Commavee

Yesterday, an as yet unidentified man walked into a high school in Bailey Colorado, took over a classroom and ultimately killed a student before killing himself.

Holy fucking shit. This brings back very bad memories of Columbine for all of us in the Denver area. I lived less than one mile from Columbine then, and our babysitter was in the classroom across from the library and heard the whole thing.

I feel incredibly saddened for the parents of the girl who was killed. As a parent of two grade school boys, I cannot even imagine the horror of hearing about such an event unfolding, and then waiting & watching & screaming for your child as the busloads of kids “that got away” arrive at the “safe area” far from the scene of the shooting.

I’m sad, shocked and pissed off. Again. Seven years after Columbine, we seem to have forgotten that:

• There are whackos that will shoot kids if given the chance

• We can’t give them the chance

Since we can’t effectivley police against the whackos (how do you know someone is going to do something this crazy before they actually do it?), the best we can do here is what we’ve been doing: take threats seriously and report them vigorously.

We can do alot better in the “don’t give them a chance” area, though. In this particular case, the gunman was freely walking around in the school long enough before the incident that at least one student *had a conversation* with him, noticing that he was an adult male - that he didn’t recognize - and asserting that the conversation “…was odd”. This young man was visibly shaking as he recounted this conversation.

My questions are:

How in the hell did this guy get into the school? He was *obviously not* a student (he had grey hair and a beard). Once inside, he was not recognized by at least one student. Did the student *know* to immediately alert school officials? Did he have time? Where was the school’s security officer? Do they even have one? Edit: Yes, there is a Deputy on-premise during school hours. Were the doors locked?

…and hundreds more questions. I can only take comfort in that fact that I don’t have to ask the hardest question: why was my child killed?

Tags: School shooting, Platte Canyon, Columbine