Columbine parent visits Virginia to offer support

Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, April 20, 2007

Michael Shoels will have a working anniversary today at Virginia Tech to commemorate the shootings there and at Columbine.

Eight years after his son, Isaiah, was killed at Columbine High School, Shoels is traveling to Blacksburg, Va., hoping to talk to school and law enforcement officials about profiling school killers and helping the victims' families heal.

"I want to be there to give my condolences to the families because I know how they feel," Shoels said Thursday as he sat on a plane. "I know what's going on."

Shoels stressed the need for the open release of information so that law enforcement, schools and the public can head off future killings.

"How can you troubleshoot something if you're hiding it and covering it up?" Shoels asked.

Shoels will be accompanied by spokesman Sam Riddle, who has represented the Shoels family since the April 20, 1999, Columbine shootings.

Riddle cited the extensive "basement tapes" made by Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, which were shown briefly to the media, Columbine families and some law enforcement officials but are otherwise closed to public review.

"We see what not to do - how evidence that could save lives is being hoarded in secrecy by law enforcement in Colorado," Riddle said Thursday. "That may well have saved lives in Virginia."

Shoels will visit the campus, but Riddle said it may not be appropriate to meet with victims' families while they are so early in the grieving process.

For Shoels, though, Virginia Tech was the only place to be.

"It's hard to keep sitting down and being quiet," he said. "I thought maybe someone would come up with an answer, and it hasn't happened."

Shoels also hopes to restart a national tour to head off youth violence. He plans to include his own story of loss as he speaks at schools and juvenile correctional facilities.

"This is real," Shoels said this week from Houston, where he now lives. "These kids are dying. These kids are never going home. We'll put it in their face."

Shoels and his wife, Vonda, toured the country speaking out against violence after the Columbine shootings. He hopes to do that type of work again through his nonprofit organization, Let's Stomp Out Hate (www.letsstompouthate.org).

kassj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2406