AP Was There: Shock, then terror as Columbine attack unfolds | KLRT [Video]

LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — EDITOR’S NOTE — On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys dressed in black trench coats went on a killing rampage at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. They shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded two dozen others before taking their own lives.

Twenty-five years later, The Associated Press is republishing this story about the attack, the product of reporting from more than a dozen AP journalists who conducted interviews in the hours after it happened. The article first appeared on April 22, 1999.

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A moment of surprise, then hours of terror

By TED ANTHONY

AP National Writer

LITTLETON, Colo. — Her favorite lunchtime meal was ready — “my only meal,” jokes Sarah DeBoer. So, nachos in hand, she headed toward the commons area of the Columbine High School cafeteria.

It was a sunny Tuesday morning, maybe 60 degrees, only 17 school days before graduation, and a spring mentality was afoot — the kind …