In nearly all books, all investigative reports, and all the online fora on the Columbine massacre, you will find the following orthodox interpretation of the events, which is properly dubbed "Plan B":
They planned to shoot at fleeing survivors from their cars in the separate parking lots when the cafeteria bombs exploded at 11:17. Immediately, when it was 11:18, they realized the bombs had failed, and therefore moved to "plan B", which was to go to the top of the stairs and shoot everyone they could. By 11:19, they opened fire.
Curiously, all are also honest enough to admit that in all their journals and videos documenting their year-long plans and fantasies, they never mentioned a plan B.
Dave Cullen, who wrote Columbine, who represents the orthodoxy and gets the most flak from the online sleuths, some of it very well deserved, does not get similarly questioned for his plan B narrative. Though it is one of the silliest.
Tim Krabbé, who wrote the Dutch book Wij Zijn Maar Wij Zijn Niet Geschift (in English, We Are But We Are Not Psycho), often the favorite of the online sleuths, the current author included, recognizes correctly that not a single witness recalls them waiting by their cars for the bombs to go off, but rather has them head straight for the stairs. This good sense is no sooner extinguished, as Krabbé still buys into plan B when he has already seen all of the light required to scrap it. For Krabbé, shooting from the stairs with the bombs was plan A, and shooting from the stairs without the bombs was plan B. Krabbe is the only reason I say nearly all. Without him, it is literally all. Every single one.
Here is for example from the Governor's Report, page 26:
"After positioning the duffel bags near the cafeteria exits, Klebold and Harris left the building and waited in their cars, which they had parked strategically so that persons fleeing from the school building would be caught in a crossfire of bullets. Realizing after a few minutes that the large propane bombs had failed to detonate, the two teenaged perpetrators marched on the school in search of the victims they expected to come towards them."
They didn't position the duffel bags i. e. the bombs near the exits nor did they march on the school. The few minutes is literally two minutes maximum. That second sentence sums up Plan B. It is not a fact, but an opinion, and a dreadful one not supported by a single witness. Witnesses say Eric went to the top of the stairs and waited for Dylan.
Here is from Cullen's book:
"At 11:18, the school stood intact. Some kids had already made it through the lunch lines and were strolling outside, settling onto the lawn for a little picnic. No sign of disturbance. The timing devices were not precise. No digital readouts with seconds counting down in red numerals; they were old-fashioned clocks with a third little alarm hand positioned two-fifths of the way between the 3 and the 4. But they should have blown by now.
Hundreds of targets streamed out the student entrance. They hopped into their cars and zipped away. Time for Plan B. There was no Plan B. Eric had staggering confidence in himself. He left no indication that he planned for contingencies. Dylan left no indication that he planned much of anything.
They could just proceed to Act II: mow the departers down in a cross fire and advance on the exits as scripted. They still could have topped McVeigh. But they didn't. The bomb failure appears to have rattled one of the boys.
No one observed what happened next. Either boy might have panicked, but Eric was unflappable, the reverse of his partner. The physical evidence also points to Dylan. Eric apparently acted swiftly to retrieve his emotional young partner.
We don't know whether they employed their hand signals, or how they came together. We know that Eric was in the prime location yet abandoned it to come to Dylan's. And Eric moved quickly. Within two minutes, Eric had figured out that the bombs had failed, grabbed his packs, crossed the lot to Dylan's car, rushed with him to the building, and climbed the external stairs to the west exit. That's the first place they were observed, at 11:19.
Their new position set them on the highest point on campus, where they could survey both lots and all the exits on that side of the building. But it took them away from their primary target: the student entrance, still disgorging students. They could no longer triangulate or advance aggressively without separating."
This is really rich. It is pure storytelling, and depends on Cullen's a priori assumption that Eric was the big-bad leader and Dylan just along for the ride.
"The timing devices were not precise. No digital readouts with seconds counting down in red numerals; they were old-fashioned clocks with a third little alarm hand positioned two-fifths of the way between the 3 and the 4. But they should have blown by now. "
This is huge. Why should they have blown? They began shooting at 11:19, before it had gotten to the four! The whole plan B narrative is dependent on the devices being to-the-minute precise. If they aren't that precise, then there's no reason for them to think the bombs failed a minute later. Not to mention the absurdity, even with elite timing devices, of planning and fantasizing about the massacre for a year, having a diversion to buy time, and then giving up in two minutes.
"Hundreds of targets streamed out the student entrance. They hopped into their cars and zipped away"
Some people had lunch off campus, but "hundreds...streamed out the student entrance"?
"Time for Plan B. There was no Plan B. "
Sums up the absurdity better than I ever could.
"Eric had staggering confidence in himself. He left no indication that he planned for contingencies. Dylan left no indication that he planned much of anything."
I don't think either one planned for contingencies, i. e. there was no plan B.
"They could just proceed to Act II: mow the departers down in a cross fire and advance on the exits as scripted. They still could have topped McVeigh. But they didn't. The bomb failure appears to have rattled one of the boys.
No one observed what happened next. Either boy might have panicked, but Eric was unflappable, the reverse of his partner. The physical evidence also points to Dylan. Eric apparently acted swiftly to retrieve his emotional young partner.
We don't know whether they employed their hand signals, or how they came together. We know that Eric was in the prime location yet abandoned it to come to Dylan's. And Eric moved quickly. Within two minutes, Eric had figured out that the bombs had failed, grabbed his packs, crossed the lot to Dylan's car, rushed with him to the building, and climbed the external stairs to the west exit. That's the first place they were observed, at 11:19."
They observed what happened, just not this. Cullen thinks or the investigators he is parroting think they were using "interlocking fire lanes". Nothing appeared to rattle anyone. He is not citing witness statements here, but deducing a priori from his assumptions of Eric psychopathic leader/Dylan depressed follower.
It's simply false that Eric was in the prime location. His car was by the South entrance, yes, and you might think the south entrance is a prime area for people to flee; but they were not bombing the main halls of the school, they were bombing the cafeteria. There are a mere four cafeteria tables by the south entrance. Eric's car was a terrible place to shoot from, and Dylan's car was prime location, if we stick to the dogma that they had to shoot from their cars, even though they didn't.
That Eric noticed the bombs failed and Dylan panicked and went to his car and Eric retrieved him and went to the stairs and all in two minutes is all pure fantasy. No witnesses describe this. And Eric was observed there earlier than 11:19, waiting.
Worse, they said several times in the library that the library was going to explode and were obviously very serious. So, "they started shooting because the bombs failed" is plainly false. Dead. kaput.
Worse still, shooting from the parking lot is very dumb, and the stairs make perfect sense. I don't even get why "well the bombs failed, curses" entails going to the stairs to shoot people. I guess the elevation is the point, but why not have the elevation with the bombs? Also it is saying they are shooting randomly when they were not at all, but you can shoot randomly from the parking lot too. They shoot Rachel and Richard first, who were on the same elevation they were.
But lets pretend it makes sense at least from the standpoint of seeking the higher ground. Ok, what about glass from the exploding cafeteria? You are shielded from the blast up on the stairs, but just waiting to die from glass shards in the parking lot. Cullen says they were far enough away, but they weren't, and Dylan hated calculus so I don't think they could have known. As a sympathetic ear pointed out to me, it's possible the Oklahoma City Bombing was their biggest influence, and it had several injuries and casualties due to glass alone.
Worse still, what if their victims ran the other way? Even if they initially ran into the parking lot, they would learn that was certain death, and run back up the cafeteria stairs, as they did when Dave Sanders told them to do so. Then Eric and Dylan entered the west entrance, showing exactly why the stairs make sense for plan A. If they had been out in the parking lot, might as well kill themselves when people turn around.
Even worse still, what are they going to do about the police? They shoot at the cafeteria with their backs to the street. Cops arrive and shoot them both in the back of the head. Massacre over.
Also, one needs to remember they had two bombs. There was no point to set them for the same time and lose that complexity.
Also, Dylan entered the cafeteria, and investigators suspect it was to check on the bombs. Cullen offers an alternative theory, the only other one I've ever seen, that Eric ordered Dylan to shoot people in the cafeteria but he didn't have the courage. But he shot Lance in the face on the way there. So, this seems doubtful. It probably is true he was checking on the first bomb.
But this seems like a contradiction to me. If they could see that 11:17 had passed and that therefore the bomb failed, and started murdering people as a result, what is there to check? Does it not make more sense that as he descended the stairs, the cafeteria came into view, and the bomb failure became apparent? But he was not rattled, he simply watched people run up the cafeteria stairs, reported to Eric, and they entered the west entrance, as if they had planned for this.
And that brings up another huge point, they had planned for the cafeteria to be at its fullest when the bombs went off. If they knew the bombs had failed and moved on to shooting as many people as they could, why would they ever start shooting outside? They had maybe a dozen people outside, and hundreds in the cafeteria, but they choose to start shooting outside? It makes no sense unless they thought the bombs were soon to draw them out.
However, all you need to know is their cars aren't their guns. They and their guns were on the stairs. And they, very clearly, said one of the bombs was still in play while in the library, so they never started shooting because the bombs failed. Plan B is dead.
Hopefully you see this orthodoxy at 9:05 in the following video as absurd as I do:
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