DENVER – A body was found Wednesday night in the Colorado woods near the abandoned car that belonged to a 17-year-old student accused of shooting two administrators at his Denver high school earlier in the day, a sheriff said.
Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw said the body was discovered not far from the car in a remote mountain area about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Denver, near the small town of Bailey, in Park County. The town had been ordered to shelter in place while while officers from a number of agencies including the FBI combed the forest.
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But, authorities said they have not yet identified who it was and McGraw declined to say if it was a man or reveal the cause of death.
Earlier in the day, Denver police identified the suspect as Austin Lyle.
The shooting occurred at East High School in Denver while two administrators searched Lyle for weapons, a daily requirement because of the boy’s behavioral issues, authorities said. Lyle fled after the shooting.
It occurred at a school shaken by frequent lockdowns and violence, including the recent killing outside the school of a classmate that prompted East High School students to march on the Colorado Capitol earlier this month. Parents who converged on the 2,500-student campus on Wednesday voiced frustration that officials had not done enough to protect their children.
“I am sick of it,” said Jesse Haase, who planned to talk with her daughter about taking her out of classes for the rest of the school year.
Amid the flurry of criticism over lax security, Denver school officials said after the shooting that they would once again put armed officers into the city’s public high schools.
There were no school resource officers on campus at the time of Wednesday’s shooting, said Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas.
The shooting happened just before 10 a.m. in an office area as Lyle was undergoing a search as part of a “safety plan" that required him to be patted down daily, officials said.
The gun used in the shooting was not immediately recovered, Thomas said.
One of the wounded administrators was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon and the second remained in serious condition, said Heather Burke, a spokesperson for Denver Health hospital.
Hundreds of students on March 3 skipped class and marched in support of stricter gun laws following the death of Luis Garcia, 16, who was shot while sitting in a car near East High School.
In June 2020, amid a summer of protests over racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd, Denver Public Schools became one of the districts around the US that decided to phase out its use of police officers in school buildings. That push was fueled by criticism that school resource officers disproportionately arrested Black students, sweeping them into the criminal justice system.
After Wednesday’s shooting, two armed officers will be posted at East High School through the end of the school year, and other city high schools also will each get an officer, said Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero.
In a Wednesday letter to the city's Board of Education, Marrero said his decision violated district's policies but added he “can no longer stand on the sidelines.”
“I am the leader of this district who is charged with keeping our scholars and staff safe every day,” he wrote. The school board said it supported the decision.
Gun violence at schools has become increasingly common in the U.S. with more than 1,300 shooting incidents recorded between 2000 and June 2022, according to government researchers. Those shootings killed 377 people and wounded 1,025, according to a database maintained by the researchers.
Students from East High School had been scheduled to testify Wednesday afternoon before the Colorado Legislature on gun safety bills.
“This is the reality of being young in America: sitting through a shooting and waiting for information just hours before you’re scheduled to testify in support of gun safety bills,” said Gracie Taub, a 16-year-old East High School sophomore and volunteer with Students Demand Action in Colorado.
Lyle transferred to East High School after being disciplined and removed from a high school in nearby Aurora last school year because of unspecified violations of school policies, said Cherry Creek School District spokesperson Lauren Snell.
Marrero said safety plans for students are enacted in response to “past educational and also behavioral experiences,” adding that it’s a common practice throughout Colorado’s public schools. Officials did not give further details on why Lyle was searched daily.
But daily pat downs are rare, said Franci Crepeau-Hobson, a University of Colorado Denver professor specializing in school violence prevention.
“Clearly they were concerned,” said Crepeau-Hobson. “I can’t imagine they’d do that if there wasn’t a history of the kid carrying a weapon.”
Safety plans often follow threatening or suicidal behavior from a student, said Christine Harms with the Colorado School Safety Resource Center.
East High School, not far from downtown, was locked down as police investigated the shooting, and hundreds of parents lined up along a road outside the school.
Some parents and students vented frustration over violence at the school as they surrounded the police chief. Thomas listened quietly, nodding and promising to engage with the school board.
At the edge of the crowd, a man said the city's school board members should be recalled for getting rid of police in school, telling a nearby officer “I just want you to be able to do your job.”
In response to the shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated President Joe Biden’s called for stricter gun laws, including bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, and for Congress to “do something” on gun control.
Wednesday was also the second anniversary of 10 people being shot and killed at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
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Associated Press reporters Sarah Brumfield in Silver Spring, Maryland and Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont. contributed.
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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.