Colorado’s top law enforcement officer said for the first time Thursday that the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office missed an early opportunity to investigate one of the Columbine killers, a squandered chance that could have prevented the deadly rampage.
Reporting on the preliminary results of a four-month investigation of the sheriff’s department, Attorney General Ken Salazar said deputies should have asked a judge for the right to seek evidence at Eric Harris’ home as they looked for signs he was building pipe bombs a year before the April 20, 1999, shootings.
“There should have been a search warrant executed on the Harris home,” Salazar said.
Current and retired detectives interviewed and quoted in Salazar’s report place much of the blame on former Lt. John Kiekbusch, long the bogeyman of parents who have heaped criticism on the Sheriff’s Office for failing to get the search warrant for Harris’ home, reported the Denver Post.
Link: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~54~1982390,00.html