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Reynolds is not a popular figure among the adults at the apartment complex. In an environment where many of the teens desperately need a father figure, Reynolds instead plays the role of older brother, horsing around with the credulous younger boys. He took Williams and Stevens paintball shooting--friends said they called themselves the Terror Squad and went downtown in San Diego to aim at drunks, though Reynolds said they only looked for paper targets. Still, he concedes, "Sure, sometimes I don't always give them the best advice."
On the Saturday before the shootings, Williams, Stevens and some other friends were hanging out at Stevens' apartment. Williams had been silent earlier in the evening, as the boys sat around a small bonfire in another friend's driveway. "He was in his own little world, staring off into space," says Stevens. Later, though, he opened up about his Columbine plan. Reynolds later caught wind of the conversation: "They were in the living room all Saturday night. I heard he was going to go to school and start shooting people. I had the smallest little details. I asked him if it was true, and he said no, he was just joking around."
Stevens and Williams had also discussed stealing one of their parents' cars and driving down to the border to find a new life in Mexico. Others started goading Williams. "They talked him into it," says Stevens. "Two people said, 'Oh, yeah, just like you're running away to Mexico. You're a pussy. You won't do it.' But they were trying to get him to."
On Monday morning, Williams smoked a joint with some friends at an apartment complex on Carefree Drive. Then he hung out with Shaun Turk, John Fields and Mike Wolfe outside "the Jack"--the Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant across from the school. The only unusual thing was that Williams told them, "I got to leave when it is 9:06." Says Turk: "We usually never leave the Jack until 9:15." Analisha Welbaum saw Williams there on her way to class and said he was "really calm; he wasn't shaking; he wasn't stuttering." Minutes later, she was walking across the school courtyard when she heard gunshots. "I looked down the hallway and saw him--he was about 100 feet away--and he turned and looked me in the eye. Then he turned around and shot some others."
Last week police were saying little about their investigation into what Williams' friends and associates knew or did not know in advance about the shooting. They have questioned many who knew Williams, including Stevens and Reynolds. Reynolds says, "It's being reported I am the one to blame for this. I can blame myself. But other people knew way before I did." Kristin Anton, the chief deputy district attorney in charge of the case, said two days after the shooting there were no plans to charge anyone else in the affair. But late last week, Reynolds and Stevens each hired criminal-defense lawyers. Stevens' attorney denies that his client was involved in the shootings.