A New Controversy in the Shadow of Columbine

Last Tuesday, as Blacksburg, Va., was reeling from the slaughter at Virginia Tech, the city council of Littleton, Colo., reached out in sympathy. “We wanted to send a message of hope,” the town’s mayor, James Taylor, says softly in a telephone interview. Taylor paused for a moment, adding in exasperation: “I just don’t know how you stop this kind of stuff.”

The “stuff” Mayor Taylor is talking about is a pain Littleton knows all too well. Eight years ago today—on the morning of April 20, 1999—the world watched in horror as Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, students at the nearby Columbine High School, unleashed a flurry of violence as random and incalculable as the Virginia Tech massacre this week. Twelve students and a teacher were killed. Twenty-four were wounded. For the residents of Littleton, a tight-knit Denver suburb of 42,000 that bore the brunt of that day’s carnage, the gunfire left an awful legacy that resonates to this day.

So, on Tuesday, Taylor and his six colleagues on the council voted to send a letter of assistance to the mayor of Blacksburg, Va., Ron Rordam. “Even though the tragedy (of Columbine) happened eight years ago, the memory of the day remains fresh,” reads the letter, which was obtained by NEWSWEEK. “As a community that can truly say ‘we know what you’re going through,’ we offer any assistance we can provide in helping your citizens and staff through the difficult days, weeks and months ahead.”

But even as the town extends its offer, Littleton finds itself embroiled once again in a controversy involving guns. At issue is the planned construction of a nine-foot, life-like statue honoring a local soldier killed in Afghanistan two years ago. While everyone agrees he was a hero worthy of commemoration, his proposed memorial—complete with a replica of a high-powered weapon, and set to be placed a stone’s throw from three schools—has triggered a sharp debate about whether this means of honoring the fallen in the war on terror reopens the wounds of Columbine.

When plans for the statue and its placement were revealed last winter, a small group of Littleton parents rose up. “Our issue is not about the sacrifice a man has made,” says Emily Cassidy, a local mother and a member of Littleton’s Fine Art Committee. “A group of us were concerned about the statue’s location and the design that was chosen…. There is this umbrella of Columbine over this city. Is this really appropriate? This happened here and you have to take it into consideration when you’re displaying public art.”

But Mayor Taylor sees no cause for concern. “To honor a war hero with a statue would have nothing to do with two young men who murdered their classmates,” he says. “The greater community makes the distinctions of that.”