Sheriff fails to testify about Columbine shootings

GOLDEN, Colo. - The sheriff accused of mishandling the Columbine High School shootings did not show up to testify before a governor's commission investigating the rampage.

Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone, who has been named in nine lawsuits filed by 15 families of Columbine victims, did not testify Thursday on the advice of county attorney Frank Hutfless.

Instead, the commission heard from several other officers who defended the police response to the April 20, 1999 shootings. Among them was Arvada police chief Ron Sloan, who was not at Columbine.

''Stone should have been testifying here, not some police chief who wasn't even at Columbine,'' said Randy Brown, one of the leaders of a recall effort against Stone.

Brown and his wife contend Stone's department failed to follow up on their complaint in 1998 about a Web site on which one of the gunmen, Eric Harris, threatened their son.

''This is the greatest police failure in the history of the United States. If they (commissioners) reach any other conclusion than that, then it's a whitewash,'' he said.

Commission Chairman William Erickson, a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, said he will try to change Stone's mind.

Officers who testified Thursday said their job was made harder by the gunmen's determination to kill as many people as they could. Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

''It broke the rules of police response, because for some unknown reason, with no apparent motive ... their purpose was to exact as much loss of life as humanly possible,'' Sloan said.