Tape points to cop's 'lie', says Columbine mom

Families want federal grand jury to investigate shootings, get to truth

Kevin Vaughan, News Staff Writer

Published January 3, 2002 at midnight

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Four Columbine families on Wednesday called for a federal investigation into the school tragedy after playing tape recordings that seemed to contradict the statements this week of a law officer at the scene.

The latest dispute revolves around Arapahoe County sheriff's deputy Jim Taylor, who contended this week that he never told the family of Daniel Rohrbough that he saw the boy die outside the school and that he did not see anyone get shot on April 20, 1999.

"For him now to come out and say he never said any of these things and he never witnessed any of these things is a bald-faced lie," Sue Petrone, Daniel Rohrbough's mother, said after playing the recordings.

She and other family members asked that a federal grand jury be convened to look into Columbine, the worst school shooting in U.S. history.

Taylor, who is on administrative leave while Arapahoe County sheriff's officials investigate the matter, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

Taylor's involvement in the Columbine tragedy came to light on Dec. 26 when Rohrbough's family filed papers in federal court naming Denver police Sgt. Dan O'Shea as his killer. Rohrbough's family had long alleged that a law officer -- not Columbine killers Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold -- had fired the bullet that killed the 15-year-old, but they hadn't named anyone until last week.

O'Shea has denied the allegation. Jefferson County sheriff's officials maintain that Daniel was killed in the first moments of the attack by Harris or Klebold before law officers arrived at the scene.

The papers were filed as the Rohrboughs and the families of four other students who died at Columbine tried to revive their lawsuits against Jefferson County authorities, which had been dismissed a month before.

In the papers, the families attributed statements made to them by Taylor as part of the basis for naming O'Shea in the lawsuit.

On Monday, Arapahoe County Sheriff Pat Sullivan disputed the account in the lawsuit, issuing a press release that contended Taylor had given a written statement in which he denied even being on the south side of the school -- where Rohrbough died -- on April 20, 1999.

Wednesday afternoon, Rohrbough's parents held a press conference and played sections of an audiotape they said was made in early 2000. The tape was made at the home of Rohrbough's mother and step-father, Sue and Rich Petrone, and they and other family members said the other voices on the recording belong to Taylor and his wife, Pam Taylor.

"What I seen was a boy coming down the sidewalk you know, kind of running, you know, a fast trot, but there was 20 or 30 other kids around, you know, I don't even know the

number," Jim Taylor reportedly said in one section of the tape. "They were just running in mass chaos and I seen a boy drop and that's. . .and that's. . .I don't know who it was."

Rich Petrone then asked if the boy was Daniel.

"It was Dan," the voice said to be the deputy's replied, "and I didn't know that until I seen the photo the next morning in the newspaper that it was the boy that I seen."

The first time Rohrbough's family knew for certain that he had died was on April 21, 1999, when they saw a photograph in the Rocky Mountain News taken from a helicopter that showed the boy's body on a sidewalk. Up to that point, they feared the worst because Daniel hadn't come home, but they had not been told by any authorities that he had died.

Also on the tape presented Wednesday, the voice said to be Taylor's can be heard talking about pulling into the Columbine parking lot.

"Kids were running out of the building and you know, you could hear glass breaking, you could see kids running everywhere and that's when I see the boy coming down the sidewalk you know, and I see him just fall down. That's the first thing I told Pam was that, you know, I seen some kid get shot."

At that point, according to the tape, Pam Taylor interjected: "He did, no kidding, he walked in that night and he says, 'I just, I'll never get rid of this,' he goes, 'seeing this.' And he said, 'This kid reminded me of (our son).' "

On another section of tape, Jim Taylor said he remembered "a Denver cop or a Lakewood cop off to my left-hand side."

Taylor later said his commanders were calling him to get to the east side of the building, so he went over there.

Sue Petrone said Taylor probably did not know that he was being recorded when the conversation occurred at her kitchen table. She and other family members said they began routinely taping their conversations with officials after being lied to by investigators.

At the press conference, two Arapahoe County officials handed out copies of Taylor's four-page, handwritten statement, which was made on Monday.

In it, he said he told Rohrbough's family only what he had seen on television or in the newspaper.

"Regarding being a witness to the Columbing shooting and standing next to a Denver officer while he shot (that is not true) the only things that were stated to Rohrbough family by me was seen on TV or reported in the newspaper," the statement said. "I'm sorry for their loss. It is not true that I saw Daniel Rohrbough get shot or any other person."

Rohrbough's father, Brian Rohrbough, said Taylor told him essentially the same story the day after Columbine.

"Jim was visibly shaken," Rohrbough said. "There was really no doubt in my mind that he believed what he said.

"We're providing this tape to prove that we not only had the meeting but that this evidence is credible."

Jim Taylor was a longtime friend of the Rohrbough family who babysat Daniel when he was a young boy.

Sullivan said he hopes to meet with the Rohrbough family and listen to a copy of the entire conversation.

"We're very interested in the context of each of those statements and what really was going on there," Sullivan said.

Taylor, he said, is the subject of an internal affairs investigation that will be focused on determining what he said in the statement on Monday and whether it is contradicted by the tape recordings.

Taylor has been with the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department Office since 1988.

"He's a very good deputy," Sullivan said.

On hand with the Rohrbough family at Wednesday's press conference were parents of three other students who were slain at Columbine: Lauren Townsend's mother and step-father, Dawn Anna and Bruce Beck; Kelly Fleming's father, Don Fleming; and Matt Kechter's father, Joe Kechter.

They are all part of the Rohrbough lawsuit, which alleges, among other things, that Jefferson County sheriff's officials didn't do enough to investigate a March 1998 report that Eric Harris was building bombs and threatening mass death and that they didn't do enough on April 20, 1999, to save students at the school.

"The rest of us, we're looking for the truth," Don Fleming said. "We want to find out what happened that day."

Dawn Anna said she believes a federal investigation is the only way to get answers.

"I've reached my limit," she said. "I've never asked for anything but the truth. I'm still waiting for it.

"I dropped my daughter off at school on April 20. The next time I saw her, five days later, I didn't even recognize her."

Contact Kevin Vaughan at (303) 892-5019 or vaughank@RockyMountainNews.com.

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