Outraged Denver students and parents demanded better school security and pushed for tighter firearm controls Thursday, a day after a 17-year-old student shot and wounded two administrators at a city high school beset with violence.
More than 1,000 students rallied at the Colorado Capitol to push gun reform legislation, while school board members endorsed the district superintendent\u2019s abrupt reversal of a policy that had banned armed officers from Denver schools.
The shooting at East High School near downtown occurred as administrators were searching for weapons on suspect Austin Lyle, who fled from the scene and was found dead Wednesday night in the mountains southwest of Denver. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Park County coroner said.
Educators for decades have grappled with how to keep students safe as violence has intensified, and the Denver shooting stoked an immediate backlash among parents who said security was too lax.
The uproar echoed community outrage after other school shootings \u2014 from last year\u2019s unchecked rampage by a gunman in Uvalde, Texas, who killed 19 elementary school children and two adults, to January\u2019s shooting of a Virginia teacher by a 6-year-old student. The tragedies underscore a chronic problem: keeping guns out of schools even as they proliferatein the community.
\u201cWe\u2019re scared to go to school,\u201d East High School sophomore Anna Hay said during Thursday\u2019s rally at the Capitol. \u201cWe want to have these legislators look us in our eyes when they tell us they won\u2019t pass gun legislation.\u201d
As Wednesday\u2019s shooting unfolded, Hay heard sirens from emergency vehicles and had a sinking realization that the danger was real. \u201cWatching your friends and the fear in their eyes \u2026 it\u2019s the worst feeling in the world,\u201d she said.
The Colorado shooting was one of at least four at or near a school this week in the US On Monday, a 15-year-old was arrested in the fatal shooting of a student outside of a Dallas-area high school, on Tuesday a student was hurt in another Dallas-area school shooting and on Wednesday two teenagers were killed and another wounded in a shooting near a North Carolina middle school.
East High School parent Steve Katsaros said putting police into schools was just part of the solution. He also wants the campus closed to outsiders and a ban on students wearing hooded sweatshirts so they can be more easily identified following disruptions.
\u201cThis place is a ticking time bomb,\u201d Katsaros said.
The administrators who were shot were unarmed, said Denver schools spokesperson Scott Pribble. Experts say putting civilian administrators in charge of searching a student for weapons was a mistake. Such tasks should be left to trained, armed school resource officers fitted with body armor, said Mo Canady with the National Association of School Resource Officers.
Parents converged on the 2,500-student East High School campus following the shooting to voice frustration officials were not protecting their children. East High School in recent weeks experienced a spate of lockdowns and violence, including the killing of 16-year-old Luis Garcia, who was shot while sitting in a car near school. The violence prompted students to march on the Capitol earlier this month.
Denver is one of many communities in the US that decided to phase out school resource officers in the summer of 2020 amid protests over racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd by police. The shift away from an armed presence in schools followed concern that officers disproportionately arrest students of color.
Meanwhile, shootings in the nation\u2019s schools have increased dramatically, from fewer than 100 annually over the last several decades to 303 last year, said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.
\u201cThis year is on pace for 400 shootings,\u201d Riedman said. \u201cThere\u2019s pretty much an incident every single school day.\u201d
The Denver shooting happened just before 10 a.m. in an office area as Lyle was undergoing a search as part of a \u201csafety plan\u201d that required him to be patted down daily, officials said.
One of the wounded administrators remained hospitalized in serious condition Thursday and the second was treated and released, said Denver Health spokesperson Heather Burke.
In response to the shooting, two armed officers will be posted at East High School through the end of the school year. Other city high schools will each get an officer, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said.
A state lawmaker voiced concern about the swift change in policy, citing research that shows having police in schools is associated with more suspensions and expulsions for students of color.
\u201cIn order to provide some sense of safety they are going to an extreme that is safe for a certain population and extremely unsafe for another,\u201d said Democrat Rep. Lorena Garcia.
Another East High School parent, Dr. Lynsee Hudson Lang, said she was open to having police in schools, but suggested it was an insufficient response to a multi-faceted problem. Lang wanted other strategies considered, like setting up a secure perimeter around the school and evaluating if students are \u201cemotionally safe enough\u201d to attend classes.
In Nevada, activists have renewed calls for less police in schools after an officer in Clark County last month was caught on video slamming a Black student to the ground. The debate over resource officers comes almost a year after leaders in the district declared a hard line on fights in schools.
Lyle had transferred to East High School after being disciplined and removed from a high school in nearby Aurora because of unspecified violations of school policies, according to officials.
The teenager was facing a firearm charge at the time of the shooting and officials at East High School were aware of the charge, Marrero confirmed Thursday during a news conference. But Marrero said the district does not turn away students with struggles.
\u201cWe are obligated to provide a free and adequate education for all students,\u201d he said. \u201cWe failed Austin.\u201d
The administrator who usually searched Lyle was absent on the day of the shooting and Marrero speculated that may have played a role.
Daily searches of students are rare, said Franci Crepeau-Hobson, a University of Colorado Denver professor specializing in school violence prevention. She said there should be community input into whether officers should be installed in schools and access to firearms needs to be addressed.
\u201cFirearms are now the leading killer of youth in this country between homicides, suicides and accidents,\u201d said Crepeau-Hobson. \u201cThis is what\u2019s killings our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n