But Tuesday afternoon, the STEM school’s worst fears were realized when eight of its students were shot — less than 8 miles from Columbine — and two fellow students were being held as suspects.
“We know two individuals walked into the STEM school, got deep inside the school and engaged students in two separate locations,” Sheriff Tony Spurlock of Douglas County said.
Eight students had been taken to area hospitals, and “several” were in critical condition, the sheriff said, although local hospitals described their conditions as less dire.
Spurlock said the suspects, who were armed with a handgun and other weapons, confronted law enforcement officers when they arrived. He said the suspects, one adult and one juvenile, were not injured.
Spurlock said he would not release details about the injured students Tuesday night.
“I heard a gunshot,” said Makai Dixon, 8, a second grader who had been training for this moment, with active shooter drills and lockdowns, since he was in kindergarten. “I’d never heard it before.”
Littleton Adventist Hospital in Colorado said five people were transported there after Tuesday’s shooting. Two are in serious condition while three have been discharged, the hospital said. Sky Ridge Medical Center said two children were transported there and were in stable condition.
Spurlock said the school, which has about 1,800 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, had no police officer assigned to it and used private security instead, but he did not say what actions that security service may have taken during the shooting. The sheriff said the school alerted law enforcement “almost immediately after the first gunshots were fired” and that deputies arrived roughly two minutes later.
Last month, hundreds of schools in the Denver area were closed as law enforcement searched for a Florida woman who they said had made threats ahead of the 20th anniversary of the deadly shooting that claimed 13 lives at Columbine High School.
The woman, Sol Pais, 18, was found dead April 17 of an apparent self-inflicted shotgun wound in the mountains of Jefferson County.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.