Steven Curnow, The Youngest Of The Columbine Shooting Victims
Daniel Mauser Memorial WebsiteSteven Curnow was the youngest Columbine shooting victim to be killed during the massacre.
Steven Curnow — the youngest Columbine shooting victim at 14 years old — was a normal teenage boy. Born on August 28, 1984, he liked playing soccer and basketball, playing video games, and eating “just about anything.”
“My favorite color is green because it is the color of the [soccer] field,” Curnow wrote in an autobiographical brochure a few months before his death, as reported by The Denver Post. “My favorite place is the soccer field because I am feared as a player and respected as a ref. I take all my anxiety [out] on the ball and the whistle, and it is good exercise.”
By April 1999, Curnow was most excited about the upcoming premiere of Star Wars I: the Phantom Menace, which would happen about a month later on May 19, 1999. But, tragically, the 14-year-old wouldn’t live to see it.
On the day of the massacre, he went to the library during the lunch period and sat down at a computer table by a window. At around 11:30 a.m., Columbine teacher Patti Nielson — who had just encountered the gunmen — screamed at the students in the library to “stay on the floor!” as she urgently spoke with a 911 dispatcher about the school shooting.
YouTubeTeacher Patti Nielson called 911 during the massacre, which captured the final moments of several Columbine victims.
Just moments later, Harris and Klebold entered the library. Ordering the students to stand up — no one did — they started to move through the library looking for victims. Shortly after Klebold killed Kyle Velasquez, Harris shot Curnow in the neck, murdering him too.
Curnow’s death left a gaping hole in his family. At his funeral, his loved ones remembered how he’d always jump up and slap the family’s wind chimes as he came and went. After his death, the chimes were silent.
