RE: Hostages being held at Colorado school
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said an unidentified gunman who took students at Platte Canyon High School hostage today shot one of the hostages before shooting himself at about 3:30 p.m. as officers stormed the classroom where he was holding two students hostage.
The other hostage in the room escaped injury. The wounded girl was flown to St. Anthony's Central Hospital where she was rushed to emergency surgery, said spokeswoman Bev Lilly. There were unconfirmed reports the girl was shot in the head.
Wegener estimated the wounded girls age at 16 but said he was not certain.
The sheriff said he does not know the identity of the gunman or the motive behind the violence.
He said the gunman talked with negotiators and released four of his six hostages one by one until negotiations broke off around 3:30 p.m.
At that point, the sheriff said during an emotional press conference, authorities became concerned for the welfare of the remaining hostages and decided to break into the room.
The gunman told all of the boys to leave the classroom and all of the girls to stay, according to students in the classroom next door.
Parents picking up their children at Deer Creek Elementary School said they were told the man was looking for a teacher at the school who was either an ex-girlfriend or an estranged wife.
The students taken hostage were in an English college prep class.
Authorities found at least one suspicious device that looked like a bomb.
The school sits in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 35 miles southwest of Denver. and shares a campus with Fitzsimons Middle School. The two schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.
Communication among the law enforcement agencies on the scene worked better than they did at the Columbine shootings April 20, 1999, when officers with various jurisdictions were unable to talk to one another because of incompatible radio systems.
The Metro Area Communication vehicle was sent to the scene to help the multiple agencies communicate. The technology in the truck allows the different radio systems to be patched together to create one large radio system.
"It was purchased for this very reason, when you have a multi-agency incident," said Sonny Jackson, spokesman for Denver Police Department. "This is the first time it has been called out of the Denver area."
The U.S. Department of Justice purchased 25 of the trucks for cities across the nation. One of the $500,000 vehicles was sent to Denver about a year ago.
"It's a better means of communicating," Jackson said.
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