School Shooting in Colorado Leaves 1 Student Dead and 7 Injured
HIGHLANDS
RANCH, Colo. — Last month, as the 20th anniversary of the Columbine
High School shooting approached, STEM School Highlands Ranch joined
hundreds of schools near Denver in closing temporarily amid security
concerns. The anniversary came and went, and schools returned to their
routines.
But on Tuesday afternoon,
the STEM school’s worst fears were realized when eight of its students
were shot, one fatally, and two fellow students were being held as
suspects.
“We know two individuals
walked into the STEM school, got deep inside the school and engaged
students in two separate locations,” Sheriff Tony Spurlock of Douglas
County said at a news conference.
At
6:45 p.m., about five hours after the shooting, the Douglas County
Sheriff’s Office released a statement confirming that one of the eight
who had been shot, an 18-year-old man, had died.
Sheriff
Spurlock said the suspects, who were armed with a handgun and other
weapons, confronted law enforcement officers when they arrived. He said
the suspects, one adult and one juvenile, were not injured.
“I
can tell you that there were shots fired,” he said. “Our officers went
in and engaged the suspects. We did struggle with the suspects to take
them into custody.”
Sheriff Spurlock said neither suspect had been on law enforcement’s radar before the shooting and that the motive was unknown.
The sheriff said he would not release details about the injured students, their ages or their injuries on Tuesday night.
Students
who were not injured were taken to Northridge Recreation Center in
Highlands Ranch, where hundreds of anxious parents gathered to look for
their children on Tuesday afternoon.
Law enforcement officers directed parents who were picking up their children from Northridge Recreation Center after the shooting
“I
heard a gunshot,” said Makai Dixon, 8, a second grader who had been
training for this moment, with active shooter drills and lockdowns,
since he was in kindergarten. “I’d never heard it before.”
Makai’s parents said they joined thousands of others in rushing to the school as news blazed through this suburban community.
“We’re more messed up than they are,” Makai’s mother, Rocio, said as they walked to their car.
The
shooting at the Highlands Ranch charter school is the latest at an
educational institution, rattling communities nationwide because young
people have been put in mortal danger in places long considered safe
havens. One week earlier, a man with a pistol shot six people on the
last day of spring classes at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte, killing two.
On Tuesday,
as wave after wave of classes were released from the recreation center
in Highlands Ranch, high schoolers began walking out in tears, reaching
for their parents’ arms and hugging their teachers.
Tyler
Rush, 17, a junior, said he had been on the second floor of the school,
just above where the shooting occurred. He said that it began during
the day’s final period and that the school announced a lockdown in the
middle school portion of the building. He and his classmates gathered in
a corner and turned out the lights. Some cried. Some sat paralyzed.
He heard two gunshots.
“I was in a state of shock,” he said.
Littleton
Adventist Hospital in Colorado said five people were transported there
after Tuesday’s shooting. Two are in serious condition while three have
been discharged, the hospital said. Sky Ridge Medical Center said two
children were transported there and were in stable condition. Children’s
Hospital Colorado said one victim had been treated at its south campus
and then released.
While details of how the shooting happened remained sparse, one parent said students had tried to stop the attack.
Brad
Bialy said his oldest son, Brendan, a senior, told him that he was in
class when gunfire erupted. Mr. Bialy said his son told him that two
students entered the classroom and one pulled a gun out of a guitar
case.
He said his son and two friends
tried to tackle the gunman but one of the boys was shot in the chest.
Other students tried to stanch the bleeding by putting pressure on his
chest, Mr. Bialy said.
Fernando Montoya told a local television station that his 17-year-old son, a junior, was shot three times. He was taken to a hospital but was going to be released.
Students got off buses after being evacuated from STEM School Highlands Ranch, a charter school that has about 1,800 students in kindergarten through 12th grade
“Thank God he’s fine,” Mr. Montoya said.
He
said after news of the shooting broke, he could not reach his son and
was in a state of shock until they were able to talk to each other.
“We are so lucky,” Mr. Montoya said.
Sheriff
Spurlock said the school, which has about 1,800 students in
kindergarten through 12th grade, had no police officer assigned to it
and used private security instead, but he did not say what actions that
security service may have taken during the shooting.
The
sheriff said that the school alerted law enforcement “almost
immediately after the first gunshots were fired” and that deputies
arrived roughly two minutes later.
“I have to believe that the quick response of officers that got inside that school helped save lives,” the sheriff said.
Earlier
in the day, local news media showed video footage of tear-stricken
parents gathering near the school as at least two air ambulance
helicopters arrived at the scene after the shooting, which was reported
before 2 p.m.
Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado said the state government was monitoring the situation.
“We
are making all of our public safety resources available to assist the
Douglas County Sheriff’s Department in their effort to secure the site
and evacuate the students,” he said on Twitter. “The heart of all Colorado is with the victims & their families.”
Douglas
County is an affluent area south of Denver with about 350,000 people.
It sits next to Jefferson County, home to Columbine High School, and
students there are already primed to watch for gunmen.
Last month, hundreds of schools in the Denver area were closed
as law enforcement searched for a Florida woman who they said had made
threats ahead of the 20th anniversary of the deadly shooting that
claimed 13 lives at Columbine High School, which is about seven miles
from the site of Tuesday’s shooting.
The woman, Sol Pais, 18, was found dead on April 17 of an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound in the mountains west of Denver.
Douglas
County is more conservative than traditionally blue Denver, and like
much of the region has been at the center of the national debate over
gun violence.
“I have to believe that the quick response of officers that got inside that school helped save lives,” Sheriff Tony Spurlock of Douglas County said.
Last month, Mr. Polis signed into law a so-called Red Flag bill, allowing authorities to take guns from people deemed a threat after a court hearing.
The bill divided the state, and some sheriffs said they would not
enforce it, while some counties began calling themselves “Second
Amendment sanctuaries.”
In Douglas County, the county commission criticized the bill, saying they feared it threatened constitutional liberties, while Sheriff Spurlock emerged as one of its most vocal supporters.
The
area’s history of gun violence was front and center in last year’s
election for its United States representative. Jason Crow, a Democrat,
unseated Mike Coffman, a five-term Republican incumbent supported by the
National Rifle Association.
Mr. Crow
campaigned openly on gun control — including universal background
checks, a ban on assault weapons and restrictions on high-capacity
magazines — and the issue dominated the race.
He was one of several public figures to express his sorrow on Twitter on Tuesday.
“It is with broken hearts that we respond to the news coming out of Highlands Ranch,” he wrote.
“We still don’t have all the details regarding the situation at STEM
school, but we do know this: we have a public health crisis on our
hands. This cannot continue.”
Patrick
Neville, a Columbine survivor and the top Republican lawmaker in the
Colorado House of Representatives, said in a statement that the shooting
was a reminder “of the need to secure our schools.”
He said armed security guards and facility upgrades were the best way to keep students safe.
“School
safety programs which include armed security and safety upgrades to
school facilities are the best way to stop these criminals from harming
our children,” he said.
There have been several high-profile shootings in Colorado in recent years.
In 2010, a man shot two students with a high-powered rifle at a suburban middle school near Highlands Ranch.
In 2012, 12 people were killed at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., about 20 miles northeast of Highlands Ranch.
In 2013, a student in Centennial, Colo., killed himself after he fatally shot another student in the head.