School lockdowns and unverified reports of an active shooter left parents in the Roaring Fork Valley bewildered and terrified yesterday– and law enforcement agencies and schools struggling with coordinated messaging.
"Initial reports suggest that communication is something that we're going to be addressing vigorously to speed up both the accuracy and the timing of communications. As well as the responsibility of who says what, when."
That was Aspen School District Superintendent David Baugh, speaking at a media briefing yesterday afternoon. Schools in at least a dozen Colorado districts received calls from foreign numbers Wednesday reporting or directly making threats. The calls may fall under the category of “swatting,” where someone intentionally makes a false report in order to prompt a major law enforcement response. Pitkin County Undersheriff Alex Burchetta:
"Based on the information that we received, that this event here in Pitkin County was likely a prank. Operationally we treated it here as a real event until proven otherwise. This required us to methodically go through all of the schools to ensure there were no threats and to ensure that all students and staff are safe"
Aspen’s schools had just gone into lockdown for a drill on Tuesday. A little before 9:30 on Wednesday morning, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office posted on facebook that multiple agencies were responding to quote “unconfirmed reports of shots fired at the Aspen Elementary School,” end quote. By that point, all Aspen schools had been in lockdown for nearly an hour. Again, Burchetta:
"The dispatcher heard what we thought to be shots in the background. So that is what led us to believe that this was a real event, that it was an active shooter and that shots were fired."
Roaring Fork District schools in Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and Basalt went into secure protocol, which is similar to a lockout – access to schools is limited to approved personnel, while classes and activities continue inside … Then, a threat came into Glenwood Springs High School, prompting a full, but brief, lockdown there. Because schools in Carbondale had already gone in and out of secure protocol, Carbondale’s Police Chief Kirk Wilson and Roaring Fork District leadership made the call to leave Carbondale schools in that state until regular Wednesday early release. Roaring Fork High School students were ultimately released at 1:40 p.m. Most of Aspen’s students were sent home well before noon. Garfield R E 2 schools also entered secure status at one point.
Burchetta says the FBI will be the source of further details on the investigation.
"I'm assuming that there will be, not only a statewide, but a federal investigation into this. So I don't want to impact any of those investigative efforts. But I will say that the information we received ,it was very similar to the threat we received here in Aspen. And I believe that other jurisdictions throughout the state also received very similar information and threats as well."
School and law enforcement officials also took the opportunity to plead with community members to sign up for available text alerts. Aspen Public Radio’s Kaya Williams contributed to this report by KDNK’s News Director Morgan Neely.
