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Later reports are that the gunman killed himself.
His victim was flown by Flight For Life helicopter, which appears to have been standing by on the school's football field) to one of Denver's (I think they call it Level One) trauma centers and was reportedly still alive when she arrived, but the head wound was too traumatic and she died shortly after reaching the hospital.
The Jefferson County (JeffCo to those of us here) SWAT Team, on the decision of the Park County Sheriff, who has a son at the school, "breached" the classroom door with explosives after the suspect broke off negotiations with authorities and a deadline he had imposed was getting close. At that point, the gunman shot the victim and then himself -- after firing at deputies. As I said earlier, JeffCo was the jurisdiction where Columbine is located.
The gunman let everyone in the classroom go, except several girls, and later released four of the six girls he was holding, leaving only two hostages.
The news conference with the Park County Sheriff was very moving, with him barely holding back tears. His family moved to the mountain community thirty-six years ago, and besides his son who is still a student, his daughter graduated from Platte Canyon High School last year. He is quoted as being "scared to death" as he responded to the high school that he had to "do the right thing."
As you can imagine, this has badly shaken not only the Bailey (Park County) community of around 3,600 where everyone pretty much knows everyone else, but also the Denver and specifically the Columbine community as well.
Many of the reporters and photographers, both print and broadcast, had also covered Columbine.
It appears that both law enforcement and the school system had learned important lessons from Columbine, but the waiting for word on thier children was still long and nearly unbearable for anxious parents as busses arrived at a nearby elementary school carrying students who were evacuated from the high school and adjacent middle school. Police used a much more proactive approach after being criticized for not being more aggressive during the Columbine seige -- although everyone was quick to point out that the situations were different in terms of numbers of hostages, victims and gunmen. While several SWAT teams from Metro Denver were at Columbine, it's ironic to me that the JeffCo SWAT team had the lead in this situation as well. It is probably good that this situation was at a smaller school and communications between law enforcement agencies (both county sheriff offices in this case) has improved since Columbine (although they're still not great overall).
A school administrator called a "Code White" over the PA system. The students didn't know what that meant, but one was quoted as saying one look at his teacher's face was all it took to know the situation was serious.
The class the gunman broke into was an Honors English course. The young victim worked as a waitperson at a local cafe and was very popular among her peers and other townpeople.
Names of other hostages were not released by local media because almost all do not release the names of sexual assault victims.
The gunman was not identified, but allegedly was a former Bailey resident who had moved to the Denver metro area sometime in the past.
This incident happened the day after the huge funeral for an Aurora Police officer who was killed while sitting in his car at an intersection by a gunman who just walked up and fired randomly into the officer's personal car. The procession to the Ft. Logan National Cemetary consisted of over 1,000 police cars from all over the country.
It's been quite a week.
__________________
Fraternally,
DeltAlum
DTD
The above is the opinion of the poster which may or may not be based in known facts and does not necessarily reflect the views of Delta Tau Delta or Greek Chat -- but it might.
Last edited by DeltAlum; 09-28-2006 at 12:49 PM.
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My prayers are with this community.
Hybrid Mode
