Tape Suggests Alternate Columbine Scenario

Jan. 3 -- The father of a teen killed during the massacre at Columbine High School is going public with a tape he claims suggests a police cover-up in the death of his son.

On the tape, played in part this morning on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America, an Arapahoe County, Colo., sheriff's deputy seems to give an account of 15-year-old Daniel Rohrbough's death that is at odds with the long-standing official police version and a new police statement released Monday.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. — whose department was one of several that responded to the April 20, 1999, shootings at the high school in Littleton in Jefferson County — denied knowing of any cover-up. He said he has placed Deputy Jim Taylor on administrative leave while he investigates the differences between the comments on the tape and a statement Taylor gave to investigators.

"I firmly believe there is no cover-up in the Columbine investigation," Sullivan said today. "I am deeply troubled by the comments of Jim Taylor that could have misled the Rohrboughs, and we're investigating the contents of the tape and Taylor's role at Columbine."

‘I See Him Just Fall Down’

The official version of events found that Daniel Rohrbough died after being shot by one of the two student gunmen. Ballistic reports were inconclusive.

On the tape, a speaker — who Daniel's father, Brian Rohrbough, claims is Taylor — said he saw Daniel Rohrbough "drop" on a sidewalk while fleeing the shooting spree inside the school.

"When I come around … kids were still running out of the building," the voice on the tape said. "And you could hear glass breaking and you could see kids running everywhere and that's when I see the boy coming down the sidewalk, you know, and I see him just fall down."

On another part of the tape, the speaker said he learned from a newspaper photograph the following day that the boy he saw fall was Rohrbough.

However, in a four-page statement to police last week, Taylor said: "During my assignment, I didn't hear or see any gunfire or see Daniel Rohrbough get shot."