Colorado authorities seek details on hostage-taker
The high school in the tiny Colorado mountain town of Bailey was closed today.
It came a day after a mysterious gunman took six girls hostage in a classroom for hours before fatally wounding one and then killing himself as authorities stormed in.
“We are a community in mourning,” schools superintendent Jim Walpole said. “Our thoughts, our prayers are with our students, staff and their families. Especially the family of the student we lost.”
The victim was identified by acquaintances and a co-worker as 16-year-old Emily Keyes, shown in a yearbook photo as a smiling blonde who played volleyball and was on the debate team at Platte Canyon High School. She was pronounced dead at a Denver hospital after yesterday’s stand-off, which reminded many people of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High, less than an hour’s drive away.
There was no known link between Keyes and the gunman, who was not identified by authorities. Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, who had a son in the school as the drama unfolded, was at a loss to explain a motive.
“I don’t know why he wanted to do this,” Wegener said, his voice breaking.
The gunman claimed he had explosives in a backpack and was wielding a handgun, authorities said. He released four hostages one by one, then abruptly cut off communication with authorities and set a deadline that forced authorities to act.
Wegener would not say what the man threatened to do.
He said authorities used explosives as they entered the classroom, only to have the suspect fire at officers, shoot one of the girls and then himself.
Authorities were investigating whether any of the girls were sexually assaulted, said Lance Clem, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
Classes were cancelled for the rest of the week at the high school and the adjoining middle school.
The sheriff, a 36-year resident of Bailey, said he knew the dead girl’s family and was “scared to death” as he handled the hostage situation. He said the gunman threatened the girls almost throughout the four-hour ordeal and at one point fired a shot inside the classroom.
“I have to go and eventually I have to face a family about the fact that their daughter is dead,” Wegener quietly told reporters. “So, what would you do?”
Tom Grigg said his 16-year-old son, Cassidy, was in a classroom when the man walked in, fired a gun and began telling some students to leave and others – all girls – to stay.
“He stood them up at the blackboard,” Grigg said. “He hand-picked the ones he wanted to get out.”
The gunman told Cassidy to leave, but he said he wanted to stay with the girls, Grigg said.
“The guy flipped him around and put the gun in his face and said: ‘It would be in your best interest to leave',” Grigg said.
The lines of students fleeing the high school and middle school, the bomb squads and the frantic parents scrambling to find their loved ones evoked memories of the Columbine attack, in which two students killed 13 people before taking their own lives.
Michael Owens, who has a son at the middle school and another in the high school, said the anxiety was worse because the memory of Columbine was still fresh.
“Things that are out of your control. You just do what you can do,” he said.
The situation unfolded in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 35 miles southwest of Denver. Ambulances were parked in the end zone of the football field, and a tank-like SWAT team vehicle was parked nearby on a closed-down highway swamped with gun-toting sheriff's officers and police.
Bill Twyford said he received a text message just before noon from his 15-year-old son, Billy, a student at the high school. It said: “Hey there, there’s a gun hijacking in school right now. I’m fine, bad situation though.”
Jessica Montgomery, 15, said she saw the suspect in a second-floor hallway at around the same time. She described him as “creepy”, with acne and stubble on his face. He motioned her to come over.
Sophomore Zack Barnes, 16, said his class moved to a room that turned out to be next to the one where the hostages were being held. They turned out the lights and sat in silence in the dark for about 20 minutes before police guided them out.
The two schools have an enrolment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school. Students from both were taken by bus to another school for a head count.
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