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Arapahoe Shooting : 5 Shots, 1 Min. 20 Secs, Start to Finish

The Arapahoe County Sheriff held a live press conference today at 3:15 MT on yesterday's shooting at Arapahoe High School. Here are my notes of what he said:

Authorities know what happened now that they have viewed the school security video. Karl Pierson entered the north side of Arapahoe High School at 12:33 pm. The door is next to library.

Pierson parked at the curb by the north side parking lot. He entered the school with a pump shotgun, which he did not attempt to conceal. He also had a "bandoleer" (?) strapped across him with multiple rounds of ammunition. In addition, he had a machete and a backpack containing 3 incendiary devices. All were molotov cocktails.

[More...]

Pierson fired one random round down a hallway and then went into the personal space of the female victim (17 year old senior Claire Davis) and shot her point blank. There was no interaction between them. She didn't have time to run.

He then fired another shot down a hallway and went into the library, where he fired another shot. After this fourth shot, he ignited one of the devices in the library, resulting in fire and smoke. Three bookshelves caught fire inside library

He fired a 5th time, ran to back to library and took his own life

The time span from his entering the school to his taking his own life was less than 1 minute and 20 seconds.

A deputy sheriff assigned to the school and a school resource officer were in the cafeteria and immediately aware there was a problem in the north side library. They ran from the cafeteria to the library, which is down a long hallway. The deputy was yelling at people in the library to get down and identified himself as a deputy Arapahoe County sheriff. The Sheriff today said Pierson knew the deputy was there and was going to contain him. Because experts say the typical shooter will shoot until confronted by someone in position of authority, the Sheriff says he is convinced that it was the quick arrival of the deputy that caused Pierson to kill himself and prevented more carnage.

Pierson purchased the pump shotgun legally on December 6 from a local retail store. Yesterday morning he purchased ammunition, also legally, before going to the school.

In Colorado, 18 year olds can purchase shotguns but not handguns.

Claire Ester Davis, the senior who was shot, has severe head trauma. She remains in critical condition following yesterday's surgery.

Claire is an accomplished equestrian. Her family asks the community to pray for her. In March, she came in first in the Col. R.L. Robertson Medal Entries, riding her horse Graphite Gran Grannus. Here's a list of her placements. (According to the Denver stock show, her mom owns Grannus.)

The apparent motive continues to be retaliation against the librarian Tracy Murphy, who also led the debate team. The Sheriff says Pierson was not suspended from school and he was not dismissed from the debate team. He's not aware of prior disciplinary action against Pierson.

The Sheriff, who seems to be a pretty accomplished speaker (no rambling, no notes, logical presentation) spent almost as much time praising law enforcement as he did explaining what happened.

Some quick thoughts: This version does not exactly match the account of the janitor (more versions here, here and here) or at least two students who gave video interviews to the media. The janitor said he was outside the north entrance and saw Pierson enter. He then heard 2 pops and called for help. He said the librarian ran out and a bullet whizzed by the librarian's head and he escorted him to his (the janitor's) truck and they drove across the street where the librarian told him what happened.

A student named Frank who was a friend of Pierson's said he was returning from having lunch off-site and saw the libarian run out and he talked to the teacher. The librarian told him what happened saying over and over it was Pierson. Another student said he saw Claire Davis bleeding profusely from the stomach (not the head.)

If Pierson bought the gun Dec. 6, it seems that whatever went down between him and Murphy happened last week, not this week.

As to those blasting Pierson for his "liberal" or "socialist" politics and blaming his parents for them, according to Lexis Nexis, his parents, Charles Pierson and Barbara Halverson Pierson, are both long-time registered Republicans.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Not sure about the blasting (none / 0) (#1)
    by ragebot on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 01:00:36 AM EST
    as a socialist, but this vid from Real Clear Politics (not claiming it is the best source) does seem to support the claim the shooter was a socialist.

    vid

    The girl in the vid seems to be more of a friend of the shooter, at least that is my take.

    No dispute that the parents are Republicans.  But I would point out that I know lots of parents with children that hold the opposite political views of the parents.

    No, it doesn't (none / 0) (#3)
    by Yman on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 10:35:11 AM EST
    It supports the claim that this teenage girl is categorizing him as a "socialist" - whatever that means in her mind.  She actually got a little more specific when she elaborated on what she says that meant to the shooter:

    To him, it just meant economic -- more economic equality.

    Guess that means there's a whole lot of "socialists" out there ...

    Not to mention the fact that - unless his political views motivated the shooting - his political views are irrelevant.

    Parent

    I love how ONE teenage girl (none / 0) (#4)
    by jondee on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 11:39:14 AM EST
    becomes "his fellow students".

    Parent
    The commenters at Real Clear (none / 0) (#7)
    by jondee on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 11:56:29 AM EST
    are quite a group of savants: one calls Jesus "the father of libertarianism"..Maybe it's the same girl who said Pierson was a socialist.

    Parent
    As Jeralyn pointed out (none / 0) (#5)
    by ragebot on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 11:47:02 AM EST
    there have been some reports claiming the shooter was a socialist.  While we all may not have the same definition of the word it has become sort of a label for at least part of the left.

    There have also been some reports that the shooter was called out for being more vocal than the debate coach though was appropriate in expressing his views on socialism or income equality or what ever you want to call it.

    From what I have seen there is some reason to think the shooting was motivated by the debate coach's reaction to the shooter expressing his views.  It is not clear to me if the coach's reaction was due to the way the shooter expressed his views or that the views were socialism (for the want of a better word I will use socialism but anyone can use another word if they think it is a better fit).

    Just as an aside formal debate at this level consists of tournaments where debaters switch sides from one round to the next, affirmative and then negative.  The theory is a good debater should be able to see both sides of a question and not be too invested in advancing one position.  It would be reasonable for a debate coach to try and teach this to a debate team member who seemed to be in danger of becoming an advocate for one side.

    Parent

    Stating the obvious (none / 0) (#12)
    by Yman on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 12:19:49 PM EST
    As Jeralyn pointed out there have been some reports claiming the shooter was a socialist.  While we all may not have the same definition of the word it has become sort of a label for at least part of the left.

    And?!?

    You were pointing to this girl's statement as evidence that the shooter was, in fact, a "socialist".  In reality, it's merely one, teenager's characterization of the shooter's political beliefs - not to mention the fact she elaborated that, to him, it just meant more economic equality.  Or, that absent some evidence that the shooting was motivated by his political beliefs, they are about as relevant as the fact that he had strong opinions on gun ownership and came from a religious family that attends bible study meetings.

    From what I have seen there is some reason to think the shooting was motivated by the debate coach's reaction to the shooter expressing his views.  It is not clear to me if the coach's reaction was due to the way the shooter expressed his views or that the views were socialism (for the want of a better word I will use socialism but anyone can use another word if they think it is a better fit).

    So, in short, there is absolutely zero evidence that he was motivated by what this girl describes as his "socialist" views.

    Precisely.

    Parent

    Do you REALLY think that kid in that town... (none / 0) (#6)
    by Dadler on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 11:47:19 AM EST
    ...could even define socialist? I mean, forget actually claiming the title seriously for himself.

    Come on.

    As PB&J Otter sang more than a decade ago in a cartoon show my son loved as a toddler: "Use Your Noodle Dance."

    Parent

    So what else is new? (none / 0) (#19)
    by jondee on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 02:14:16 PM EST
    the people making the charge can't define it either.

    Parent
    a "bandolier" is (none / 0) (#2)
    by scribe on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 09:43:25 AM EST
    a belt used for carrying ammunition.  Usually (in civilian life) it's something like an ordinary waist belt with loops sewn to it into which individual rounds of ammunition can be slid.  Sometimes leather, sometimes cloth.  Often the loops are elastic, so they grip the rounds a bit.  This facilitates carrying ammunition in a way that individual rounds can be easily and quickly loaded.  Bandidos in old Westerns often wear two, crossed on their chests.

    In the military, the bandolier can take two forms, depending on the context and local slang.  The more common is a cloth or web belt with a pouch attached to it.  A belt of ammunition is carried folded (or rolled) in the pouch.  Alternately and less commonly, a belt of ammunition can be called a bandolier, but this usage is pretty much passe.

    Denver Post (none / 0) (#8)
    by ragebot on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 12:02:51 PM EST
    seems to have an article that adds more evidence to the claim that shooter was a socialist.  Here is the

    link

    His facebook postings are consistent with what I would define as socialist.  Same goes for a fellow student in his economics class that described him as a socialist.  Other fellow students also claimed the shooter's views were not mainstream.

    The hits just keep on coming.

    He was 18. We're all socialists at 18. (none / 0) (#17)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 01:45:39 PM EST


    He sounds to me like (none / 0) (#18)
    by jondee on Sun Dec 15, 2013 at 02:10:47 PM EST
    a confused, conflicted, probably overly self-absorbed mixed bag. Again, like not a few eighteen year olds..

    The take away (none / 0) (#20)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Mon Dec 16, 2013 at 06:54:13 AM EST

    The take away in this is that the shooter killed himself as soon as he was confronted by armed resistance.  

    please limit your comments to the topic (none / 0) (#21)
    by Jeralyn on Sat Dec 21, 2013 at 01:04:06 PM EST
    which is the Arapahoe shootings. Your views of gun control are irrelevant to this thread. Thread cleaned.