School Violence: Life after Columbine
             April 20, 1999 started as just another ordinary day in the life of a teenager attending Columbine High School, but after the shootings began the town of Littleton, Colorado was turned upside down and became the focus of what was wrong with the security procedures in the American school system. "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire at 11:15 AM" (http://massmurder.zyns.com/eric_harris_dylan_klebold_01.htm) in the cafeteria in Columbine in what would appear to be the "worst case of school violence in U.S. history." (Kolettis, 2000) Their rampage left thirteen people dead (twelve students and one teacher) before these two took their own lives that left a lot of questions unanswered. The big question was, where was the security in the school? Numerous school systems throughout the nation, have adopted new security procedures to avoid a similar situation from occurring again in the wake of this tragedy.
             According to Helen Kolettis, shortly after the shootings the Jefferson County School District installed a new state-of-the-art security system at Columbine. George Peticolas a former employee of the federal prison for Jefferson County was hired as an electrical systems specialist for the school district who was tasked with finding a new security system for the school. George Peticolas recalled using Securalarm Company's closed circuit television system while employed at the prison. He shared that information with the director of facilities planning, Jack Swanzy who then contacted the president of Securalarm David Luckenbach to draw up a design plan for the new system. (2000) "Although we made suggestions, we focused on honoring their requests. We listened to what they wanted and designed the system to fit those needs." (Kolettis, 2000)
             As mentioned by Helen Kolettis, there were four factors that went into making the decision to install a new security sy...