A Mirror article on April 18, 2019, two days shy of the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colo., focused on the emotional toll on police, especially members of a particular SWAT team, who responded to the human carnage that terrible day.

“On the 20th anniversary of Columbine,” the article said, “the effects of trauma experienced by law enforcement authorities who respond to school shootings are still largely unknown. Experts say agencies are reluctant to let researchers interview officers and dredge up potentially painful memories.”

Regarding the SWAT team in question, the article went on to say, “amid the emotional toll of the experience, the Jefferson County Regional SWAT team began to fall apart. By 2002, only three members of the 10-person team remained. The others were reassigned or left the department.”

Now, 25 years after that dreadful day, it is safe to say there still are many

unanswered questions about the healing processes Columbine officers — and the officers who have responded to the many other mass killings before and since then — have fared in the aftermath of what they experienced during their incidents.

One thing is clear: What they witnessed would give most people nightmares, or else be the cause of numerous sleepless nights.

Law enforcement authorities who are able to continue their police service after such incidents are a special breed that merit the appreciation and respect of their communities. Meanwhile, one can only speculate what individual survivors of Columbine continue to feel deep inside about that horrific day a quarter-century ago.

Likewise, judging from the number of school shootings and other mass killings since Columbine, many of today’s young people might lack a broad understanding of how much fear and trauma that incident inflicted on this nation. They also might lack much understanding of how that incident seemed to portend more multiple deaths would be forthcoming at the hands of murderers obviously having no fear of the possibility of an afterlife of punishment.

On April 20-21, 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported on its analysis of information about nearly three dozen mass shootings that had taken place at schools since 1990.

“School shooters typically plan their attacks weeks or months in advance, usually telling someone or hinting at coming violence,” the Journal report indicated. “Most feel bullied or left out and are seeking revenge. Many have easy access to guns and are fascinated by mass shooters. Many are suicidal or ready to die during their attacks.”

The Columbine shooters, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, were reported as having been consistent with those characteristics. They killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 others before shooting themselves in the Columbine High School library.

The May 3, 1999, issue of Newsweek recounted the massacre this way: “For a few horrific hours … the school outcasts finally had all the power — and they wielded it without mercy or reason. As scores of students … barricaded themselves in classrooms and closets, praying for deliverance, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold casually decided which of their classmates should live and which should die.”

There was no shame that police and other first responders were injured emotionally by what they saw and otherwise experienced that tragic day.