Shoot first: Columbine tragedy transformed police tactics

GOLDEN, Colorado (AP) — The first officers on the scene had never trained for what they found at Columbine High School: No hostages. No demands. Just killing.

In the hours that followed, Americans watched in horror as the standard police procedure for dealing with shooting rampages in the U.S. proved tragically, heartbreakingly flawed on April 20, 1999.

10 YEARS LATER: Myths debunked, the real story behind Columbine

Two officers exchanged fire with one of the teenage gunmen just outside the school door, then stopped — as they had been trained to do — to wait for a specially trained elite police team. During the 45 minutes it took for the elite team to assemble and go in, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot 10 of the 13 people they killed that day.

The killers committed suicide around the time the makeshift elite team finally entered. But the elite officers took several hours more to secure the place, moving methodically from room by room. One of the wounded, teacher Dave Sanders, slowly bled to death.

"It was really frustrating," said Marjorie Lindholm, a grief counselor and speaker at police training seminars. Lindholm was a 16-year-old student in a science classroom where two classmates used their T-shirts to try to stanch Sanders' bleeding. "We were told 'They're on their way, they're coming."'

Ten years later, Columbine has transformed the way police in the U.S. deal with shooting rampages.

After the tragedy, police across the country developed "active-shooter" training. It calls for responding officers to rush toward gunfire and step over bodies and bleeding victims, if necessary, to stop the gunman — the active shooter — first.

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