COVERING UP RACISM

EmaChissit at cs.com EmaChissit at cs.com
Thu Apr 29 19:50:19 PDT 1999


MEMBER OF TC COVERS UP RACISM WITH BIZARRE TALE. INCREDIBLE DISPLAY OF VIRULENT RACIST SENTIMENTS!

'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.''



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