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GOTHS, SPOOKY KIDS, AND THE AMERICAN 

SCHOOL SHOOTING PANIC  
ALLEN BERRES 

One of the earliest details to leak out about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold 
following their horrifying shooting spree at Columbine High School was that 
they were supposedly members of a clique that called itself "The Trench 
Coat Mafia." This name was readily snapped up by the journalists covering 
the story, and by the evening following the shootings, numerous news 
organizations were running pieces about this group in an attempt to shed 
greater light on the reasons why Harris and Klebold killed thirteen people 
and themselves. Although the Trench Coat Mafia clique was confined to 
Columbine High School, journalists quickly pointed out many supposed 
links between this clique and two larger music fan cultures whose members 
occasionally wear black trench coats that are found in almost every 
American high school: goths and Marilyn Manson fans. A wave of anti-goth, 
anti-Marilyn Manson sentiment immediately followed this over-hasty 
association, motivated by the overwhelming fear that any member of these 
black-clad legions could turn out to be the next school shooter. 

The label "goth" (an abbreviation of "gothic") was adopted by a culture 
of music fans that started in the late 70s and early 80s as an offshoot of 
punk. Goths are fans of a variety of generally gloomy bands, including the 
Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Cure. They 
are also known for favoring black clothing, ranging from lacy gowns to 
biker jackets to band t-shirts. One of the bands that is occasionally included 
in the list of goth musical acts is a band named Marilyn Manson. Marilyn 
Manson is led by a front man of the same name, an Ohio native originally 
named Brian Warner. Manson has received more radio and MTV exposure 
in the 90s than any other goth-associated act, and as such he has spawned a 
horde of young devotees who are not yet aware of the wider range of gothic 
music. Manson fans, sometimes called Spooky Kids after the original name 
of the band, Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, also often wear black. 
Some goths are Marilyn Manson fans (this researcher included), but many 
goths despise Manson for his popularity, and many young Manson fans will 
stop listening to Manson and follow some other musical fad in a year or so 
without ever expanding their tastes to other goth musicians. In fact, as of the 
publication of this paper Marilyn Manson's status as the bad boy of MTV 
seems to have been usurped by the rapper Eminem; Manson's third album, 
released in 2000, produced only two MTV- 



 

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broadcast videos; the first video was only in rotation for a few weeks, and the 
second has been nearly invisible. 

Although the Trench Coat Mafia apparently included some students who 
were Marilyn Manson fans, Klebold and Harris were fringe members of the 
group at best. According to Dave Cullen of Salon.com, they did not like 
Manson's music or image, and there has been absolutely no credible evidence 
to the contrary (Cullen 4). There is also no evidence that they were members 
of the goth scene; the closest connection is that the two were fans of 
industrial music, a genre that has a lot of fan crossover with goths, especially 
the German bands KMFDM and Rammstein. It has been cynically noted by 
many commentators (including Marilyn Manson himself) that Mr. Manson 
(and, by extension, the goth scene that he is often wrongly equated with) 
became the center of the post-Littleton controversy only because of his 
previously established controversial reputation (he was a favorite target of 
former vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman and his conservative cohort 
William Bennett) and the extensive conservative Christian protests against his 
concerts. These later revelations, however, were no help in preventing the 
anti-goth media panic over the days immediately following the shootings. 

Two news articles which were published on April 21, 1999, initiated the 
association of the Trench Coat Mafia with goth culture. One, "'Trench Coat' 
Mafia Spun Dark Fantasy," appeared the Washington Post and was written by 
Marc Fisher It maintained that 

The shooters who turned Columbine High School into an unspeakable 
landscape of carnage yesterday were members of a small clique of outcasts 
who always wore black trench coats and spent their entire adolescence deep 
inside the morose subculture of Gothic fantasy. (Fisher 1) 

Fisher goes on to explain that 

Black trench coats are a consistent theme in the Gothic subculture that has 
attracted many teenagers to the poetry, music, and costumes of a scene that 
ranges from benign fantasy to violent reality. Inspired by fantasy games 
such as Dungeons and Dragons, Gothic has become a fascination of many 
American high schoolers, some of whom simply dress and paint their 
fingernails black while others immerse themselves in a pseudo-medieval 
world of dark images. (Fisher 1) 

We can see a number of propositions here that remained prominent through-
out the post-Columbine goth panic: 1) All goths are teenagers, 2) All goths 
are prone to confusing fantasy and reality, and 3) Their immersion in dark 
images has a strong potential to lead goths to participation in murder 

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EVERYBODY IS THEIR ENEMY 

sprees. Fisher, apparently inspired by reports of the killers' fascination with 
German fascism, also associates goths with neo-Nazis, noting that 
"Yesterday [the 20th] was Hitler's birthday, an occasion for demonstrations, 
mock funerals, and other macabre celebrations among both neo-Nazis and 
parts of the Gothic scene" (Fisher 1). In my six years of involvement in goth 
culture, I have never heard anything about Hitler's birthday celebrations; 
where Mr. Fisher got his information is anybody's guess, as he does not cite a 
source, 

The second article, "Opinions Run Gamut on Suspects Among Neigh-
bors, Friends," by Jim Hughes, is from the Denver Post. Hughes states that a 
classmate of the boys 

said Klebold adopted the "goth" –short for Gothic—appearance in the past 
year, wearing black clothing and growing out his once-short hair. The 
"goth" scene draws from satanic worship and medieval Europe [sic] 
barbarism. (Hughes 17) 

In Hughes' article we see the first post-Columbine association of goths (and 
Klebold and Harris) with satanism. This accusation had an extremely long 
life prior to Columbine; it is primarily due to the fact that goths wear black 
clothing, which is also supposedly the favored color of witches and 
satanists. While there are satanist goths and gothic satanists, the two 
identities are by no means synonymous. Hughes also seems to confuse our 
modern goths with Goths, such as the Ostrogoths or Visigoths, the tribes of 
barbarians active at the time of the fall of Rome (for a full discussion of the 
evolution of the modern use of "gothic," ask any scholar familiar with the 
development of the gothic novel). In any event, Hughes' picture of the latest 
barbarians at our gates associates goths with violence, ignorance, and, in a 
vein followed by many other commentators, the fall of civilization. 

A third news article completed the foundation of the anti-goth narrative; 
it was a segment on the television news show 20/20, broadcast on the 
evening of the 21st. This segment, rich in Marilyn Manson concert footage, 
featured a police officer from the Denver Police Department named Steve 
Rickard. The segment introduces Rickard as follows: 

. . . for the last seven years, Steve Rickard of the Denver Police Department 
gang unit has been trying to spread the word of how the so-called Gothic 
Movement has helped fuel a new kind of teenage gang - white suburban 
gangs built around a fascination with the grotesque and with death. (Ross) 

Brian Ross, the segment's reporter, claims that "There have been a series 

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of violent episodes around the country linked to teenagers who call them-
selves Goths" (Ross). Rickard portrays goths as a new, even scarier form of 
gang: 

With traditional gangs, their enemies are pretty well-defined. With sub-
urban groups, their enemies are not defined. I think everybody is their 
enemy. . . . anybody who would gel in their way, I think they would 
potentially kill. (Ross) 

In this scheme, the goth is even scarier than the usual (ethnic) gang member 
in that they could attack and kill anyone, presumably even white kids who are 
apparently minding their own business. 

In an apparent attempt to be fair, Ross states that "For most Goths, it's 
just an act, but apparently not for all" (Ross), and Rickard notes that "All 
Gothic young people are not the same. There's the Gothic scene where kids 
are just dressing the part, listening to the music" (Ross). "Just an act" and 
"just dressing the part" imply that the goth identity is essentially a violent one 
or that the goth is intentionally dressing to intimidate or threaten outsiders. 
According to this logic, dressing like a goth or listening to gothic music and 
then not engaging in violent or hateful behavior is thus a shallow act, devoid 
of its original meaning: a goth is either a murderer or a poseur. 

On the April 22, the Denver Post ran an article documenting various 
threats made against goths in the Denver area. The article features a doctoral 
student at the University of Denver, Derek Sweet, who is quoted as stating 
that his research on goths indicates 

They're not violent. They're not racist. They're not into this whole hate 
mentality. . . . These are not people who are out looking for trouble. They're 
just looking for a place to hang out and have fun. . . . But now this group is 
really scared. And they are angry that they're being alienated and attacked 
once more just for being different. (Briggs and Greene 11) 

Although most of the article defends goths from the threats being made 
against them, the article ends, however, on a much more sinister note, 
quoting Yvonne Peterson, a San Antonio nurse: "I don't think the gothic 
movement created this situation at the school. But. I do think that the gothic 
movement can give teachers in the future some tips. These kids are in 
trouble. . . . They're looking for attention" (Briggs and Greene 11). In other 
words, even if goths aren't murderous, they are mentally ill and a threat to 
themselves. 

The strongest example of this anti-goth attitude can be found in articles 
consulting or written by anti-Satanist Carl Raschke immediately fol- 

46 



 

EVERYBODY IS THEIR ENEMY 

lowing the shooting. With only the sketchy information about Klebold and 
Harris that was available following the first few days of media coverage, 
Raschke concludes the Klebold and Harris were part of the youth Satanist 
movement that he has been writing about since the early nineties. In an 
editorial piece he wrote, published in the Rocky Mountain News on April 25, 
Raschke maintains that the Columbine attack was "carefully planned and 
superbly executed terrorist violence" and goes on to explain that 

These types of disquieting adolescents have been a routine item in suburban 
high schools and urban dance clubs since the early 1980s. They have gone 
by diverse and sundry names - punkers, stoners, metalheads, skinheads, 
headbangers and, now, "goths." They are the minions of a flourishing youth 
anti-culture, which from year to year, concert to concert and album to 
album finds novel and creative ways of celebrating the emblems of 
apocalyptic violence and trashing minimal standards of human decency. 
They think of it as fashion, if not "art." "Revolutionary" art. They aim to 
frighten and to shock. (Raschke 1B) 

In Raschke's view, goths and Marilyn Manson fans set out to "frighten and 
shock" the moral and decent world, and as such they are terrorists just as 
much as Klebold and Harris were terrorists; he bitterly claims that Columbine 
administrators ignored the "obvious" threat posed by the Trench Coat Mafia 
because had they acted, "they would be branded by various educated 
apologists for teenage excess as too authoritarian and intolerant of those who 
opt for 'alternative lifestyles'" (Raschke 1B). 

It is not too difficult to see Raschke's plan for preventing future school 
shootings in this complaint: make the "misfits" conform to mainstream 
conceptions of normalcy. They are not protected by free speech or any other 
protections because they are supposedly using their freedoms only to oppress, 
threaten, and harass normal people. Showing sympathy towards goths or 
excusing them as troubled or mentally ill just perpetuates the problem; 
Raschke declares that 

We are so mesmerized by the saccharine rhetoric of the "human services" 
professions, which has convinced us there is always an excuse for 
someone's outrageous criminal behavior, that we can't imagine a set of 
circumstances when someone is self-conscious about what they are doing 
and, as Saint Paul once put it, without excuse. (Raschke 1B) 

In this scheme, even those whom Ross and his informant Rickard would 
regard as harmless poseurs or Yvonne Peterson would classify as mentally ill 
and needing therapy are an "anti-culture," deadly threats to social order and 
civilization itself. 

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A plausible explanation for the widespread insistence on goths as a 
convenient explanation for the school shooting crisis is offered by Robert 
Snyder in an essay for Anthropology News: 

The typical narrative for suburban teens might thus go as follows. One 
should grow up to be a good student, athletic, monetarily care free (in a dual 
income household), religious and bound [or college. Suburban, middle-class 
teenage "massacre" does not fit the traditional narrative that has been 
socialized into North American society. The Littleton massacre is a prime 
example of media attention to an event that does not follow a "traditional" 
social narrative. . . . High tech video games, sci-fi movies and Goth 
subculture are created as the primary social pressures that corrupt middle-
class suburban teenagers. (Snyder II) 

This "corruption through invasion" metaphor is prominent in Carl 
Raschke's work, but there are other examples as well. In June 1999, the 
conservative publication The New American ran an article referring to 
"Manson's anti-hero acolytes Harris and Klebold," describing Marilyn 
Manson as "an androgynous creature who works at being as repulsive as 
possible (and succeeds wildly!) [parenthetical aside in original]" whose 
'''music' revels in nihilistic rebellion, rage, alienation, death, and despair" 
(Jasper). The article goes on to comment that "the Columbine killers and their 
fellow teen sociopaths imbibed deeply of the toxic waste that courses through 
the culture of death now engulfing our whole society"; this "toxic waste" has 
filled "the God-shaped vacuum" created by "the militant secularists of 
academe, the decadent culture vultures of Hollywood, and the left-wing 
activists in the courts and legislatures" (Jasper). Manson, at the head of a 
phantom army of drooling, psychotic fans, serves here as a powerful symbol 
of an invading force that is the ultimate cause of everything that is wrong with 
the United States. 

Another call for action against the goth menace is She Said Yes, the story 
of the supposed martyrdom of Cassie Bernall, one of Klebold and Harris' 
victims, as written by her mother, Misty Bernall. It was widely believed 
following the shooting that one of the shooters had approached Cassie and 
asked her if she believed in God; she was said to have said yes, and that is 
when she was killed. The way Misty tells it, Cassie was a basically good 
child until she fell in with an ill-behaved, black-wearing, pink-haired friend 
named Mona (a psuedonym) in her early high school years. One of the key 
signs that Misty and her husband, Brad, focused on as an indication of trouble 
was the music that Cassie and Mona were listening to: 

I don't know exactly when it was, but at some point Brad began examining 
some of Cassie's music and realized that it wasn't "just" entertain- 

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EVERYBODY IS THEIR ENEMY 

ment. Despite the innocuous covers, the lyrics themselves often carried an 
unmistakable message. (Bernall 45) 

Misty then includes a brief sample of lyrics from one of Marilyn Manson's 
songs, claiming that the group was "a favorite of the two boys at Columbine 
who killed [Cassie]." The quoted song is "Get Your Gunn," the two n's on 
"Gunn" referring to a murdered abortion doctor, David Gunn (Manson). 
Misty misquotes the song's lyrics, however, transforming the song's refrain 
from "get your gunn" (as indicated clearly in the album's liner notes and on 
any internet listing of the song's lyrics) to "get your gun" (Berna1l45). With a 
slight misrepresentation of its lyrics, the song is transformed from an ironic 
commentary on a murder committed by pro-life zealots into an apparent 
endorsement of gun violence. 

The possibility that Cassie and Mona posed an immanent danger to Brad 
and Misty's lives is confirmed for Misty when she discovers a series of 
letters from Mona that Cassie was hiding in her room: 

There was endless talk about the "sexiness" of black clothes and makeup, 
the "fun" of contraband alcohol, marijuana, and self-mutilation, and the 
adventures of a classmate whose girlfriend went to "this satanic church, cult 
thing where you have to drink a kitten's blood to get in." Several of the 
letters advised Cassie to do away with us and thus solve her innumerable 
problems. One ended, "Kill your parents! Murder is the answer to all of 
your problems. Make those scumbags pay for your suffering. Love you, 
me." (Bernall 38-9) 

Misty and Brad see these letters as a sure sign that Cassie is up to no good, 
and they report the children to the police. At a meeting with a police 
detective and the Bernalls, Mona's parents don't see what the big problem is. 
Misty reports that Mona's mother "could not understand why we had the 
need to bring [the letters] to the attention of the law, or to involve her 
husband in the matter," but that 

Thankfully the detective and the investigator took the situation as seriously 
as we did, and supported our desire for a restraining order to bar Mona from 
further contact from Cassie. Among other things, the sheriff told Mona's 
parents that the letters were the worst he had seen during more than a 
decade in juvenile crime, and he warned them that if Mona had had any sort 
of prior record, she would have been called before a judge. Still they 
showed no surprise or remorse. (Bernall 52-3) 

The narrative we see developing here is one insisting on parental authority, 
specifically that Misty and Brad Bernall were right in splitting up Mona and 
Cassie's friendship. Mona's parents are presented as gullible, over 

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indulgent monsters; Misty reports that she was traumatized by their behavior, 
claiming 

I can still feel their cold, level stares. Nor will I forget how Mona's mother 
walked her back to their car after our meeting, rubbing her shoulder and 
reassuring her, as if to say "Oh, honey, it's okay, the Bernalls are just mean 
people." (Bernall 52) 

The proof that the Bernalls acted appropriately comes in the actions of other 
black-clad trouble children. Although Mona is never referred to again after 
her exorcism from Cassie's life, Misty mentions a case in 1997 when a 
fourteen-year-old from a nearby suburb "said he was going to kill his parents" 
and then subsequently stabbed his father the next day. Misty notes that "After 
the stabbing, satanic carvings and other Goth trappings were discovered in 
the boy's bedroom" (Bernall 61). She maintains that "In a time when 
supposedly peaceful middle-class suburbs like ours are breeding children 
capable of such things, you begin to realize that talk is never just talk" 
(Bernal1 61). 

The ultimate proof that the Bernalls acted in Cassie's best interests is that 
Cassie was a devout, genuine born-again Christian by the time she was killed 
at Columbine High School by the very type of black-wearing, Marilyn 
Manson-listening, murderous freaks that she could have ended up being. This 
is demonstrated when Misty sympathizes with the Klebolds and Harrises after 
she receives an apology letter from the Klebolds: 

Even if Cassie were still alive, we would be able to understand their hurt 
and humiliation. Before she changed directions, we agonized over her in the 
same way the parents of her killer surely agonize over him now. And even 
if we could never compare the weight of our separate griefs, we have at 
least one comfort: the knowledge that our daughter died nobly. What balm 
do they have? (Bernall13l) 

Misty Bernall's message to parents is that they must intervene when children 
rebel; even a minor rebellion or demonstration of a warning sign can have life 
or death consequences. 

The overt anti-goth panic has largely disappeared now, more than two 
years after the Columbine shootings. A series of pro- (or at least not anti-) 
goth news articles that followed the anti-goth articles discussed here was 
partially responsible for the shift, and it didn't hurt matters that the media, for 
the most part, decided that the gun control issue was going to be their primary 
target issue. With this is mind, however, the image of the immanent threat 
posed by the gothic rebel child still retains its power in the discussion of 
school safety. A particularly vivid example appeared in April 

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EVERYBODY IS THEIR ENEMY 

2001 in an AP article by Dan Elliott, "Columbine Killers Icons to Some." 
Although most of the article discusses Klebold and Harris's appeal to generic 
"angry, disaffected youth," James Gerbarino, author of Lost Boys: Why Our 
Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them is quoted as saying, 

Thirty-five years ago, if a kid walked into your school with body piercing 
and black makeup, almost certainly somebody would say, "We've got to 
find out what's troubling this kid. . . . Adolescent culture has taken on this 
foray into the dark side. For troubled kids, this feeds their trouble. (Elliott) 

Here we see the use of the goth as a potent visual metaphor; even though 
neither Klebold or Harris, or any other school shooter to date, fit the 
description above, the personal style of the goth is still specifically invoked 
as a symbol of sociological and psychological dysfunction and, 
simultaneously, as a sort of supernatural evil, as using the phrase "the dark 
side" inevitably conjures up both Darth Vader of the Star Wars trilogy and 
legends of satanic worship. 

With the latest bout of school shootings following the shooting at 
Santee High School in California, however, most of the media's focus has 
shifted to a call for greater surveillance to spot potential troublemakers. A 
series of researchers have tried to create a typical profile of the school 
shooter, much in the same way that profiling is used to pursue serial killers. 
These profilers, especially profilers working for the Secret Service and FBI, 
appear to be very careful about dismantling certain stereotypes about serial 
killers, among them the anti-goth concerns discussed here. For example, a 
paper written jointly by members of the Secret Service and the Department 
of Education for a 2001 issue of Psychology in the Schools states: 

Decision makers who rely on characteristics that appear to be more typical 
or representative of the category, to determine whether an object belongs in 
that category, may inadvertently render faulty decisions. . . . For example, a 
school administrator who believes she should be concerned about a 
particular student because the student wears a black trench coat similar to 
the ones worn by the shooters at Columbine High School would be relying 
inappropriately on such information to determine risk. (Reddy et. al. 163) 

While this article points out that while a student's making threats should 
be taken seriously, it also maintains that a student making a threat is not 
always going to become a school shooter (Reddy, et. al. 168). Since 

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the Santee shooting, however, threats issued by students are popularly 
believed to be an accurate indicator of potential trouble. An AP article 
written by Greg Toppo, for example, ends with the following passage: 

John Kotnour, a police officer with the Overland Park, Kan., police 
department, works in Shawnee Mission South High School. He said his 
job often makes him feel like "a small-town sheriff." The most effective 
deterrent to school violence, he said, is a staff that makes students feel 
comfortable sharing their fears. "Most of the people here at South don't 
want the liability of letting a rumor go unchecked," he said. Among the 
most important conversations he has with students and teachers, he said, 
are those that begin with these five words: "This may be nothing, but. . 
." [ellipses in original]. (Toppo) 

Among school administrators and local law enforcement, the fear of being 
held legally responsible for a school shooting because a threat was not taken 
seriously is very strong, and also very understandable, given the lawsuits 
filed after the Columbine shooting against Columbine High School and the 
Jefferson County Sheriff. In such an environment of fear, the caution advised 
by the federal authorities is likely to be abandoned in the same way that local 
authorities ignored national, official skepticism regarding satanic crime in the 
1980s and 1990s (as documented in Jeffrey Victor's Satanic Panic, among 
other sources). As such, I am reluctant to declare the goth panic dead; as 
demonstrated by the previous examples, the anti-goth panic immediately 
following the Littleton shooting is probably best understood as part of a 
larger move to cement parental control over adolescents and over society in 
general. It is likely that as long as there are goths, anti-goth sentiment will 
continue. 

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 

WORKS CITED 

Bemall, Misty. She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. 
 Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 1999. 
Briggs, Bill, and Susan Greene. "Suspects Embraced World of Darkness: Com- 
 fortable Suburbs Harbor Troubled Teens." The Denver Post. April 22, 1999, 
 A-11. 
Cullen, Dave. "Inside the Columbine High Investigation." <http://www.salon.com/ 
 news/feature/1999/09/23/columbine/index.html> (March 16,2000). 
Elliott, Dan. "Columbine Killers Icons to Some." Associated Press. April 16, 
 2001. 
Fisher, Marc. "Trench Coat Mafia Spun Dark Fantasy." The Washington Post. 
 April 21, 1999: A-1. 

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EVERYBODY IS THEIR ENEMY 

Hughes, Jim. "Opinions Run Gamut on Suspects Among Neighbors, Friends." 
 The Denver Post. April 21, 1999: A-17. 
Jasper, William F. "Lessons From Columbine High." The New American. <http:/ 
 /www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/06-07-99/vol5no12_lessons.htm> 
 (December 8,1999). 
Manson, Marilyn. "Columbine: Whose Fault is It?" Rolling Stone. <http:// 
 rollingstone.tunes.com/sections/new> (August 31, 1999). 
Raschke, Carl. "The Ultimate Outrage as Our Shock Tolerance Rises, Disaffected 
 Youth Raise the Stakes." The Rocky Mountain News. April 25, 1999: lB. 
Reddy, Marisa, et. al. "Evaluating Risk for Targeted Violence in Schools: Compar- 
 ing Risk Assessment, Threat Assessment, and Other Approaches." Psycho-l 
 ogy in the Schools 38.2 (2001): 157-172. 
Ross, Brian. "The Goth Phenomenon" from 20/20, Wednesday, April 21, 1999. 
 <http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/transcripts/2020_ 
 990421_shootings_goth_trans.html> (April 24, 1999). 
Snyder, Robert. "Consider the Littleton Narrative" Anthropology News 41:2, 
 February 2000: 11-12. 
Toppo, Greg. "Schools Tighten Security, Open Ears." Associated Press. March 
 13,2001. 

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