,'' he said.
"Hell,'' he continued. "Pure hell.''
Police repeatedly have questioned the teen about his
knowledge of the shootings.
He is one of several mafia members who at once are shying
away from reporters, but also desperate to have their
stories heard.
He and his parents know people will perceive their anonymity
as a sign that he has something to hide or in some way is
responsible for Tuesday's massacre.
He's visibly grieving about the tragedy and about what he
knows are the ties students are suggesting between him and
killers Eric Har ris and Dylan Klebold.
He said the two seniors weren't even part of the mafia, but
merely friends of one especially charismatic - and, he
notes, the only violent - member.
They were on the fringe of the group, the school's most
outcast, most fringe clique.
And so, the teen said, his reluctance to speak out stems not
from an association with the shooters, but from the very
reason his group of loners banded together in the first
place - out of fear of more ridicule and torment, more
shoves, more thrown rocks. Or worse.
"I want to stand up and say this is what I went through,''
he said. "But I'm scared, not just for me, but my family.''
By now, most of America and much of the world have heard
about Columbine's jocks.
The student-athletes commonly wear clothes bearing the logos
of sports teams. Another indication is baseball caps with
visors worn facing forward and carefully rounded.
Not all jocks tormented him, the teen noted. But he said a
handful of bullies held so much power that most of the
school emulated them, or at least were too afraid to voice
dissent.
"If you didn't dress like them, if you walked to school or
rode your bike, if you didn't get into sports and weren't
athletic, then you were an outcast. It's that simple,'' he
said.
Taunting started with the teen's appearance which, without
compromising his anonymity, is gawky - the painfully uneasy
look of so many male teens teetering between boyhood and
manhood. He said jocks ridiculed his clothes and his black
trench coat, which his parents bought for him to wear with
suits on special occasions.
The torment often became vicious.
While the teen biked home from school, he said, jocks would
"speed past at 40, 50 mph'' and toss pop cans or cups full
of sticky soda at him. Sometimes they threw rocks or even
sideswiped his bike with their cars.
He described waking on school days with a knot in his
stomach and the dread of having to face the humiliation.
He would avoid certain hallways and even make his way to
classes outside the school building to escape being
ridiculed or being bashed against lockers, he said.
In the cafeteria, he continued, jocks threw mashed potatoes
at him. He would wear the stains for the rest of the school
day.
But he wasn't the only kid messed with at Columbine. Other
mafia members faced similar troubles. And, he said, he knew
Klebold and Harris were tormented as well.
The teen speaks about his high school years quietly, but
angrily. He's visibly withdrawn and says he's depressed. But
he has enough perspective to understand why he joined the
mafia. It was the only place he could find friends.
He said the core group of about seven boys - mostly socially
awkward kids, loners - started hanging out in 1996. They
gradually grew to include more students, boys and girls who
called themselves "The Anachronists'' because of their
interest in the game Dungeons and Dragons and their penchant
for Goth, short for Gothic, fashions.
In early 1998, he said, a jock branded them with the name
Trench Coat Mafia. The group accepted the moniker, hoping
the symbolism would scare their tormenters and that the
nefarious aura of a darkly dressed mob would finally give
them some peace.
"And it worked,'' the teen said. "They did start leaving us
alone.'' Members apparently found security in numbers. They
hung out together listening to music, watching movies and
commiserating about their difficulties at school. Many, he
said, were just grateful for the companionship.
Despite widespread news reports about their obsession with
the sadist music of Marilyn Manson, he said, only one member
really was a fan of the shock-rocker.
The teen also makes a point of noting the group wasn't
racist or interested in Nazi history or culture.
"That's so inaccurate, the image that we were like that,''
he said. "People just want to put labels on us that aren't
true.''
The teen said Harris and Klebold were less socially active
even than other mafia members.
>From the outside, he said, they must have seemed part of the
group because of their black trench coats and their similar
Goth style of dress. But, speaking from the inside, he said
they weren't really members. Although they sometimes hung
with the mafia in Columbine's commons and shared sneers at
the jocks, he recalled, they ate at a separate lunch table
and led very separate lives.
Harris and Klebold didn't usually don trench coats, he
added, surmising they wore them on Tuesday because they
helped hide their guns. Further, he noted, theirs weren't
really trench coats, but actually Australian dusters - not
authentically Goth at all.
The teen is clearly rocked by Tuesday's massacre. He
swallows hard when talking about it, when seeing the
yearbook photos of his dead schoolmates and teacher beamed
over national TV.
"I'm not saying what they did was OK,'' he said of Harris
and Klebold. "But I know what it's like to be cornered,
pushed day after day.''
"Tell people that we were harassed and that sometimes it was
impossible to take,'' he told a reporter. "Tell people that
... eventually, someone was going to snap.''