Columbine Research Task Force

It may not be pretty, but the site created by the Columbine Research Task Force reveals some of the Net's true potential. You won't find dancing baloney or Shockwave tricks—just the work of determined people who question the official story about the Columbine massacre. If Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold acted alone in slaughtering 13 people and wounding many others at their high school two years ago, why did the police and press originally report that many students were saying up to eight gunmen were involved? Why did CNN's live coverage from the scene include an interview with a student who repeatedly said the gunmen were throwing grenades? Why do investigators say Harris and Klebold killed themselves at 12:05 p.m., but live coverage indicated shots were being fired in the school until approximately 3:45? Who was the still-unidentified student in a black jacket who was arrested at gunpoint during the siege?

Describing themselves as "a group of private citizens with no affiliation with the government or the press," the task force continues to post and link to new information. The message board gets four or five new posts a day, and some members are still interviewing key players. Michael Shoels, whose son Isaiah was killed in the massacre, told the CRTF that when he was on the scene, "everyone was talking about shooters in black masks." According to the authorities, Harris and Klebold weren't wearing masks at any point. Injured student Mark Taylor says a Jefferson County deputy saved his life against the orders of commanding officers, who told the cop he wasn't to go into an area containing injured students.

You'll also find maps of the school and the surrounding area, photographs of the scene, a list of the dead and injured, links to scads of articles, and—most important—scans of the 11,000 pages of raw information released by the county last November.

This site shows the Net doing what it was made to do: facilitate the exchange of information among dogged pursuers of the truth who would otherwise be working in isolation.