Robinson: Rohrbough mystery shouldn't have been

Published April 18, 2002 at midnight

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Who killed Danny Rohrbough outside Columbine High School three years ago?

And how does that affect the various and sundry lawsuits still pending or up on appeal?

In an investigation full of contradictions and inconsistencies, Danny Rohrbough's death has always seemed to be a case study in uncertainty.

Controversy surrounded the death, even before the May 2000 public release of the "official" Jefferson County report, which concluded that, after Rohrbough had been felled by an Eric Harris gunshot, Dylan Klebold walked down outside stairs and fired the fatal projectile at "close range."

His parents have consistently disputed the idea that their son was killed by Klebold, pointing first to the fact that the only bullet recovered of the three that struck their son was fired from the Hi Point 9 mm carbine rifle wielded by the merciless Eric Harris. Then there were the upward trajectory of the fatal wound and the absence of shell casings from either teen gunman's firearm near Danny's body, proof positive, the parents said, that their son was killed by someone else.

After initial dismissal of their lawsuit, Rohrbough's parents refined "someone else" in court pleadings to mean off-duty Denver SWAT Sgt. Dan O'Shea.

O'Shea and others have disputed that, pointing out that numerous eyewitnesses described seeing Harris and Klebold shoot Rohrbough long before television station videotapes placed the often-decorated O'Shea at the school.

Now, nearly three years and three investigations later, who killed Danny Rohrbough is no longer a mystery, and never should have been.

The investigation conducted by the El Paso County Sheriff's Office -- utilizing the same eyewitnesses and physical evidence as existed before -- has once and for all put the matter to rest, combining irrefutable "time line" radio communications with definitive forensic ballistic proof that it was Eric Harris who killed Rohrbough.

Previously made public were the results of forensic examinations conducted by the CBI on Danny Rohrbough's clothing shortly after the shootings, revealing the absence of gunpowder particles, which was arguably inconsistent with Jeffco's "close range" conclusion.

What "close range" means may vary from expert to expert, but even considering the vagaries of ballistics determinations, the physical evidence never supported Jeffco's version, a reconstruction based in no small part on eyewitness accounts.

During stressful, confusing situations, eyewitnesses can be 100 percent wrong, particularly if they have been subjected to physical trauma.

Ejection patterns from semiautomatic weapons are also anything but precise, and the location of shell casings and bullet fragments can be misleading because both are easily moved or overlooked.

But unarguable are the findings of the El Paso authorities: Dan O'Shea was not at Columbine when Daniel Rohrbough was shot, and has now been completely exonerated by clear-cut ballistic comparisons, which squarely identify the Harris carbine as having been the source of all of Rohrbough's wounds.

All of which will have absolutely no impact on the ultimate resolution of the post-Columbine lawsuits, not even one involving Danny Rohrbough's death itself.

Federal Judge Lewis Babcock ordered dismissal of the Rohrbough suit and most of the other student-based claims based on legal doctrines of duty and immunity, dismissals unaffected by the instrument of young Rohrbough's death.

What Wednesday's revelations do accomplish is to relieve the inherent tension between the Rohrbough claim and those brought on behalf of other students, particularly those shot later in the library. The latter lawsuits basically assert that the police officers at the scene failed to do their jobs by not entering the school immediately and exchanging gunfire with Harris and Klebold.

If Danny Rohrbough really had been the victim of "friendly fire," would not his death have graphically illustrated what might have happened to dozens of other students had the police ignored traditional SWAT-team training and immediately stormed the school, guns ablazing?

At least that seeming contradiction has now been eliminated, beyond all doubt.

Scott Robinson is a Denver trial lawyer specializing in personal injury and criminal defense.

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