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 Karl Pierson, 18, entered Arapahoe High School in a Denver suburb
around midday on Friday brandishing a shot gun and asked fellow
students about the location of a teacher. He then shot a 15-year-old
girl who was nearby, a county official said.
He was later found inside a classroom with an apparently
self-inflicted gunshot wound. The teacher, who quickly fled the
school, was unharmed.
Fellow students said Pierson was a smart and likeable member of the
school's track team and debate club.
Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said detectives were
investigating "revenge" as a possible motive, but did not elaborate,
though investigators believed the youth acted alone.
Police said they knew of no prior discipline problems.
The shooting in the Denver suburb of Centennial took place just 8
miles from the scene of one of the deadliest school massacres in
U.S. history, Columbine High School, where two students gunned down
13 classmates and staff before killing themselves in 1999.
There was no indication the incident was related to the anniversary
on Saturday of last year's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in
Newtown, Connecticut, in which a gunman massacred 20 children and
six adults before killing himself, Robinson said.
"I believe the shooter knew that deputy sheriffs were immediately
about to engage him, and I believe that shooter took his life
because he knew that he had been found," the sheriff told a news
conference on Friday.
He said a firebomb-like device was detonated inside the school by
the suspect, but a second such incendiary device did not go off and
was rendered harmless by authorities.
SHAKING, CRYING
Nearby businesses were evacuated as dozens of police arrived at the
scene with guns drawn. They never fired their weapons as they
pursued the gunman and evacuated the school.
Reports and images from the school show frenzy and fear among the
students. Some could be seen being funneled out with their hands
raised onto a track field where they were being patted down by
police.
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Holly Schaefer, an 18-year-old senior, said she saw blood on the
hallway floor as students were being escorted out of the building.
Whitney Riley, 15, told CNN she and several other students and
teachers hid in a utility room after hearing gunfire and did not
come out until police arrived.
"We were shaking. We were crying. We were freaking out. I had a girl
biting my arm," she said. "We stayed quiet and we heard a whole
bunch of sounds. We heard people yelling. We heard walkie-talkies."
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who pushed through tougher
firearms legislation this year following the Newtown shooting and
last year's attack in a Colorado movie theater that killed 12
people, called the shooting an "all-too-familiar sequence, where you
have gunshots and parents racing to the school and unspeakable
horror in a place of learning."
Authorities said they planned to conduct searches of the suspected
gunman's vehicle, which was left parked at the school, and two homes
owned by his parents.
The local ABC News affiliate in Denver reported the suspected gunman
was upset after being kicked off the debate squad.
Arapahoe senior Frank Woronoff told CNN the gunman had recently been
"demoted" on the debate team and the teacher he was said to be
targeting was its faculty adviser and the school's librarian.
(Writing by Eric M. Johnson; eediting by Janet Lawrence)
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