On Wednesday April 17, tens of thousands of Colorado students awoke to discover that school had been canceled due to threats of violence from a woman described by law enforcement officials as “infatuated” with the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School. As over one hundred schools closed in the Denver metro area, one notable exception stood out. The massive Auraria Campus in downtown Denver, home to 42,000 students, remained open despite the threat of an active shooter.
As students filtered in for classes early in the morning, there was still no notification sent by Auraria Campus administration. No message was sent out until 9:58am local time, including general staff notifications about the threat.
”This week I have received nothing regarding all the school closings,” said Dominic Robles, a work study student with access to general staff emails.
Meanwhile, the 2019 Auraria Spring Fling Festival was getting underway on the long walkway that connects the campus together. As numerous campus clubs and organizations set up booths, a notable lack of security made some students feel uncomfortable. Even students stationed in the booths reported that they had seen no security at all.
On the far side of campus, in front of the King Center, a group of about eight police officers were gathered under an awning, offering to play ball games with students. When asked about the lack of security, officers stated that “There are officers stationed on every corner of campus,” despite clear lack of visual evidence. Students counted a total of three police cars on campus on Wednesday morning.
Michelle Glasmann, a Business teacher at CCD who helped create the active shooter protocol for CCD was not worried. “We have figured out all of our active shooter situations, what our response time is with Auraria PD. We have our own individual plan of action for this particular building, because we are the first building on the right coming from the lightrail,” She said “There is always somebody carrying in this building.” Glasmann was also confident in her child’s safety. “I was not concerned one bit,” she said. “My son has been trained in active shooter situations since he was four years old. Since he started preschool. But that was on me as a parent. And his karate studio, which is why I picked the karate studio he is at. So I know a lot of parents are like ‘Oh I don’t know how to handle telling my child what’s going on, the evils of the world,’ I got in there with my son when he was young, because the world’s not gonna get better.”
At 10:25am local time, police officers told students on campus that the shooter had been taken into custody. Thirty minutes later it would be reported that she had killed herself.
