Parents file lawsuit to get Columbine investigative report

LITTLETON, Colo.- Saying they have been ''stonewalled'' by authorities, the families of two Columbine High School shooting victims sued Friday to try to force the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office to release its investigative report on the massacre.

The move came six days before the April 20 anniversary of the shootings, which also is the deadline for lawsuits against the sheriff's office and other police officials over the attack that left 15 people dead.

An attorney for the families of Kelly Fleming and Daniel Rohrbough said he will file suit next week whether or not the investigative report is released, but that the report and other materials sought would help shape that legal action.

''The goal is to get to the bottom of what happened out there, and who's responsible for what, and whether anything could have been prevented,'' said lawyer James Rouse. ''My clients are very upset about it. They feel they've been stonewalled for the last six months.''

A hearing was set for Monday on the complaint.

The report is expected to detail what happened on April 20, when Columbine seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold fatally shot 12 students and a teacher, and wounded dozens of others, before killing themselves.

The county attorney's office did not return calls for comment Friday, but later issued a release saying all questions about litigation involving Columbine had to be made in writing. The office then did not respond to faxed inquiries sent by The Associated Press.

Assistant County Attorney Lily Oeffler said Thursday that the release of some of the items could hurt ongoing or future prosecutions, break state privacy laws or cause public harm. She said the long-delayed investigative report on the shootings was still being reviewed for accuracy and would not be released until at least next month.

Rouse took issue with the county attorney's reasoning.

''Last June, my clients were told that the sheriff's department knew what happened,'' he said. ''Now we're being told they're still checking facts.''

Sheriff's officials said last fall they were aiming for a November release of the report. Last month, they announced that it would probably be released in May and that the public would see only an edited version.

Rouse stopped short of accusing the sheriff's office of deliberately delaying the report's release until after the deadline for suits against law enforcement agencies. But he said, ''The timing's certainly suspicious.''

The sheriff's office has been accused of missing warning signs of the attack, and its response to the shootings has been questioned. County attorneys have said they are confident it is not liable for anything that happened.