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Davis has a similar take. "We're still dispelling myths about the Trench Coat Mafia," he said. "Unfortunately, the media has allowed that myth to become lore." Davis is happy to set straight anyone calling for clarification, but that's proved highly ineffective in alerting reporters to question information they routinely take for granted.

Columbine residents appear resigned to at least two to three more returns of the media horde. The first will come at the anniversary of the massacre in April. The second will follow the aftermath of the report's eventual release, and promises to last for several weeks. Potentially most dramatic of all would be the broadcast of the killers' suicide-message videos, should they ever get out of litigation.

Legal battles over the videos have only recently gotten under way, and threaten to postpone television broadcast of the tapes for months or years, if not forever. After the contents of the tapes were leaked to Time magazine in December, three separate court proceedings began.

The Klebold family acted first, filing a motion in county court within days, asserting that the tapes belonged to the killers' estates -- that is, their parents. A few weeks later, an unidentified woman mentioned on both the videos and on the so-called hit list obtained a temporary restraining order against dissemination or screening of the videos, hit list or any other physical evidence. (Her lawyers said she was concerned about undue invasions of privacy.) The restraining order was renewed in late January, and another hearing is scheduled for March 3. At that time it could be terminated or converted to a temporary injunction.

The sheriff's department filed its own motion in January in U.S. District Court requesting a declarative judgment as to its legal right to duplicate and disseminate the videos under copyright law. Any decision in that case is probably months away.

Should the videos pass all those legal hurdles, the killers' faces will no doubt one day fill the airwaves bragging about their intended crimes. The department has already been flooded by requests from television stations who want to broadcast the tapes.

Extensive coverage of Harris and Klebold carrying out the attack is less likely. No one has challenged the school district's ownership of the surveillance tape that captured parts of their actions, and Davis says he expects it to be returned to the district upon the close of the investigation. District officials were infuriated when a grainy reproduction of a short segment was smuggled out to CBS last fall, and a video still was later published on the December cover of Time. They are adamant that the full, clear footage never see the light of TV.

The timing of the report could prove the next big controversy for the sheriff's department. If the latest estimates for the report's completion -- six to eight weeks -- prove right, the department could find itself wrapping up its report just as the memorial program planned for the first anniversary of the killings approaches.

Some in the community want the department to work toward an April 20 release, on the basis that two traumas might be collapsed into one event. On the other hand, some fear that students and families facing flashbacks and depression triggered by the anniversary will be in no condition to face the media invasion the report will instigate, or the troubling questions it will raise.

Davis acknowledged that those two arguments have emerged, but said the department is trying to disregard such external concerns. "We will release it whenever it's finished, whenever that is," he said.

In any case, Davis said he expects coverage of the eventual release to be intense. But readers looking for fresh revelations will be disappointed. "I wouldn't look for any major surprises," he said. "Everything in that report has been pretty much reported."

The report itself will fill in a lot of details, but many of the most profound questions will never be answered, he said. "I have every indication the report will raise more questions than it answers."
salon.com | Feb. 14, 2000

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