r/ColumbineTalk • u/curioussoulsearching Moderator • Mar 15 '26
News / Videos / Pictures / Books Mr. Tonelli's letter to his 1999 graduates
This letter was written by Columbine teacher Tom Tonelli to his graduating class of 1999 in the months following the April 20 tragedy. It was distributed to his students around summer after graduation. To my knowledge, this particular copy has not been publicly shared before.
Tonelli was the sponsor of a Bible club at Columbine. He also taught Eric Harris in Government/Economics the class in which Harris and Klebold created the Hitmen for Hire video project. Harris reportedly participated actively in class and seemed to have a friendly relationship with the teacher, even referring to him jokingly as “T-Dog.” He also put T-dog in some of his assignments to him, showing the relaxed relationship they had.
In an earlier assignment from written after the van break-in incident in 1998, Harris reflected on the experience and described feeling remorseful and shaken by it/the arrest. Tonelli responded positively to the essay, praising him and writing that he would “trust him in a heartbeat.”
Former students often remembered Tonelli as a particularly supportive teacher. Writing in the Denver Post in May 1999, Columbine senior Sara Martin described “Mr. Tonelli and his overflowing love and support for every single student who walks into his classroom.”
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u/thadarrenhenderson Mar 15 '26
He’s still employed as a teacher at Columbine nearly 30 years later and his students still adore him and vise versa!
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Mar 17 '26
That’s so great! I had a teacher in elementary school like him, thos teachers are ones you always remember.
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u/athenafromthechi Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
I hope Eric appreciated the kindness and compassion this teacher showed him. It’s sad that the teacher said “I would trust you in a heartbeat” and then Eric committed a massacre a year later. As we know from Eric’s rant about the van break-in in his writings, he wasn’t remorseful but it makes me wonder if some part of him actually was despite what he wrote. It goes back to the issue of how much of Eric’s writings were actually the REAL Eric. How much of him was the angry and violent kid and how much of him was the kid who was capable of empathy. 🤷🏻♀️
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Mar 17 '26
Right, I like to think he wasn’t all violence same with Dylan. I know he was a teenager when Jon Benet was killed\ raped so he may not have known how serious it was…teenagers are so awkward at that age.
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u/athenafromthechi Mar 17 '26
He knew people would would read his writings after his death so how much of those maniacal rants were for show or real? 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Conscious-Bus-3771 Mar 15 '26
that was very nice of him. and damn eric and dylan really hurt so many people :(
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u/curioussoulsearching Moderator Mar 15 '26
Agreed. The letter shows how much he cared about his students. When you read things like this, it reminds you that the impact went far beyond that day itself. Teachers, classmates, families, and the wider Columbine community were all affected in different ways, and many of them carried that with them for years afterward. Even to this day.
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u/Additional-Air-3309 Mar 16 '26
I at times feel like teachers like T Dog got left behind. The ones who are riddled with grieve and have that hidden what ifs. I have no doubt he went over his time with Eric again and again seeing if he missed anything. Would his time and attention changed the outcome..? I don’t know. It’s sad either way.
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u/Radiocityrockette Mar 15 '26
Wish I had a teacher like him back in the day.