Columbine threat alert
PUBLIC schools in the Denver area were closed yesterday after authorities said a young woman “infatuated” with the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School made threats just days before the 20th anniversary.
Authorities are looking for Sol Pais, 18, 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 on Tuesday afternoon.
All schools in the Denver area were urged to tighten security because the threat was deemed “credible and general”, said Patricia Billinger, a spokesperson for public safety.
The FBI say Pais travelled to Colorado from Miami on Monday night and bought a pump-action shotgun and ammunition.
Denver public schools said all facilities and programmes would be closed yesterday. The district said the decision to close campuses was in collaboration with other Denver metro-area school districts due to the safety concern.
Some schools released pupils early on Tuesday after extra security was called in.
“We always have heightened awareness close to high-profile anniversaries like this,” Billinger said.
Pais was last seen in the foothills west of Denver and considered armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached, authorities said.
“This has become a massive manhunt. Every law enforcement agency is participating and helping in this effort,” said Dean Phillips, special agent in charge of the FBI in Denver.
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 the police who came into contact with her should detain her and evaluate her mental health. Sheriff’s spokesperson Mike Taplin said the threats she made were general and not specific to any school.
The Denver Post reported that a call to a phone number listed for her parents in Surfside, Florida, was interrupted by a man who identified himself as an FBI agent and said he was interviewing them.
Associated Press left messages at two numbers listed for Pais’s relatives in Florida, while another number was disconnected.
The doors were locked at Columbine and more than 20 other schools in the Denver area as the sheriff’s office said it was investigating threats against schools related to an FBI investigation.