'No Obligation' To Release Columbine Info, Sheriff Says

Lawyers File Motion To Force Department To Release Documents

The Jefferson County sheriff's department says it has no obligation to release information related to the Columbine High School shootings.

Attorneys for the sheriff's department filed a motion in court arguing that the families of Columbine victims who filed lawsuits are trying to force a lengthy and expensive fact-finding process, or discovery, by accusing the department of stonewalling.

"This case has not yet reached discovery, so there is no obligation for the sheriff defendants in this case to produce anything," the sheriff's attorneys wrote.

The motion was filed in U.S. District Court Friday and made public Monday. It was filed in lawsuits brought by the families of eight wounded students.

The sheriff's lawyers said that some of the plaintiffs are getting investigative information under Colorado's open records law. They disputed the families' contention that they would make different allegations if they had more information.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide at Columbine on April 20, 1999. Families of the victims have filed nine lawsuits, which are pending in federal court.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Kathi Grider did not return a phone message seeking comment. Officials previously have declined comment because of the lawsuits.

The suits allege that sheriff's deputies failed to act fast enough to rescue the victims and that the department failed to properly train deputies, dispatchers and 911 operators.

The lawsuits also claim that the sheriff's department could have prevented the tragedy by investigating Internet threats by Harris against Columbine student Brooks Brown more than a year before the shootings. Brown was not injured in the shootings.

"You got to go with what kind of information you can get," Jim Cederberg, attorney for wounded student Richard Castaldo, said Monday.

Under court order, Jefferson County sheriff's officials last month released a search warrant for Harris' home that was drafted a year before the attack. Investigators were hoping to link Harris to violent Internet rantings and pipe bombs that had been set off in a nearby field, but the warrant was never submitted to a judge and his home was never searched.

"They still haven't revealed what happened," Cederberg said. "Somebody put the kibosh on it. I don't think it fell between the cracks."

Also Monday, Cederberg filed a motion asking a federal judge not to dismiss lawsuits against the man who ran a gun show where three weapons used in the attack were allegedly bought.

Castaldo's family alleges that J.D. Tanner was partly to blame for victims' injuries because he provided a place where guns could be sold illegally to minors and because he operated the show negligently.

Harris and Klebold allegedly got three guns at the 1998 show with the help of Robyn Anderson, then 18. Neither Klebold nor Harris could legally buy guns at the time.

Tanner's lawyers have argued he had no connection to Klebold, Harris or the victims and therefore wasn't to blame.

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