When two Denver East High School deans were shot last week, shock ran across the city but not surprise. School shootings, while not normal, have today become a part of American life. In big cities, small towns, in any region of the country, they have claimed or shattered lives. These shootings have become almost like hurricanes or tropical storms, each now with their own unique name. Columbine, Robb Elementary, Sandy Hook, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Uvalde. But unlike dangerous storms, school shootings don’t have a season. They happen suddenly, and anytime.
The Denver East shooting took place during a March 22nd morning pat-down of 17-year-old Austin Lyle. The pat down was part of an agreement that allowed him to even attend the school. He had been previously kicked out of an Aurora high school. He was also in the process of serving a 12-month probation for possessing a dangerous weapon and a high-capacity magazine. Because juvenile records are sealed, details of the case are not entirely clear. But because of the potential threat that Lyle posed to the community, police made an exception and released his name.
After the shooting, Lyle fled the school. His car was found abandoned about fifty miles away in Park County. His body was located a short distance from the vehicle. Police report that the 17-year-old had taken his own life.
It has been a tragic year at Denver East. Sixteen-year-old Denver East junior Luis Garcia was shot February 13th as he sat in his car in the school’s parking lot. He died from his injuries on March 1st after his family authorized the removal of life support systems. The shooting of the popular East soccer player inspired hundreds of students to leave class two days later and march to the State Capitol to demand lawmakers do something about gun violence. The students, some carrying signs reading ‘Protect children, not guns’ and ‘Not one more child,’ were escorted by police.
The latest shooting was followed by Denver Public School’s superintendent Alex Marrero’s decision to reimple- ment a policy of stationing school resource officers—armed police—in each of the city’s high schools for at least the remainder of the school year. SRO’s had been ordered removed from schools in 2020 because many parents, staff and students said they felt the presence of armed officers made them uncomfortable. The removal of the officers in schools also occurred in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis.
The 2020 vote by Denver’s Board of Education to eliminate SRO’s was unanimous and applauded by a number of groups, including one of mostly Latino parents. Padres & Jṓvenes Unidos had said that during the period when schools were staffed with police security—between 2014 and 2019—SRO’s ticketed more than 4,500 students for various infractions with more than 80 percent Black or Latino. District information also said that police had been called to Denver schools 5,560 times during school year 2019-20.
Last week’s shooting also saw another flooding of the State Capitol by parents, students and parents demanding changes in laws that would make students and schools safer.
“I want to go into a building every day where I don’t need to ask if my kids are getting a pat down because I know nobody is bring guns into schools,” East English teacher Josh Garfinkle told The Denver Post. Another teacher complained that this year alone her school had been ordered to lockdown on three separate occasions. She called on legislators to do something to make it harder to get guns. This time, they did.
In a rare weekend session, Democrats passed two bills including one that would expand Colorado’s red flag law and another that would make it easier to file lawsuits against gun manufacturers and gun dealers. Before the two measures passed, Republicans used legislative maneuvers to filibuster arguing that it was just one more attempt to dilute the Second Amendment and resort to government overreach. When lawmakers returned to work on Monday, two more bills aimed at bolstering gun safety inched closer to passage. With Democrats holding the majority in the legislature, they seem almost assured of reaching the Governor’s desk for signature. Measures passed over the weekend prompted the state’s Republican chairman to label Democrats as “vile tyrants.”
In making his decision on resuming the SRO program, Marrero said, “I can no longer stand on the sidelines…I am willing to accept the consequences of my actions.” The DPS board released a letter supporting Marrero. “The Board of Education supports the decision of Superintendent Marrero to work in partnership with local law enforcement to create safer learning spaces across Denver Public Schools for the remainder of this school year.” Requests by LaVozColorado for comment from school board members were not returned.
In 2020, school shootings—the beginning of COVID and the suspension of school classes—showed a sharp decline. However, once the worst of COVID faded and classes once again resumed, so too did school shootings. The Washington Post reported that once classes began again in 2021, there were 42 K-12 school shootings with 46 the following year. The paper also reports that since Columbine, there have been 376 school shootings and that more than 348,000 students have experienced gun violence since April 20th, 1999, the date of the Columbine shootings.
(Note: As this story was being written, there was another school shooting in Tennessee. At a private Christian school, six people, including three young children, were fatally shot. The shooter, a 28-year-old Nashville woman, was fatally wounded by officers.)
