Woman ‘infatuated’ with school shooting
Public schools in the Denver area will be closed today after authorities said a young woman who is ‘‘infatuated’’ with the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School made threats just days before the 20th anniversary of the attack that killed 13 people.
Authorities are looking for Sol Pais, 18, who is thought to have made undisclosed threats that prompted Columbine and more than 20 other schools outside Denver to lock their doors for nearly three hours yesterday afternoon.
All schools in the Denver area were urged to tighten security because the threat was deemed ‘‘credible and general,’’ said Patricia Billinger, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI say Pais travelled to Colorado from Miami on Tuesday and bought a pump-action shotgun and ammunition.
Denver Public Schools said that all facilities and programmes would be closed, and there would be no afternoon activities or athletic competitions. The district said the decision to close campuses was in collaboration with other Denver metro-area school districts because of the ongoing safety concern.
Pais was last seen in the foothills west of Denver, was considered armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached, authorities said.
‘‘This has become a massive manhunt . . . and every law enforcement agency is participating and helping in this effort,’’ Dean Phillips, special agent in charge of the FBI in Denver, said yesterday.
The FBI’s Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force issued a notice describing Pais as ‘‘infatuated with (the) Columbine school shooting.’’ The alert also said police who come into contact with her should detain her and evaluate her mental health.
Sheriff’s spokesman Mike Taplin said the threats she made were general and not specific to any school.
Two teenage gunmen attacked Columbine on April 20, 1999, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and injuring 23 others before killing themselves. – AP