Original subtitles

foreign

1999 students Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold would embark on a massacre that

would make history

and the name of one Colorado High School

synonymous with tragedy

children were running from the school at

Breakneck speeds and I knew that the

world had changed as the clock ticked

[Applause]

the body count Rose they would pop

underneath a table they would say

something like peekaboo and they would

shoot someone

and with it the question why have these

two young men waged war on their

classmates and teachers a bullet entered

the side of my backpack spun around and

actually shot me in the back and

committed the world's most notorious

Killing Spree what caused them to have

so much hatred they were willing to walk

in and kill as many people as possible

foreign

[Music]

in 1999 the area of Columbine on the

outskirts of Denver Colorado

had been the epitome of ordinary

it's a suburban area

it's pretty quiet not a lot of crime

it's overwhelmingly white middle class

which is to say very homogeneous place

one spring day in 1999 would bring the

unremarkable neighborhood worldwide

notoriety

[Music]

you know April 20th of 99 was it was a

typical day I was eager to get my grades

bumped up because I was I was 15 at the

time so getting a driver's permit was

definitely on the horizon

the morning definitely was just a

regular day just starting my shift I was

an emergency response specialist I just

took regular phone calls to the

Sheriff's Office as well as a 911 phone

calls

normal day we had ran a couple

you know basic calls medical calls

it was just like any other day I went

off to work

I was leaving that day for a conference

in another part of our state

Tom's 15 year old son made his way to

Columbine High School

Daniel was

um very shy kid very shy very reserved

but very sweet

a very lovable kid he was someone who

even as a teenager was not ashamed to

give his mom a big hug

students 16 year old Craig Scott and his

17 year old sister Rachel the morning

had not started harmoniously my sister

was in the car she was honking her horn

uh because I was making us late

and uh I had to have my hair just

perfect

and uh we got into the car together

and she was kind of get on onto me about

being late

and we got into an argument

this is the road that Rachel and I were

on together to go to school

and Rachel would pull into here to drop

me off

she was just asking me not to make us

late all the time and and so we were

kind of back and forth in an argument

and we pulled up to the school

and I got out of the car and I turned

and I looked at her and I slammed the

car door shut

and I walked in the school I had no idea

that'd be the last time that I'd see

Rachel alive

[Music]

around 11 19 A.M

Columbine school

West entrance

Sean Graves and his friend's world was

about to change forever

for lunch there was three of us that day

that chose not to eat

Dean robaugh Lance Kirkland and myself

we stepped out the side door

like we typically would we'd usually

grab a soda at the vending machines

right there and and we'd just jet up and

take the path off only that morning

things were a little different

we were looking up at the top of the

dirt Hill

and we saw two two guys that were

wearing all black they're black trench

coats and with them they were carrying a

couple of black duffel bags

we witnessed them loading weapons

um

that we just assumed were were toys and

that's when it started

they showered us with with rounds and

Dan

and Lance both went down

foreign

above in the library Craig and his

friend Matt were sitting revising

you know we've we thought that we were

hearing uh fireworks

we saw students running away from the

school they were trekking through the

soccer field you know we thought that

you know as a senior prank it's about

that time for the uh the end of the year

for for some silly prank to happen it

was a tradition

but this was no prank

a nightmare that would shock the world

had just begun

at approximately 11 19 a.m on the 20th

of April 1999 a deadly Killing Spree had

began at Columbine High School in

Colorado

outside the school cafeteria

15 year old student Sean Graves and his

friends Dan and Lance were being fired

on by two teenagers dressed in black

trench coats my body was completely

behind a concrete wall so I was

protected

the only thing on me that was sticking

past that was my backpack

a bullet entered the side of my backpack

spun around and actually shot me in the

back and shot out my right hip and at

that moment

um

I lost my legs completely I was

paralyzed from the waist down

immediately

[Music]

what Sean had originally thought was a

prank was far from it

myself laying halfway in the school and

halfway out and at that moment I knew

that my worst nightmare had come true

months possibly years before the

shooting actually took place I had a

reoccurring nightmare of somebody in my

family or even myself

being paralyzed

it didn't make any sense then but the

second I looked back at my legs I

realized that that dream had come true

and I was the one that was going to be

paralyzed

Sean lay in the doorway of the cafeteria

and for hundreds of students inside the

reality of what was happening was

beginning to sink in

all I remember from that moment was just

the fear in their eyes looking at me and

I'm sure I had fear looking back

and that's when the fire alarm went off

and the cafeteria started to evacuate

[Music]

okay guys

[Applause]

[Applause]

over the prior year the two mystery

Shooters had made several extraordinary

videos

foreign

ly similar to the Spree to come

the violent merciless attacks played out

in the videos had now become a reality

the two Shooters walked down to try and

finish off everyone and I watched

um one of the shooters shoot Lance in

the face

at Jefferson County Sheriff's Department

Detective Kate Batten was just returning

from an early lunch

I asked what was going on they said that

there was a shooting at Columbine High

School so at that point I started

driving towards Columbine

and

that's when it became surreal

because the dispatcher was talking about

snipers on the roof they were talking

about bombs exploding

just

astounded that this is information

that's being relayed in Suburban

Littleton

my secretary ran in the door was shut

and she said there's been a report of

shootings or gunfire and bombs explain I

and I'm thinking what are you talking

about I came out of my office and I ran

down here

and as I looked down the corridor I saw

a gunman coming towards me with the

shotgun

when I was staring down and I made

contact it seemed like the size of a

cannon all I kept thinking is what it

was going to feel like

to be shot

you know I thought of my family was I

going to die quickly

each time a bullet was fired from the

gun then glass would chatter behind me

they hear bullets exploding in that area

and what really probably saved my life

is girls coming out of the gymnasium in

this Crossing Hall they were coming into

the crossfire and I wanted to make sure

that they were not hit by the gunman's

gunfire

I ran down to this hallway and I was

able to get the girls into the gymnasium

area

in the hallways yeah

[Music]

six weeks earlier March the 16th 1999.

in the mountains south of Columbine

[Music]

two Shooters recorded another video

this time the weapons were real

both were students at Columbine High

School just weeks away from graduating

seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold

and 18 year old Eric Harris

back no no no

Harris was a young man that was in

advanced classes uh you know he had

dreams of going to the military he was

going to be applied or to enlist in the

Marines

clebolt was a kid who a few weeks prior

had visited one of the state

universities in Arizona so his plan was

to go to college Cleveland was at prom

three nights prior

now both Harris and Klebold seemed

intent on the destruction of the school

and everyone in it

foreign

by 11 27 am the two shooters were in an

area near the library where Craig Scott

and numerous fellow students were

working

we're hearing the uh the firecrackers

we're thinking that it's a prank we're

laughing we're joking about it

um

and then that's when a teacher ran into

the room she ran over to the phone she

got on the phone to call the police

[Music]

rings and and

um you know I had a collar on the other

end of the line who

stated that something was happening at

Columbine High School there was a

student here with a gun yes

children in the library

and she wanted to

obviously you know protect them and take

care of them

she saw the shots happen she knew this

was serious she knew this was real okay

we've got help on the way ma'am okay

okay

I got underneath the table with my buddy

Matt

and then my friend Isaiah he came and he

sat next to me

still lying paralyzed in the cafeteria

doorway fifteen-year-old Sean could do

nothing but listen

I can hear explosions going off upstairs

and I can hear people screaming and I

can hear gunshots just echoing

throughout the school and there's

just chaos everywhere

we're just setting down to lunch

and the tones went off for a reported

possible drive by shooting near

Columbine High School

dinner and I jumped in to the medic unit

and started heading towards Columbine

as we pulled up several students running

by and one young gal had a bullet hole

in her I believe right calf we treated

her

after several minutes shooting and

throwing homemade bombs in the corridor

outside

Harrison Klebold now approached the

library entrance where the teacher was

under the desk on the line to 9-1-1

dispatch I remember trying to get her to

close the doors and lock them to keep

everyone in is there any way you can

block the door so no one can get in I do

not

be afraid to go to the nurse okay it was

trying to keep her calm so that I could

you know figure out what was going on

thank you

[Music]

I'll rip off your goddamn head

Dylan was a family friend of our kids

for a long time he grew up here uh sort

of dealing with her a lot the kids met

each other in the first grade and became

best friends hey what's going on dude

this is Dylan there were never fights a

lot of kids you have to send home after

a while because you know it gets with

boys it was great the three of them got

along great it was a nice gentle young

man

Dylan Klebold was born in Colorado

and at the time of the shooting was

living in his parents Designer Home in a

desirable natural area just outside the

town

parents their intellectuals and artists

at heart they had met at Ohio State

University uh in the art program they

didn't believe in spanking

they didn't believe in guns they didn't

believe in more they were pacifists

Eric Harris's background was also far

from underprivileged

Eric's father was ex-military he was a

decorated uh air force test pilot it

required them to bounce around a bit

from City to city as his father would

get transferred but lived in normal

middle class neighborhoods not living in

the inner city and subject to gangs or

drugs or violence

it did affect Eric however always having

to move to another school

make new friends again

that was tough for him

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were both

deeply into computers and both

complained they were victims of bullying

by sporty students known as jocks ah

after settling in the Columbine area

Harris became friends with Klebold and

as such also hung out with Dylan's

friend Brooks Brown

but it would not always be a smooth

relationship

the throne a snowball that works his car

and cracked the windshield and a kid

came up and said here's Eric's backpack

I took it while he was throwing the

Snowballs so I'm thinking what's this

I'm going to take the backpack back so

we drove down in the car and I rolled

down the window and I said to Eric I've

got your backpack meet me at your mom's

house and we rolled back up the window

while he started banging on the window

crazy saying give me my backpack he was

frantic

that was the first time I saw that anger

and it was very unusual it was it was

quick and it was fast and it was

unrelenting I will freaking tell you I'm

gonna pull out a goddamn shotgun

the 20th of April 1999.

11 29 am

Columbine High School

western side

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered

the library where four staff members and

52 students were hiding

as soon as they came in they were

shooting off their guns they began to

yell at students they were making some

mocking comments

nobody whatever their race sex or social

status would be safe from The Killing

Spree

the first person that they killed was

Kyle Velasquez

who didn't know to hide

he had a disability and he likes simple

things his family said he liked panda

bears he liked coloring and they became

the bully

what would happen next in that Library

would horrify the world

[Music]

throughout 1998 and early 99

Columbine High School students Eric

Harris

and Dylan Klebold

had made a number of Home Videos themed

around violence

on April the 20th just weeks before they

were both due to graduate

fantasy became reality

at 11 29 am they entered the library

[Music]

like his fellow students

sixteen-year-old Craig Scott was hiding

under a table with his friends Matt and

Isaiah

a lot of students were were being were

being quiet some girls were crying and

some girls were begging for their life

9-1-1 dispatcher Renee Napoli was

listening into a phone line left open at

the library desk

I could hear

them speaking as well as the children in

the library

and I there was the the definite sound

of gunshots

they actually fired out the windows at

the police officers and two of those

police officers or Deputy sheriffs fired

back they then walked over and they

started systematically shooting the kids

they

treated it like it was a game

uh like they were having fun at one

point they would pop underneath a table

they would say something like peekaboo

and they would shoot someone

I think that they were enjoying

themselves through a good portion of the

shooting there was a lot of hooting and

hollering and and uh

um false bravado between the two of them

three would be shot dead and four

injured

before Harris and clebold worked their

way towards Craig Scott they came over

to where I was and they saw Isaiah

and Isaiah was one of the very few

African-American students in our school

and I believed Dylan called Eric over

and using a racial slur we have an

n-word over here at one point he was

kind of backing up underneath the table

and then they were one point he was

being

pulled out and this is something that

came up in my memory later I remember

Isaiah said I want to see my mom

they shot isaam and then they turned

their gun towards Matt and they shot

Matt

I had decided to pretend to be dead

and not draw any attention to myself and

so I

um

I laid there and I could hear their last

breaths being taken

[Music]

five more students would lose their

lives leaving ten dead and 12 injured in

the deadly libraries spree

before Harris and clebow left the room

at 11 36 am

began wreaking further Havoc around the

school

s

SWAT sniper Sean Duggan was one of

several Law Enforcement Officers with

children at the school

I got a page and it said all SWAT

respond to a critical incident so I have

all my gear and I'm trying to call my

daughter and she's not answering her

page and she was a senior in the school

that day so I'm a little frantic that

she's not responding

hundreds of emergency Personnel were

flocking to the school

there was ambulances and fire trucks and

police cars and and sheriff's cars

parked everywhere and children were

running from the school at Breakneck

stage as fast as they could

I was running for my life

and when I got behind the police car

I couldn't help but be thinking about

Matt and Isaiah

because they they were there were still

there was still a little bit of

breathing and I felt

I felt a little

like a coward

[Music]

I was under a table and people were

getting shot all around me

overwhelming to see the emotion on these

kids faces and I knew that the world had

changed

there's so many people oh my God

everybody was calling 9-1-1 from inside

the school from outside the school so

the information that we were getting was

conflicting as a sniper you ask what

your Rules of Engagement are is this a

deadly force situation and I was told if

any any High School age kids come out in

Black trench coats with weapons they

were to be shot

the confusion the name of one suspect

began to trickle out

okay

[Music]

it would be revealed that Eric Harris's

Behavior had already been seriously

worrying some people

hey Eric did let out a different lot of

signs he had on his uh his website

talking about how we wanted to kill all

sorts of people hundreds of people

wanted to kill everybody in Denver

um and a particular Brooks Brown his

former friend

disputes like the incident with the

broken windshield had put Brown on

Harris's hit list

Brooks was Foster pick Eric up for

school

and Brooks was terrible with being on

time and Burke slept in and didn't pick

him up and that was it that was it and I

said to Brooks can you smooth it over

and Brooke said it doesn't work that way

with Eric and so that was the indication

Eric doesn't forgive he was an injustice

collector Dylan who was still friends

with and had been lifelong friends with

uh Brooks Ward Brooks uh to go to a

website and see what was going on

he was posting threats about uh wanting

to kill Brooks and that's the thing we

took to the police

and from when he started making the

death threats he wasn't allowed in our

house anymore we knew that Eric was

dangerous we did not know Dylan when we

turned him into the police Eric was into

pipe bombs and he was talking about it

on his website it was actually a search

warrant drawn up

um but then was never taken before a

judge to search Eric's house

um that was never followed up on because

there was another series of murders in

the town where the person investigating

sort of went off that case for a while

and never picked it up again

decks but Harrison klebold's plan

involved something much worse than

homemade pipe bomb grenades as Sean

Graves still paralyzed and bleeding half

inside the cafeteria door was about to

experience I started hearing the

gunshots getting closer and that's when

I realized that they were coming down

the stairs in the cafeteria they just

kept getting closer and closer and

closer

and I started hearing

explosions

but every time there was a shot and then

one of those larger

booms went off I flinched

Harris and klebold's killing spree had

not just been planned as a shooting

before they had opened fire that morning

they had placed two large explosive

devices in the canteen

they had been timed to explode at 11 17

am

and the two students had planned to wait

outside to pick off any survivors

fleeing the scene

Eric Harris had even gone so far as to

study how many people were in the

cafeteria at any given time during the

lunch hour so he set those bombs to go

off when he would have the mass casualty

approximately 450 is what he was

estimating and we had 455 kids down

there

the bomb's timers had not worked which

is why Harris and Klebold have begun

their Killing Spree with their guns

however they'd not given up on their

dream of blowing up the school

well I didn't know it at the time there

was actually a propane

canister bomb essentially that was no

more than five feet from where I was

laying and they were shooting at it

trying to get the bomb to go off

their new attempts to detonate the bombs

only succeeded in a relatively small

partial explosion and Fire

but they were a sign of a highly planned

premeditated suicide mission

these two students did not just snap in

this case it was clear they began

talking about doing something like this

just about a little over a year

before Eric Harris's first entry in his

journal in his notebook is April 10 1998

the first words I read I think kind of

set the tone and it was I hate the

effing world

you know he's not talking about hitting

jocks he's not talking about

um you know any kind of particular group

later he makes fun of just about

everybody people who drive too slow in

the fast lane people who say a cross

instead of a cross or you know

mispronounced words you know

any trivial thing you know there's

there's nothing too trivial for Eric to

have contempt for you

Dylan also had a lot of writings and

notes that he left his centered around

his emotions his feelings he clearly

stated he was depressed he clearly

stated that his his life was a mess

Dylan's Journal went on for two years

and the very first page he talks about

killing himself

he had a miserable perception of himself

and often it complete odds with reality

he was in my mind a classic adolescent

depressive or going through an

adolescent depressive episode when

confronted with some of his

inappropriate behavior he would get

extremely angry whereas when people

confronted Eric with some of his earlier

misbehaviors he would respond in a

classic Psychopathic way he would tell

you what you wanted to hear promised

never to do it again and would be

looking in the eyes and deliberately

telling you what he thought you wanted

to hear

Harris had a personality disorder that

made him uh lacking in empathy for the

suffering of victims made him very

manipulative and crafty you know he had

a uncanny ability to present himself any

way he wanted so he looked like a good

guy to many people but actually he

didn't have a conscience or what Sigmund

Freud called his superego

Brooks Brown's mother experienced Eric's

excuses when his father sent him around

to apologize for damaging her son's

windscreen

he looked at me and he said Mrs Brown

I'm sorry I didn't mean any harm and I

said look Eric you can pull the wool

over everyone's eyes but you're not

going to do it over my night you come by

this house you threaten my kid you do

damage I'm going to call the police so

you stay away from our house and stay

away from me and he said are you calling

me a liar and I said yes I am

and don't come around the house again

and he got bright red I mean he was so

angry at me and he left the house

together Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

had become a deadly partnership

and the two killers were now wreaking

havoc not only inside the school but

outside too

as parents feared for the fate of their

children

about the time I got to my sniper

position my phone rang and it was my

daughter and I said are you okay she's

yeah I'm home and I said okay I have to

go I love you and we hung up

many parents including Daniel mauser's

father learned of the unfolding events

through the media they're in on the

television was news coverage

it looked terrible

but

I said to myself well if there's

something going wrong at the school

certainly my son wouldn't be involved

he was not somebody who'd be

in trouble or

being targeted by somebody

when I got home

my wife had a very concerning look on

her face

why wasn't he calling us

[Music]

so I agreed to go to another school

where a number of the students were

being taken in school buses after they

escaped and as I was driving I was

listening to the news coverage

and at one point I heard them mention

that they were taking some students to

the hospital and one of the ones they

mentioned was a 15 year old boy

who was shot

so of course the first thing I thought

was 15 years old that's how old Daniel

is what if that's Daniel could that be

my son

at the nearby Elementary School many

parents would be reunited with their

traumatized kids

I saw parents walking out with children

and I just said to myself I want to be

one of them I want to get this over with

I want to be one of those people

by 1202 PM Columbine High School

cafeteria exit student Sean Graves

bleeding profusely had passed out

meanwhile two medic units approached his

location I drove around the South Side

as we're pulling into the parking lot

through all the cars see several

students hiding behind cars several

deputies with their weapons trained on

the building

I couldn't figure out what woke me up

but when I did snap back to it there was

some commotion behind me and as I

overlooked my shoulder that there was an

ambulance sitting right behind me I saw

two paramedics

one jumped out of the driver's seat and

the other from the back of the ambulance

and they grabbed me picked me up by my

shirt and my belt and they were dragging

me out and I remember just looking down

to see my arms and my legs dangling

and that's when the shooters realized

that somebody was down there helping us

and I could see the concrete just poofs

of white dust they were they were

opening fire on us they were trying to

kill us again

holed up amongst the dead and injured in

the library Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold now had their weapons trained on

the paramedics and casualties below

foreign

by 1202 pm on the 20th of April 1999

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have been

running a muck in Columbine High School

for more than 40 minutes

leaving a trail of dead and injured in

their wake

then as fire department paramedics moved

in to assist casualties like Sean Graves

and his friends

Harris and Klebold began firing on the

kids and Rescuers

and I found medic 13's crew were

struggling to get Sean Graves loaded up

into the medic unit so I came up in the

middle of him and one had the head the

other had the feet and we stepped into

the ambulance they threw me in first

saw another young man laying by the

fence and and he turned his head and

made eye contact with me and said help

me

I scooped open and dumped the young man

literally into the back of the ambulance

so that they could get out of the

gunfire

I just remember hearing that the sounds

of bullets hitting the top of the

ambulance just the metal tinging

and that's uh I'll take that away from

all of that as being a sound that I'll

never forget

[Music]

it would be among the last acts of

Harris and klebold's killing spree

they were shooting at the cops they were

taking pot shots and police were firing

back I think they realized the only

Escape

was going to be into the long arm of the

law and a prosecution in jail and prison

and I think there was a thought of let's

end this the way we want it to end let's

control our own destiny

at around 1208 PM Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold took their own lives

but for the children of Columbine High

School and their parents the nightmare

was far from over

kids would leave Columbine and they

would be placed on a bus and reunified

with their parents

and as the night went on

buses were not arriving and there were

still parents left

after nothing happening for a while they

informed us that

there was one last school bus that was

coming

one last school bus with students

but for some desperate parents Clinging

On To The hope that their children would

return

there was to be no happy ending later on

[Music]

the authorities

confirmed to us that they made a

terrible mistake

there was no last school bus

at the

the end of the day we had

13 innocent people killed which were 12

students and and one teacher in addition

Harrison clayball also did uh by

apparent suicide in the library so we

knew we had 15

fatalities most of the fatalities in the

library

for Craig Scott who had suffered the

trauma of having his friends murdered

beside him in the library there was

worse to come

when he learned of the fate of his

sister

Rachel was the first one that was killed

and she had been killed right outside

the school library

and I realized that when I ran out of

the school I had ran right by Rachel

and

[Music]

my son was one of the last that was shot

he was next to last who was shot

and from the reports that we have

Eric Harris

looked at Daniel and insulted him I

believe it was he called him four eyes

because he wore glasses

and he fired a shot that went into

Daniel's hand

Daniel fought back

he

took the chair that was there and he

pushed it

towards Eric Harris

and for that he paid with his life

Eric Harris fired one more time

and shot him in the face

killed him

so what caused these two students both

just weeks away from graduating to have

such disdain for human life

these two kids did not come out of their

mother's womb hating

what happened from the time they were

born to the time that they carried out

this horrific act one thing that is

erroneous is to talk about why they did

this implying that it was for the same

reasons they were two basically

different guys in my colloquialisms I

would say Eric Harris was

filled with anger with rage he wanted to

hurt other people and didn't care if he

died Dylan on the other hand I believe

was hurting inside

and in various times wanted to die

because he felt so bad he just saw no

reason to keep on living

people who study these called them dyads

and you know there's a long history of

Bonnie and Clyde Leopold and Loeb and

very often most often you have a

stronger person a weaker person in this

case um

Dylan had incredibly low self-esteem

needed somebody to validate him make him

feel good about himself

[Music]

some consider bullying at the school to

be the primary factor

once you hate the bullies and no one

does anything to defend you you hate the

people in the class that don't say

anything you hate the teacher that

doesn't say anything you hate the

counselors that allow it to happen they

in in essence end up hating the school

not just the bullies they hate the

school and they want to kill the school

I think that they didn't see

that they had a lot going for them

they became isolated and that isolation

and then exposure to a lot of negative

influences in their life that they chose

to focus on

I think really took them towards a

darker and darker place

Harris was the dominant person who

inspired the Columbine massacre and I

think clebo went along to get along it

was that chemistry that created this

insane circumstance where they were able

to kill lots of people uh with moral

impunity

for the Columbine teachers students

and parents

life would never be the same again

I was paralyzed from the waist down

spent

um

months in the hospital

they didn't foresee me ever walking

again

and I I was angry I was very angry about

that but at the same time I'm extremely

stubborn

so

I didn't let that be the end of it I

made a goal

for myself to walk across the stage at

graduation I wanted to be able to

graduate knowing that I didn't let those

two

control my life I didn't let them ruin

my life

and I've actually been walking ever

since

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for 9-1-1 dispatcher Renee Napoli who

listened as 10 children were murdered in

the library

the enormity of what she'd heard soon

hit home my first day off

I went to pick up my children from high

school

and I

had a

had a really hard time picking at my own

children from high school

so much so that my son had to drive home

and that's when it really hit me

is that I'm I'm able to pick up my

children from high school and somebody

else is not able to do that

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the words that we have here were written

by my wife she did a great job of

summing up Daniel's life and what this

means to us to have

to have this here

to honor him

wow

foreign

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