Students console each other outside Columbine High School on Tuesday

April 21, 1999
Web posted at: 4:53 p.m. EDT (2053 GMT)

(CNN) -- It was one of those defining moments in our televised, digitized, wireless, we-are-there times. Chaos reigned at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, as two students stalked the school in a shooting rampage that would leave an estimated 15 people dead.

And in the middle of the maelstrom came a telephone call -- a student named James had cell-phoned a local television station. He was in a classroom, hiding from the attackers, and he was talking on live television.

"I'm in the classroom, locked doors," James told the news anchors. "It's just really noisy outside. I hear a lot of screaming."

"Have you heard gunshots?" the anchors asked.

"No gunshots, just threats. Guys are yelling out there," James said.

"Do you recognize the voices?"

"No, I don't recognize any of the voices," James said.

MULTIMEDIA

A student named James talks to KUSA news anchors [150k MPEG-3] or [400k WAV] (Courtesy KUSA) A student named Bob expresses his disbelief [35k MPEG-3] or [95k WAV] (Courtesy KMGH)

The anchors then told James he should call 911 and talk to police -- he had called local TV before he had talked to authorities.

It was the first time television had featured an account from someone inside a school that was currently under siege -- a different angle to an unfortunately familiar story that is normally roped off to television audiences.

There were other similar stories -- students hiding somewhere in the school calling their families to let them know they were alright.

Another surreal moment during the tragic day featured a female student talking to a news station on a cell phone, barely able to contain herself as she left the scene. Then, at the end of the interview, she asked the anchors how they got her phone number. The anchors told the student that she had called the station.

Some observers say this new development in a story that has played out before, most recently in school shootings in places like Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, is merely the evolution of burgeoning communication -- cell phones, live reports, cameras, the Internet -- that will one day take us even further inside.

"Now students can call on their cell phones out from a school that is under siege," says Mitchell Stephens of New York University. "Soon they will have cameras with them. We can assume there will be camcorders around the school and we will be getting video transmitted from right inside siege places."

But is that what viewers want -- a real version of "Natural Born Killers," a movie which poked fun at the media for its overbearing coverage of horrific events? And -- the question that is hardest for the media to answer -- is the media contributing to these shootings, giving students the idea to be violent in airing their grievances?

Some media outlets are reacting to the latest shootings in a unique way. The Chicago Sun-Times refused to run the story on its front page, claiming the paper didn't want to "terrify children," the editor said. Instead, coverage of story was placed on pages 2 through 4.

In a front page note to readers, the paper said publicity syurrounding the attacks "could be contributing to the phenomenon."

And it's not limited to news coverage. Just over two weeks ago, the parents of three students killed at Paducah, Kentucky's Heath High School shooting spree announced they were going after the entertainment industry, including the makers of the movie "The Basketball Diaries," which features a scene where a student shoots classmates.

"Natural Born Killers" has been mentioned in shooting crimes, along with many other films.

There will, no doubt, be many opinions, and commentaries about what happened at Columbine High School.

One was already delivered on a cell phone on live TV by a student named Bob, just after he had escaped from the school.

"This is the society in which we live," he said. "We should blame the society in which we live. I just can't believe it's happening to us, in my school."

But it did happen and millions watching around the world heard it.

Correspondent Garrick Utley and Reuters contributed to this report.