Gruesome Video Draws Ire

The images haunt the grieving parents. Small evidence tags on desks and on the beige carpet of the library floor mark pools of dried blood and shell casings. Walls are pockmarked with bullet holes and scorch marks from homemade bombs.

On a desk is an open book with tattered, charred pages. Folded yellow cards show where the Columbine High School students were wounded or died.

The public release of the two videotapes, which show three hours of the empty, bullet-riddled school and scenes of the actual assault by two heavily-armed students, has incensed parents of the shooting victims, who successfully fought for access to video taken during the massacre.

Beth Nimmo, mother of Columbine victim Rachel Scott, told CBS News she wasn't ready for what she saw. "From the footage that I saw, I saw Rachel's body repeatedly shown over and over again. Kids were running past her. She was not covered. She had been moved by being dragged two to three times. It just broke my heart. I just wept all the way through it."

Wednesday, Jefferson County authorities released the video of scenes inside the school after the rampage that left 15 dead, including the two student gunmen. The tape primarily shows aerial footage from the day of the April 20, 1999 attack and the bodies of two slain students who lay outside the school.

For $25, anyone can buy the video, which comes with a pop music soundtrack.

"This shows no regard whatsoever for the feelings of the victims," said James Rouse, a lawyer for the families, after learning of the Jefferson County sheriff's department decision to release the tapes.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens also is criticizing the sale of the videotapes, saying the public release was a poor decision on the part of the Jefferson County authorities.

The tapes do not show students being shot but the cafeteria surveillance video does capture students scattering as the teen-age gunman detonate a bomb and begin their shooting spree, reports CBS News Correspondent Maureen Maher.

They did so on Tuesday but county attorney Frank Hutfless surprised families by announcing that copies of the tapes also would be made available to the public the following day.

"I don't think this will do any good," said Nimmo. "It just hurts."

"We really have less than 24 hours for the victims' families to review it and get over the shock," said Rouse.

Barry Arrington, another attorney for the families, said the release is a reversal of the county's position. "You should have seen their original position; it was that no one should ever see it. So how culd we anticipate this?" he asked.

Calling the release irresponsible, Arrington said, "The families are horrified that pictures of the library, with dried pools of blood where their kids were laying on the floor, will be paraded in the public."

"Last week, we were sitting in the sheriff's department watching the video, and when it came on and then the music came on, the parents' jaws just dropped," he said. "And it was just stunning to them that someone would think it would be appropriate to set a crime scene to music."

The two music companies say the release violates copyright laws and they're demanding that either the music on the tape be removed or distribution of the tape be stopped.

"I think it's bizarre. It's just absurd," Nimmo told CBS News. "It's made out to be like a TV music video… It's just a very grotesque music video."

The tape was put together by a Littleton firefighter on his own time for use in seminars to help law enforcement officials prepare for shooting attacks and other emergencies. It has been shown in 82 seminars in the United States and Canada.

Nimmo argues the claim that the video can be used as an instructional tool for law enforcement and emergency response personnel.

"There is no instruction given. All they are showing is grotesque pictures," she said. "They're showing extreme amounts of damage to the school. They're showing where bodies fell and were killed.

Littleton firefighters also objected to the release of the video, saying it was "not suitable for public viewing."

Phyllis Velasquez, whose son Kyle was killed at Columbine, isn't surprised by anything these days. "This is just how it's been for the past year. This is life on a daily basis for us, waiting to see what's nxt," she told KUSA-TV.

In the past year, the sheriff's office has angered Columbine families by circulating a portion of the cafeteria surveillance tape, which eventually ended up on television and the Internet.

A 90-second segment was broadcast in October when it was leaked to CBS Newsafter being shown as part of a training video at a firefighters' seminar in Albuquerque, N.M.
Jefferson County Sheriff John P. Stone later called the release of the training video an embarrassment and ordered all copies returned to his office.