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A hospital spokeswoman says the girl wounded in the Colorado high school hostage siege has died.
Earlier in the day, a gunman took six girls hostage at the high school in this mountain town, using them as human shields for hours before he shot and fatally wounded a girl and then killed himself as a police commando team moved in, authorities said.
The gunman, believed to be between 30 and 50 years old, was cornered with the girls in a second-floor classroom Wednesday, and he released four of them, one by one.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said authorities decided to enter the school to save the two remaining hostages after the man cut off negotiations and set a deadline. He said the gunman had threatened the girls throughout the four-hour ordeal and had shielded himself with the hostages.
The suspect was not immediately identified, and the sheriff was at a loss to explain a motive.
"I don't know why he wanted to do this," Wegener said, his voice breaking.
The wounded girl was taken to a Denver hospital in critical condition, but was declared dead, a hospital spokeswoman said. She did not release the girl's name.
The last hostage was unharmed and talking with authorities.
After the suspect entered the building, hundreds of students at Platte Canyon High School were evacuated in a scene that recalled the horror at Columbine High School just a short drive away.
Students said the bearded suspect wore a dark blue hooded sweat shirt and a camouflage backpack. The sheriff said the man threatened to set off a bomb he claimed to have in the backpack. The man was also toting a handgun.
Authorities had what they described as "sporadic" negotiations with the suspect and urged him to contact them for more discussion. Officers eventually crept close to the building, and there were reports of an explosion inside.
Lynn Bigham, who said she was a family friend of the wounded hostage, said the girl had just turned 16.
"She's real bubbly," she said. "Every time you see her, she gives you a hug."
The sight of students fleeing the high school in long lines, and of frantic parents scrambling to find their children, evoked memories of the 1999 attack on Columbine High School, where two students killed 13 people before committing suicide.
Students described a chaotic scene inside after the intercom announced "code white" and everyone was told to stay in their classrooms.
The high school and a nearby middle school were soon evacuated. Jefferson County authorities - who also handled the attack at Columbine - sent a bomb squad and police commando team to the high school.
"I'm just terrified. I'm terrified," said Sherry Husen, whose son plays on the high school football team and was told not to return to school from his part-time job. "I know so many kids in that school."
Students from the two evacuated schools were taken to another school for a head count. Ambulances were parked in the end zone of the high school's football field, and a tank-like police vehicle was parked nearby on a closed highway.
Parents pressed authorities for details but had little information on their children.
Bill Twyford said he received a text message from his 15-year-old son, Billy, a student at the high school. It said: "Hey there, there's a gun hijacking in school right now. I'm fine, bad situation though."
Michael Owens, who has one son at the middle school and another in the high school, said the anxiety was worse because of the memory of Columbine.
"Things that are out of your control," he said. "It's like an earthquake."
Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was among the students slain at Columbine, said: "Any adult who holds kids hostage is reprehensible."
The schools are in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 56 kilometres southwest of Denver. They have an enrolment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.
Husen's family moved to Bailey from suburban Denver about 14 years ago.
"We moved up here for the mountain solitude, and I just never thought this would happen in this school, but it happens everywhere," she said.
© 2006 AP DIGITAL
A hospital spokeswoman says the girl wounded in the Colorado high school hostage siege has died.
Earlier in the day, a gunman took six girls hostage at the high school in this mountain town, using them as human shields for hours before he shot and fatally wounded a girl and then killed himself as a police commando team moved in, authorities said.
The gunman, believed to be between 30 and 50 years old, was cornered with the girls in a second-floor classroom Wednesday, and he released four of them, one by one.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said authorities decided to enter the school to save the two remaining hostages after the man cut off negotiations and set a deadline. He said the gunman had threatened the girls throughout the four-hour ordeal and had shielded himself with the hostages.
The suspect was not immediately identified, and the sheriff was at a loss to explain a motive.
"I don't know why he wanted to do this," Wegener said, his voice breaking.
The wounded girl was taken to a Denver hospital in critical condition, but was declared dead, a hospital spokeswoman said. She did not release the girl's name.
The last hostage was unharmed and talking with authorities.
After the suspect entered the building, hundreds of students at Platte Canyon High School were evacuated in a scene that recalled the horror at Columbine High School just a short drive away.
Students said the bearded suspect wore a dark blue hooded sweat shirt and a camouflage backpack. The sheriff said the man threatened to set off a bomb he claimed to have in the backpack. The man was also toting a handgun.
Authorities had what they described as "sporadic" negotiations with the suspect and urged him to contact them for more discussion. Officers eventually crept close to the building, and there were reports of an explosion inside.
Lynn Bigham, who said she was a family friend of the wounded hostage, said the girl had just turned 16.
"She's real bubbly," she said. "Every time you see her, she gives you a hug."
The sight of students fleeing the high school in long lines, and of frantic parents scrambling to find their children, evoked memories of the 1999 attack on Columbine High School, where two students killed 13 people before committing suicide.
Students described a chaotic scene inside after the intercom announced "code white" and everyone was told to stay in their classrooms.
The high school and a nearby middle school were soon evacuated. Jefferson County authorities - who also handled the attack at Columbine - sent a bomb squad and police commando team to the high school.
"I'm just terrified. I'm terrified," said Sherry Husen, whose son plays on the high school football team and was told not to return to school from his part-time job. "I know so many kids in that school."
Students from the two evacuated schools were taken to another school for a head count. Ambulances were parked in the end zone of the high school's football field, and a tank-like police vehicle was parked nearby on a closed highway.
Parents pressed authorities for details but had little information on their children.
Bill Twyford said he received a text message from his 15-year-old son, Billy, a student at the high school. It said: "Hey there, there's a gun hijacking in school right now. I'm fine, bad situation though."
Michael Owens, who has one son at the middle school and another in the high school, said the anxiety was worse because of the memory of Columbine.
"Things that are out of your control," he said. "It's like an earthquake."
Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was among the students slain at Columbine, said: "Any adult who holds kids hostage is reprehensible."
The schools are in a narrow, winding canyon carved by the South Platte River about 56 kilometres southwest of Denver. They have an enrolment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.
Husen's family moved to Bailey from suburban Denver about 14 years ago.
"We moved up here for the mountain solitude, and I just never thought this would happen in this school, but it happens everywhere," she said.
© 2006 AP DIGITAL
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Mom: Teen made up tale in Colo. standoff
BAILEY, Colo. -- 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 "a blow."
"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.
BAILEY, Colo. -- 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."
A 16-year-old student at the school, Cassidy Grigg, initially said in interviews with network morning shows that he was in the classroom and offered to stay with the girls - but the gunman threatened to kill him. His father, Tom Grigg, gave a similar account of what his son had told him to The Associated Press. But Thursday, the teen's mother said he made the entire story up.
Larina Grigg said her son told her he fabricated the story because he wanted it to be true.
"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.'"
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."
Lynda Richards, 64, said Morrison was a tenant at a Denver apartment complex she managed in 2004 and 2005 and that she saw him nearly every day. She said he occasionally made inappropriate sexual comments.
"I was in (the laundry room) and he came in and before he left, I was washing underwear and he said 'Oh, my, look at those sexy panties,'" she said. "And that scared me at that point. I thought 'What is up with this?'"
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.
Authorities say they found a motel key and possibly prescription drugs among Morrison's possessions and they were checking into the possibility that he had been camping in the area.
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."
Colorado School Killer Left Suicide Note
Killer Storms School, Takes Children Hostage
POSTED: 6:25 am CDT September 29, 2006
BAILEY, Colo. -- The gunman who killed one of his high school hostages before taking his own life left a suicide note.
The sheriff in Bailey, Colo., said the note was sent to a male relative, before Duane R. Morrison stormed a high school classroom and took six teenage girls hostage.
"It was sent to a family member. We are still analyzing the note," said Sheriff Fred Wegener, who did not release the contents.
Investigators said they've also traced the handgun that was used in the shooting to the same relative. When investigators contacted the family member, they found out about the suicide note.
Wegener said Morrison molested all six girls and sexually assaulted at least two of them.
One of six hostages taken at Platte Canyon High School on Wednesday said the gunman seemed to single out Emily Keyes -- the girl he eventually killed -- and appeared to know her father.
That report was published Friday in the Rocky Mountain News.
The hostage, who said she was groped above the waist by Morrison, told the newspaper that Morrison molested other girls in the room as well.
The girl told the newspaper that she could hear the SWAT team outside the classroom and thought about action movies she had seen in the past.
"I imagined that a group of SWAT team guys would bust through the windows. Or that I could fight off the gunman with a kick in the groin," she said. "But that just happens in the movies. I guess it doesn't quite work that way in real life."
Another of the hostages during Wednesday's ordeal told her family the gunman stormed into class, threw his backpack on a desk, then lined up students and dismissed them one by one -- boys first and heavier girls. Eventually, he told the girls who were left to use their cell phones to call their parents.
"That's how my mom got the call," the 13-year-old sister of the hostage told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Her mother said the family did not want to be identified because it might further traumatize the former hostage.
"She was crying," the girl said of her 15-year-old sister. "My mom couldn't really hear her."
Authorities said the gunman used a human shield whenever he neared the classroom windows, and the sister said it was Emily every time. The young girl said the whole incident was like a bad dream -- until Thursday morning, when her sister climbed onto her bed.
"This morning, I woke up and I never really thought it happened until I heard her crying," she said.
Asked if she would send her daughter back to Platte Canyon High, the hostage's mother said she probably would.
"I heard my daughter say she doesn't want to go in that room because Emily got shot in that room, the gunman got shot in that room," the mother said.
Student Chelsea Wilson said she was in same English class when Morrison 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.
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."
On Friday, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said all of the girls held hostage were molested "in one form or another."
Another student reported that Chapman was sitting in the parking lot of the school on Wednesday morning and was asking about students.
"It looked like a parent going to pick up one of his kids so we didn't think nothing of it," said a student.
Authorities confirmed that surveillance tapes show the gunman was in the parking lot for about 20 minutes before he entered the school and took hostages.
Girl Slain At School Sent One Last Text Message
The teenager killed in the school hostage standoff sent a text message to her dad before she died.
As the hours dragged by inside Platte Canyon High School and a gunman released four hostages one by one, John Keyes found someone to text message his daughter Emily Keyes.
Keyes' father was standing with dozens of other anxious parents, wondering about his daughter's fate when he asked a reporter from the Flume newspaper to help him communicate with his daughter through the cell phones he had just bought for her and her twin brother for their 16th birthdays.
He asked "How are U?" and sent it to the Emily's cell phone.
"He just asked everybody if anybody knew how to text message, and I said, 'I'd be happy to help,'" said Flume reporter Cate Malek.
"R U O.K.?" his text message asked.
At 1:52 p.m., Emily messaged back: "I Love U guys."
"He then asked me to text, 'Where R U?' And he didn't get a reply back for that one," Malek said.
Keyes and the parents around him had held out hope that Emily was too busy being evacuated, but then his phone rang again. It was his wife.
"I'm not sure who called her to tell her that Emily was one of the remaining two hostages with the gunman," Malek said. "From where we were, we can hear an explosion, and at that point we saw him fall down."
Less than two hours later, Emily Keyes was fatally shot by the gunman, who killed himself as a SWAT team stormed in.
"I love U guys" is now the name of the memorial fund set up in Emily's memory. Click here to learn more about the fund and about a memorial service, scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m.
Emily, one of six female students at Platte Canyon High School who was held hostage, died after she was shot in the back of the head by Morrison as the SWAT team moved in to end the four-hour standoff on Wednesday afternoon.
Keyes, a junior student, was shot as she was trying to flee, authorities said. Keyes died at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver after she was airlifted from the school.
The gunman was dead at the scene, and his body remained inside the school until early Thursday. It appeared that Morrison shot himself, but SWAT team members also shot at him at the same time.
Wegener was joined by other officials in a news conference just outside the school on Thursday morning.
"I've gone from upset to angry," said Wegener, as he began the news conference. "Angry that this man has done this to our children. Angry that this man has done this to our community. ... It changed my school. It changed my community. My small county is gone."
A sign in front of a restaurant in the town's downtown area said, "Pray for Emily. Pray for Bailey."
Louis Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Keyes' family asked the public, "In memory of Emily, we would like everybody 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. It's what Emily would have wanted."
Gov. Bill Owens drove to Bailey Thursday to meet with the sheriff and some members of the community who had gathered at Platte Canyon Christian Church to support one another.
"It's a time when communities come together as well. And you see the best of people right after you've seen the worse in people. ... I have seen a lot of damage and once again, it tells us all, tonight, when you have a chance -- for those of you who have children -- go home and give them an extra hug," Owens said.
Emily grew up in Bailey, a bedroom community of about 5,500 people, and was known and loved by everyone who came in contact with her. Friends described her as a sweet, shy teen with a bubbly personality.
She enjoyed playing volleyball, was on the high school debate team and for the past two years, had a job waiting tables at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey.
"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 at Cutthroat Cafe. "We're just sitting here, numb and in shock. We're all just kind of stunned."
"This is a very small community. This has affected everybody who lives here and will for quite some time," Wegener said.
Emily's twin brother, Casey, was away from school on a field trip during the hostage crisis.
Friends said Emily was rethinking her choices for college because she wanted to be near her brother, her closest friend.
How It Started
The hostage situation began when Morrison walked into the school at about 11:40 a.m. Wednesday, said he had a bomb in a backpack and fired several shots inside a classroom. Six female students in a second-floor honors English classroom were taken as hostages as the school went into "code white" and Park County deputies rushed to the scene, evacuating everyone from the building.
Code white is the school code known to teachers that alerts them a gunman is in the school.
Jefferson County SWAT team and bomb team were called in to aid the rural Park County Sheriff's Office. Officers moved into the school and confined the gunman to a single classroom -- a lesson learned from Columbine. Deputies established verbal contact with him minutes into the incident through the door of the classroom. The suspect initially talked to deputies but later spoke only through the hostages, authorities said.
The gunman released four students one by one, negotiating with authorities through them by telling the students he released to tell deputies of his demands.
"Most of the demands strictly were: they wanted us to back off," Wegener said.
The gunman shielded himself with the hostages -- making it hard for the SWAT teams -- and talked only through the teens, either directly -- by having them yell through the door -- or by cell phone.
These sporadic negotiations continued until four hours later, when he set a 4 p.m. deadline, broke off all communication, and kept two students with him, authorities said.
SWAT officers could hear the students screaming inside the classroom, could see the assaults that were occurring, and that intensified the situation.
"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.
At about 3:40 p.m., the SWAT team deployed flash bang devices to force their way in.
"Officers breached the classroom with explosives. Within seconds, the suspect shot at entering SWAT officers, then shot one of the two female hostages and then shot himself. During the gunfire, SWAT officers pulled an additional hostage from the room and she fled the building on foot," Wegener said.
That hostage in the room was unharmed. She was being interviewed by detectives who are trying to piece together what happened during the last couple of hours -- when there were only three of them in the classroom.
Platte Canyon High School and Fitsimmons Middle School were closed Thursday and will be closed Friday. Deer Creek Elementary School held classes as planned. School officials will announce later this week when school will reopen during the week of Oct. 2.
Crisis counselors and victims advocates were available at Deer Creek and also at Platte Canyon Community Church in Bailey for all students, staff and family members.
The two schools that are affected are about four miles west of Bailey, which is in Park County. The two schools have an enrollment of about 770 students, with 460 in the high school.
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