February 24, 2016 02:00 PM UTC

What The Hell Is Cynthia Coffman Thinking?!

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Colorado Independent’s Susan Greene reports, GOP Attorney General Cynthia Coffman had a bizarre “Twitter meltdown” last week following the interview of the mother of Dylan Klebold, of one of the perpetrators of the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting:

Ted Zocco-Hochhalter — father of a student who was paralyzed in the 1999 rampage — didn’t know what he’d feel when he learned that Sue Klebold, mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold, was coming forward after 17 years to tell her family’s story.

Ire? Disgust? Outrage?

After having watched Sue Klebold’s interview, Zocco-Hochhalter’s response was yes to all of the above – though not toward Sue Klebold, he notes, but rather toward Coffman for weighing in with comments he describes as “incredibly ignorant and insensitive.”

Here are the Tweets AG Coffman fired off after Sue Klebold’s interview aired:

Concerned for #Columbine HS community – past & present – after irresponsible & inflammatory @ABC20/20 story. #WeAreColumbine!

— CO Attorney General (@COAttnyGeneral) February 13, 2016

Shooter’s mom doesn’t get it. Decision to talk now doesn’t prevent #SchoolShootings. Instead could have very negative consequences. #Selfish

— CO Attorney General (@COAttnyGeneral) February 13, 2016

To which the father of Columbine victim Anne Marie Hochhalter says:

Nonsense, counters Zocco-Hochhalter, who lauds Sue Klebold for her candor about the guilt and responsibility she feels about the shootings her son helped carry out before he fatally turning his gun on himself. Sue Klebold spent much of her “20/20” interview acknowledging that she missed key signs of her son’s depression and urging families to learn how to spot kids’ mental health problems before desperation turns to violence. Those are the main points of her book, “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy,” the proceeds from which she’s donating to mental health causes.

“Here we have an Attorney General’s office publicly criticizing Sue Klebold for talking about mental illness as a factor in school shootings. That’s not only insulting to our intelligence, but it’s also flat-out wrong – showing a remarkable lack of knowledge and professionalism about the issue,” Zocco-Hochhalter tells The Independent.

Coffman’s reaction to ABC’s interview with Sue Klebold is very difficult to understand from just about any professional or even responsible point of view. Of course the story of how she missed warning signs that could have helped prevent the Columbine High School shootings should be told. Of course talking about mental illness is better than concealing it. And above all, seventeen years is long enough to wait to talk about it.

Isn’t it possible that telling her story could prevent another Columbine?

No one we have asked about this story has had a plausible theory for why Coffman would launch into this unprofessional outburst aginst Sue Klebold on her official Twitter account in response to a news magazine show interview. Coffman though her spokesman refused to answer questions, saying the Tweets “speak for themselves.”

That may be true, but they don’t say anything good about Cynthia Coffman.