gunman in colorado kills one high school girl

[B5 Charger]

The fact is nobody was shot even 1 time till the police moved in. This guy was saying stuff like leave me alone, get out of here. So the deadline passed, big deal. People say all sort of stuff. The police jump the gun and 2 out 3 lives were lost. The police had shields and other body shields. They are no hero's in my book. They sound like those guys in that Rambo movie who were told to wait and did not. It was not their kid who was killed either.

Here is a better CNN quote:

Morales said police heard the two hostages screaming before they entered the classroom, something that "moved up the tempo of the operation a bit."

Negotiations with the gunman broke down when he began relaying demands through the hostages and then threatened that something would happen at 4 p.m., Wegener said Wednesday.

"It was then decided that a tactical solution needed to be done in an effort to save the two hostages that were in the room," Wegener said.


Do you have any tactical training or experience to draw from?  I would guess by your logic that you don't.  With people like you the police can do nothing right.  Your always there to armchair quarterback after the fact.  Had they waited and both girls got killed they would be cowards who let two innocent girls die while they stood by and did nothing.  Instead they intervene, one girl dies and they are still wrong.  The ideal tactical solution is for no loss of life not even the suspects.  But we do not live in an ideal world and things like this usually end badly.  Maybe they should brush up on their Rambo movies so they can plan their tactics as masterfully as you.

[4402tuff4u]

Just remember that we are only getting the edited version of what really was going on in the school. To jump to conclusions and second guess the officers responding to this tragedy is a bit premature and just senseless. To ask questions "why this" and "why that" is "OK", but wait until all the facts are known before jumping all over the authorities about their decision to terminate the situation. I agree, perhaps wait until he's a bit fatigue or wait until he's close to a window and have sniper take him out!  You also have to remember that they are interviewing the hostages- poor kids as they come out and they are most likely very traumatized and probably saying what this freak is telling and doing to them. The officers are making their decisions as the situation unfolds and their training from past experiences.

If a girl did get raped, the media and the public would be all over the Swat team asking them what the hell took so long to respond and get in and terminate the situation? Is almost a losing outcome however you want to look at it - the only sensible thing you can really say is - thank God! it could have been worse!

[Charger_Fan]

Your Ignorance truly astounds me.

[Troy]

I think he was a member of an online forum and read too many rediculously stupid posts in the Off Topic section. That has been proven to throw many right over the edge...

Troy

[dodge freak]

Thats very true. And yes we don't know what happen just what the police are saying-and don't you think the police are trying to show why they did not wait longer or go though the roof. With all the high tech stuff  the police have why not get a tiny camera up by the window and see where he was at ? They could have maybe shot right though the wall and got him.

Sure its easy to look back but and the police were in a bad deal no matter what. I think that guy could have killed both of those girls if he wanted too. We should all wait-I am sure the police were shooting too. Lets wait--Maybe I jump the gun also.

[grouseman]

• October 1978: A 17-year-old student shoots a 16-year-old to death at Sturgeon Creek Regional Secondary School in Winnipeg, allegedly for ridiculing the rock group Kiss. He is found not guilty of first-degree murder by reason of insanity.

I lived in that neighbourhood at the time, and was at my neighbouring high school the day it happened.  Some Sturgeon Creek kids came to our school and told us what happened after they were all sent home.  The guy who got murdered, I knew his buddy (from Jr High) who also taunted the murderer.  His buddy, who didn't get killed, was a merciless tormentor, in a just extreme Python-esque kind of way.  Just a smart ass, not really in an "I hate you, so I'm going to torment you" kind of way, but more of a "You like KISS?  What are you, weird?  You like makeup and guys in black tights?" sort of way, but he never let up.  The guy who got killed was probably like him or worse (I didn't know the dead guy).  

It's not the gun that made him do it, he would have tried to murder that guy anyway he could.  And he only took the one shot.  

[B5 Charger]

Thats very true. And yes we don't know what happen just what the police are saying-and don't you think the police are trying to show why they did not wait longer or go though the roof. With all the high tech stuff  the police have why not get a tiny camera up by the window and see where he was at ? They could have maybe shot right though the wall and got him.

Sure its easy to look back but and the police were in a bad deal no matter what. I think that guy could have killed both of those girls if he wanted too. We should all wait-I am sure the police were shooting too. Lets wait--Maybe I jump the gun also.

Go through the roof of a Highschool building?  Do you have any idea what an undertaking that would be?  Shooting through walls???    As far as the Police trying to say why they didn't wait longer it's pretty obvious.  They had a deadline looming and two girls screaming for help from inside.  You don't sit around when people's lives are in danger.  You take immediate and decisive action.

[dodge freak]

Well why wait even 4 hours then ? Girls scream for lots of reasons, they -the police either waited too long or not long enough it seems like. But again how do we know what really happen?

[B5 Charger]

Well why wait even 4 hours then ? Girls scream for lots of reasons, they -the police either waited too long or not long enough it seems like. But again how do we know what really happen?

Because for four hours they were not in immediate danger and negotiations were ongoing.  Then. . . . . the hostage taker set a deadline, stopped communicating, the deadline was fast approaching and the girls were screaming indicating that something, possibly death, was emminent.  And thank you for pointing out that you don't know what really happened which is a far cry from where you started out this debate.  I would love to continue this but I must leave for work.  Thank God only one girl lost her life and Godbless her parents during their time of grief.  That's all I've got to say for now.

[Shakey]

• October 1978: A 17-year-old student shoots a 16-year-old to death at Sturgeon Creek Regional Secondary School in Winnipeg, allegedly for ridiculing the rock group Kiss. He is found not guilty of first-degree murder by reason of insanity.

I lived in that neighbourhood at the time, and was at my neighbouring high school the day it happened.  Some Sturgeon Creek kids came to our school and told us what happened after they were all sent home.  The guy who got murdered, I knew his buddy (from Jr High) who also taunted the murderer.  His buddy, who didn't get killed, was a merciless tormentor, in a just extreme Python-esque kind of way.  Just a smart ass, not really in an "I hate you, so I'm going to torment you" kind of way, but more of a "You like KISS?  What are you, weird?  You like makeup and guys in black tights?" sort of way, but he never let up.  The guy who got killed was probably like him or worse (I didn't know the dead guy).  

It's not the gun that made him do it, he would have tried to murder that guy anyway he could.  And he only took the one shot.  

I think we all knew of some guys like that back in high school.

Sorry if I stirred up some old ghosts.

[RD]

I think he was a member of an online forum and read too many rediculously stupid posts in the Off Topic section. That has been proven to throw many right over the edge...

Troy

Sarcasm detector, that's a real good invention.

[dodge freak]

 
BAILEY, Colo. (AP) -- The gunman who killed a student and committed suicide during a high school standoff methodically selected six girls as hostages - apparently favoring blondes - and sexually assaulted at least some of them, authorities and witnesses said Thursday.

Sheriff Fred Wegener said the assaults went beyond touching or fondling. "It was pretty horrific," Wegener said, without elaborating.

The killer was identified as 53-year-old Duane Morrison, a petty criminal who had a Denver address but had apparently been living in his battered yellow Jeep when he walked inside the school Wednesday with two handguns and a backpack that he claimed contained a bomb. Investigators did not immediately say what was in the backpack.

Authorities said they knew of no connection between Morrison, his hostages or anyone else at Platte Canyon High School in this mountain town of about 3,500.

During the siege, he took the girls hostage in a second-floor classroom and eventually released four of them. Morrison, still holding two girls, soon cut off contact and warned that "something would happen at 4 o'clock," authorities said.

About a half-hour before the deadline, a SWAT team used explosives to blow a hole in a classroom wall in hopes of getting a clear shot at him, but they couldn't see him through the gap, and they blew the door off the hinges to get inside, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.

Morrison fired at the SWAT officers, shot 16-year-old Emily Keyes in the back of the head as she tried to run away, and then killed himself, authorities said. During the lightning-fast gun battle, police said, they shot Morrison several times.

A sorrowful Wegener defended the decision to try to take Morrison by force.
 
"My decision was to either wait, with the possibility of having two dead hostages, or act to try and save what I feared he would do to them," the sheriff said. "We have confirmed he did traumatize and assault our children. ... This is why I made the decision I did.

"We had to go try and save them."

Classes were canceled for the rest of the week as the community tried to come to grips with the bloodshed, which evoked memories of the 1999 shooting rampage at Columbine High School, less than an hour's drive away, that left 15 dead.

"This is - this is something that has changed my school, changed my community," the sheriff said. "My small county's gone."

Louis Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Keyes family, said the girl's father was among scores of parents anxiously awaiting word from their children inside the school during the standoff. John Keyes had just bought Emily and her twin brother cell phones for their 16th birthdays.

"How are U?" a volunteer text-messaged Keyes on her father's behalf.

At 1:52 p.m., she messaged back, "I love you guys."

Police stormed into the classroom less than two hours later.

"In memory of Emily we would like everyone to go out and do random acts of kindness, random acts of love to your friends or your neighbors or your fellow students because there is no way to make sense of this," Gonzalez said. "It's what Emily would have wanted."

Student Chelsea Wilson said she was in the college prep English class when the gunman came in and told the students to line up facing the chalkboard.

"All the hairs on my body stood up," Chelsea said. "I guess I was somewhat praying it was a drill."

One by one, the gunman started letting students go, and Chelsea, a tall brunette, said she was the first girl to leave. Her mother, Julia Wilson, said she thinks the gunman made all the blond, smaller girls stay. Keyes' yearbook photo shows a smiling blond girl with blue eyes.

Chelsea said she heard what might have been a gunshot after she left the classroom.

"He's a pervert," Chelsea said. "I'm not sure of motivation. I just knew it wasn't good."

Morrison was arrested in July in the Denver suburb of Lakewood after he failed to appear on a 2004 harassment charge in Littleton, another suburb. He was also arrested on suspicion of larceny and marijuana possession in 1973.

"He's a weird dude. It was a telephone harassment. He left some messages at a business in the city," Littleton police Sgt. Sean Dugan said. He declined to release details of the charge, but said Morrison received a nine-day jail sentence in August that was suspended.

At their home in Tulsa, Okla., Morrison's stepmother said she and her husband, Bob Morrison, "have no record of him being, having any trouble before."

"We just know the way he was raised," Billie Morrison said, declining to elaborate. She said the last time she saw him was three to four years ago, she doesn't know what prompted the violence in Colorado.

"We don't know why," she said. "We don't know how."

Morrison - wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt that made him look like a student - walked into the school shortly before noon Wednesday. Authorities said that during he standoff, he spoke at first with sheriff's deputies, then used the girls to relay his messages.

The sheriff, a 36-year resident of Bailey with a son at the high school and a daughter who recently graduated, paused when asked if he made the right choice to confront Morrison.

"You re-evaluate your decisions, but given the fact that he was victimizing - I should say sexually assaulting - the hostages, I felt I had to do something," he said. "Given the information I had, I feel like I made the right decision."

Residents gathered at the Platte Canyon Christian Church for support and others stopped by the Cutthroat Cafe, where Keyes had worked for about two years.

"It's very sad here. You know, the family lost their daughter but as a community, we lost a child," said Bobbi Sterling, a waitress and cook. "We're just sitting here, numb and in shock. We're all just kind of stunned."

---

Associated Press writers Chase Squires in Bailey; Don Mitchell, Dan Elliott, Sandy Shore and Pat Graham in Denver; and Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa, Okla., contributed to this report

[dodge freak]

So yeah the story is start to change allready. Now the police are saying they did not wait until 4PM but at 3:30 they decide to do something. And shooting though the wall they WERE going to do but they screw up and did not make a large enough hole to see him so then they blew the door off.  It also sounds like I am not the only "jerk" second guessing the decision to storm the room.

Yes the cops were in a bad deal and I am glad I did not have to make the call on what to do.

I hope the girl RIP and that real jerk burns in hell.

[CaptMarvel]

Why could they have just waited longer ? What about going though the ceiling and trying to look down and take him out. The police set off bombs and rushed in there. They thought the loud bombs would scare him I guess. I don't know what they thought. They had a tank on the highway too. What about just waiting till he was hungry or thirsty? If he would have started shooting then they should have went in but not before. It takes longer than 4 hours too cool off. This guy was just a homeless guy who had little contact with the police his whole live. Hes a SOB but it could had been handle much better. The police did not try hard enough, just took the quick way out.

Why is it there is so much "monday morning quarterbacking" when it comes to tough police decisions? I'm not sure the PD did screw up. If they had not done what they did when they did it, we might very well be looking at 3 dead. And to the one who posted, sadly, now we have 2 dead, I'm sorry, I generally like people & believe it to be a commandment, but I just cant get too tore up about the whack job losing his life, he obviously wanted it that way! I do feel very sad for the innocent one though, but lets get one thing straight, the 50 yr old POS drifter was not in any way innocent, so we probably shouldnt mourn him so much. Its funny how depending on where your political/spiritual beliefs lay, we seem to see things so very different. Like Janet Reno seems to be a hero to many on the left, but didnt she put those innocent kids in their ultimate mortal risk at Waco (going by your Colorado analogy?) Yes, Koresh needed to be taken out, but not the others. And what she & Billy Boy did to that poor little Elian Gonzales was a travesty of justice (I wonder, is he even alive anymore now that he was liberated from this terrible country by the defenders of "all things constitutional") Good one Reno, a real friend of the children!  Bottom line is, PD usually trys to do the best and safest thing, I think they are usually to be commended when they try to save lives (which I think they did)

[gtx6970]

As far as circumstances involved with the events here. I seriously doubt anyone will ever TRULY know exactly what happend, All we will know is what the media SPECULATES what happened or the medias VERSION of what the officials told them.

Tragically 2 people lost there lives.
Try to imagine how the parent of that one little girl feels right about now. We take it for granted that are kids are safe in every enviroment.

All i can say is IF this ever happens to my family ( And I pray to my god above  it doesn't )  the SOB that did it,,,,,,,, better kill himself

[dodge freak]

Oh don't even get me started about Waco Texas--that was murder--thats all I am going to say about it.

I am sure the PD meant well. They were just from a small peacefull town and did not have much crime in the town too often. I did not know that until now. Why they have a small tank if it is a small peacefull town IDK. Thats what threw me, maybe cause of 9/11 they got a grant for one. The top cop has a son in that school also, that effected his judgement. Yes those girls screaming did not help either. One kid today now said he made up the story about trying to stay in the room to help the girls and the guy never did put a gun in his face. That was no help too.

[dodge freak]

Teen Made Up Tale in Colo. Standoff

 
BAILEY, Colo. (AP) -- A teen lied on national television about trying to stay with six girls taken hostage in a high school classroom because he "wanted so much to help them," his mother said Thursday.

Duane Morrison, 53, took the girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday, sexually assaulted some of them and killed one before committing suicide, authorities said.

Cassidy Grigg, 16, had told NBC's "Today" show that he was in a classroom when the gunman tapped him on the shoulder and told him to leave. His father, Tom, gave a similar account of his son's story to The Associated Press.

The teen said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that he told the gunman he wanted to stay and that "he told me that if I didn't go then he would pretty much kill me."

Larina Grigg said her son told her he had made up the story.

"He said, 'Mom, all those kids were my friends and I just wanted so much to help them. ... I guess I just made it up in my mind. I just wanted it to be true so bad,'" Larina Grigg said.

She did not say whether her son had witnessed anything at the school or had heard details elsewhere.

Larina Grigg said her son had never lied to his parents before and called it

"This is a 16-year-old young man, and I'm telling you, it's taken some real guts to do this. He wants to make this right. This is his call," she said.

"He wants to tell everybody he's sorry, he made a mistake," she said.

© 2006 The Associated Press

[Troy]

I suppose it's also the cop's fault for even letting the situation develop in the first place. I mean, they should have known this guy was trouble when he got to town, followed his movements, arrested him (in a non-violent way of course), and politely escorted him out of town with a gentle warning not to do anyone harm in the future... "or else". See? Problem solved. I can't believe those slackers put innocent children in harm's way.

Troy

[bull]

That was a hell of a tough call for the police. I know I wouldn't just stand by with the knowledge that some wacko was sexually assaulting some high school girls, I would have done something too and what they did may have not turned out as well as we hoped it would but IMO he probably saved at least one life. You can't blame the cops for any of this, you can only blame the pathetic sicko who went into the school intending to wreak havoc on the lives of these young students. I don't see how the sheriff had any other choice but to try getting in there and stopping the assault.

[Steve P.]

There is no way any of us can make a call on something like that, unless we were the one in charge. Unless we have been through all the training. Unless we have the statistics. UNLESS IT'S ONE OF OUR DAUGHTERS INSIDE THAT SCHOOL.

I will say I would stand in front of anyone aiming a gun at one of my girls. Knowing what they did from the girls that got out I would have to say I would have blasted in more walls than they did to get the bastard.

But that's just me.

[B5 Charger]

So yeah the story is start to change allready. Now the police are saying they did not wait until 4PM but at 3:30 they decide to do something. And shooting though the wall they WERE going to do but they screw up and did not make a large enough hole to see him so then they blew the door off.  It also sounds like I am not the only "jerk" second guessing the decision to storm the room.

Yes the cops were in a bad deal and I am glad I did not have to make the call on what to do.

I hope the girl RIP and that real jerk burns in hell.

Well my point of view is they made the right call to do a hostage rescue.  Your point of view is well. . . . . something different.  I guess we have to just agree to disagree. 

[Brock Samson]

"In memory of Emily we would like everyone to go out and do random acts of kindness, random acts of love to your friends or your neighbors or your fellow students because there is no way to make sense of this," Gonzalez said. "It's what Emily would have wanted."

  ok gang we got our marching orders. 

[Steve P.]

I'm on board Strat..