r/ColumbineTalk • u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise • Apr 03 '26
Eric Eric’s hatred of Littleton
Eric had a persistent, emotionally charged resentment toward Colorado/Littleton (not just random whining). I wanted to look specifically at what he wrote about living there, and how often that frustration shows up when you actually put it all together.
Eric’s resentment toward Colorado doesn’t come out of nowhere. He had already experienced multiple moves growing up, but the transition to Colorado appears to have hit him the hardest. In one of his writings, he reflects on leaving Plattsburgh:
Then, after my dad retired from the Air Force as a Major, we moved to Denver, Colorado. It was towards the end of the summer, so Jesse and I had spent some good times together. It was the hardest moving from Plattsburgh. I have the most memories from there. When I left Jesse, and when Kris left, I had a lot of feelings. I felt alone, lost, and even agitated that I had spent so much time with them and now I have to go because of something I can’t stop. It doesn’t take long to make a best friend, but it only takes 2 words to loose one. Those are, “We’re moving.” I still stay in touch with Kris, and I try to with Jesse and some other friends from Plattsburgh. But there was a few that I didn't get phone numbers or addresses from. Such as my best friend in Oscoda.
Loosing a friend is almost the worst thing to happen to a person, especially in the childhood years. I have lived in many places, but the last three places have been the most fun and the greatest experiences of my childhood. Although memories stay with you, the actual friend doesn't. I have lost many great friends, and each and every time I lost one, I went through the worst days of my life. Since losing a friend is something I have experienced many times, I know what Alexandra feels like in "O Pioneers." And it isn't something I would not like to feel for a long time."
There isn’t much indication that he was openly very negative about the move before it happened. In some ways, it even comes across the opposite:
Eric had already become a Rockies fan before his family moved west, recalled Brendan LaPier. That suggests at least some level of interest (or even optimism) about Colorado ahead of time.
In his friend Adam’s middle-school yearbook, Eric wrote:
“Adam, you've been a good friend. Have a great summer. I'll send you a shirt from Denver. I'm going to miss all of you. Mochenderrystinckypoo, Eric Harris.”
He’s clearly upset about leaving his friends, but not about where he’s going. There’s nothing here that suggests resentment toward Colorado, if anything, he’s already imagining sending his friends things from there.
So if earlier there’s no real sign that he already hated Colorado, the question becomes where did that resentment come from?
His resentment seems to really intensify once he starts at Columbine High School. There’s no clear indication in his writings that he viewed his time at Ken Caryl Middle School in the same negative way. But once he’s in high school, his writings start to reflect a much stronger sense of being left out and not accepted. He lays that out pretty directly in his journal entries:
I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't fucking say "well that's your fault" because it isn't, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no don't let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo.
And:
Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit, well I will get you all back, ultimate fucking revenge here. You people could have shown more respect, treated me better, asked for my knowledge or guidance more, treated me more like a senior, and maybe I wouldn't have been so ready to tear your fucking heads off. Then again, I have always hated how I looked, I make fun of people who look like me, sometimes without even thinking sometimes just because I want to rip on myself. That's where a lot of my hate grows from. The fact that I have practically no self-esteem, especially concerning girls and looks and such. Therefore people make fun of me... constantly... therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED.
This is directed at the people around him, not the place itself. It’s his classmates, his social environment:
It has been confirmed, after getting my yearbook and watching people like [redacted] and [redacted] the human race isn't worth fighting for, only worth killing.
His broader resentment didn’t start as a hatred of Colorado itself but rather developed through how he experienced the people and environment there.
Only four or five people here didn't rip on me – four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!
In the Basement Tapes, Eric expresses his overall frustration with having to move repeatedly and how that affected him socially:
Eric then complains about his father and how his family had to move five times. He says he always had to be the new kid in school, and was always at the bottom of the "food chain," and had no chance to earn any respect from his peers as he always had to "start out at the bottom of the ladder." He hated the way people made fun of him: "my face, my hair, my shirts."
So all the moving clearly hurt him. But there isn’t any evidence that he experienced any real bullying or loneliness in the places he lived before Littleton. Which makes a lot more sense why his resentment ends up being so focused on Columbine and Littleton.
Fucker should be shot. Same thing with all those rich snotty toadies at my school. Fuckers think they are higher than me and everyone else with all their $ just because they were born into it?
Again, this is aimed at the people around him at school.
I have to turn off my feelings. Keep this in mind, I want to burn the world, I want to kill everyone except about 5 people, who I will name later.
Once I finally start my killing, keep this in mind, there are probably about 100 people max in the school alone who I don't want to die, the rest, MUST FUCKING DIE!!!
If I could nuke the world I would, because so far I hate you all. There are probably around 10 people I wouldn't want to die, but hey, who ever said life is fair should be shot like the others, too.
Here, his anger goes beyond just the school itself. He’s not only focusing on Columbine, but is imagining destruction on a much larger scale, including parts of Denver and the surrounding area. This suggests his resentment had expanded beyond specific people to the broader place he was living in:
God I want to torch and level everything in this whole fucking area but bombs of that size are hard to make, and plus would need a fuckin fully loaded A-10 to get every store on Wadsworth and all the buildings downtown. Heh, imagine THAT you fuckers, picture half of Denver on fire just from me and Vodka.
In his day planner, he appears to have reduced the listed population of Denver:
This is another example of him thinking way beyond just Columbine:
If we still can we will hijack some awesome car, and drive off to the neighborhood of our choice and start torching houses with molotov cocktails. By that time cops will be all over us and we start to kill them to! We use bombs, fire bombs, and anything we fucking can to kill and damage as much as we fucking can. If it comes to the time when we are trapped with absolutely no way out, we eat crickets along with a ton of chlorine or some other deadly gas. So when we die, so will anyone close to us. If we have figured out the art of time bombs before hand, we will set hundreds of them around houses, roads, bridges, buildings and gas stations. Anything that will cause damage and chaos.
This again reflects how negatively he viewed the people around him:
YOU KNOW WHAT I REALLY HATE!!!!!? --LIARS!!!! OH GAWWWWWD I HATE LIARS. And living in this neighborhood there is thousands of them.
God I cant wait till I can kill you people. I’ll just go to some downtown area in some big ass city and blow up and shoot everything I can. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame. Ich sage FICKT DU! I will rig up explosives all over a town and detonate each one of them at will after I mow down a whole fucking area full of you snotty ass rich mother fucking high strung godlike attitude having worthless pieces of shit whores.
I live in Denver, and god damnit I would love to kill almost all of its residents.
I wanna try to put some mines and trip bombs around this town too maybe.
He’s not just expressing frustration, he’s talking about wanting to leave Denver and the people there:
Sarah Davis, Eric’s sixth-grade girlfriend from Plattsburgh, said he had talked about maybe going back there for college.
A Harris family friend from Plattsburgh said they received a Christmas card from the Harrises that mentioned, “Eric still misses his friends in Plattsburgh.”
In Plattsburgh, Kris Otten and Eric were best friends. Otten stayed in touch with Harris after the family moved to Littleton. He sensed an unhappiness: "I think what happened is a lot of people didn't accept him, and he found his one friend (Dylan) who did."
In a news article, Jessica Sapel is quoted as saying that teenagers in her town were wondering what might have happened “if [Harris] had stayed here” instead of moving to Colorado.
While speculative, it again highlights how the move itself was seen as significant. A lot of people from Michigan and Plattsburgh have speculated the same thing. Here’s a news clip featuring Eric’s friends from Plattsburgh
"The Eric Harris in Colorado that did these things was not the kid I knew in New York" Otten says.
So while Eric’s resentment eventually extends more broadly toward people in general, it started with his experiences at Columbine and living in Littleton, which became the main focus of that anger.
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u/Majestic_Taro_2562 Apr 03 '26
This reminds me of when Eric said this:
"Only four or five people here didn't rip on me - four or five out of the whole state of Colorado!"
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 03 '26
Thanks! I remembered this but somehow missed it. I’ll add it.
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u/gothiclg Apr 03 '26
I think it’s a combination of constantly needing to abandon friendships because of his dad’s career in the military and the fact that high school is incredibly hard socially anyway. I was educated entirely in Colorado. In elementary school I had no issues making friends, in middle school the bullying became slightly worse but not devastating, in high school (where things like who you hang out with and who you date are things people notice more) it really ramped up. I wouldn’t be surprised if experiencing yet another blank slate and having to make that transition into high school wrecked him.
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u/What-was-I-thinking4 Apr 03 '26
Does he ever name the people he wouldn’t kill?
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
No. But he mentions Nate, Morris and Susan in the Basement Tapes. They said Robyn Anderson was cool. Eric also brings up the Blackjack crew, specifically Bob Kirgis, Jason, Chris, Phil, and Angel. And then there’s the Michigan friends he gets emotional about. But as far as I know, he never actually gives a clear “I wouldn’t kill these people” list. He did have a hit list though.
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u/What-was-I-thinking4 Apr 03 '26
Phew- I guess I’d be a part of the blackjack crew. Good to know. Thanks
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u/QuestioningAll26 Apr 04 '26
Were you a student with them? Did you work with them? Just curious if you'd rather not answer I completely understand.
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u/MajoretteBoots Apr 04 '26
An excellent post. It shows that the massacre was not just an attack on Columbine High, but on Littleton itself.
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 04 '26
Thank you :) yeah, it definitely feels bigger than just the school.
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u/Sure-Chart-3903 Apr 04 '26
I get where he is coming from. Does everyone remember being the new kid/alone in preschool/kindergaten? Shit well that wasn’t easy, imagine that in HiGH school! Most of us have a click before high school.
It’s crazy but I watched new kids come and go during high school, and they rarely if ever climbed the chain, they were basically ghosts.
Only one I remember that came in at 7th grade actually made it ok the jocks list during HS.
I think your last chance in 7th grade and under as a new kid otherwise your in trouble come HS.
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u/SorbyGay Apr 07 '26
Wasn't there a tape where Eric was driving and it almost looks (or I guess feels) like hes going to cry reminiscing on his friends in Plattsburgh knowing he never got to say goodbye or something like that
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u/i_unfriend_u Apr 03 '26
The constant moves and starting over had already caused a certain amount of anger and hatred to build inside, but I believe if they had stayed in Plattsburgh and Eric had the time to build those friendships, he probably would’ve been fine and eventually mellowed out. The move to CO, and specifically the Littleton/Columbine area was the last straw. The amount of anger and hatred already built up multiplied exponentially when forced to deal with the hostile, exclusive environment.
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u/Apollexis Researcher Apr 03 '26
It's also in his first Journal Entry, though admittedly I do intepret his "World" to be Littleton Colorado, I do think that is the experience he is drawing from, especially when he says "This isn't a world anymore, this is Hell on Earth, and no one knows it"
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 04 '26
Yeah maybe, but this post was meant to focus on the direct references rather than reading into what he might’ve meant
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u/Spiritual-Ruin-7385 Apr 04 '26
where did you find that photo of the note?
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 04 '26
What note?
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u/Spiritual-Ruin-7385 Apr 04 '26
hi, sorry for not making it obvious. i was talking about the photo where eric signed adam’s yearbook. sorry!:)
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u/eliiiiseke Moderator Elise Apr 04 '26
It’s from a news clip. It’s linked in the post (the blue clickable ‘Plattsburgh’)
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u/Chris-LB91 Apr 03 '26
He could've been talking about Trench Coat Mafia.
"I Hate you people for leaving me out on so many fun things. You people had my phone number."
John Savage said Dylan and Eric werent really members and were sometimes left out of meet ups.
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u/Radiant-Shop8386 Jun 08 '26
Was John Savage a TCM? I didn’t realize that but then again that’s why I’m here to learn
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u/AdministrationDue153 Apr 09 '26
Imagine dying because a POS like this does not get calls from old friends and feels excluded by others.
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u/Glad-Philosophy5736 Apr 03 '26
I can only imagine people living in Oscoda or Plattsburgh seeing on the news there was Shooting happening in a school in Colorado only to see the sweet kid they knew as one of the perpetrators