| 9/27/2006 10:29:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Student, gunmen dead in Bailey
by Tom Locke and Cate Malek
Flume Editor and Staff Writer
BAILEY - Victims advocates from Chaffee County are assisting Park County authorities after a Platte Canyon High School student was shot and later died after a standoff with a gunman in the school Wednesday.
The unidentified gunman died about 3:45 p.m. when SWAT officers from Jefferson and Park counties raided the second floor classroom in which he was holding two female students hostage.
The student victim, Emily Keyes, 16, was flown via Flight for Life to a Denver hospital were she later died. The second female hostage was uninjured.
During a press conference later Wednesday, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said, "The suspect shot one of the hostages and then shot himself."
The sheriff later said that more investigation is needed to show exactly what happened.
Tim Walker, Chaffee County Sheriff, said local victims' advocates left Salida about 4 p.m. to assist students, families and school officials.
"I'd imagine they would be up there a long time," Walker said Wednesday evening.
No one else from Chaffee County assisted at the scene in Park County although two members of the local SWAT team were prepared to travel if necessary, Walker said.
Wednesday night at Salida High School, students building floats for the homecoming parade Friday were listening to news reports of the incident and discussing the possibility of a vigil at a later date.
Events at Platte Canyon High School started to unfold about 11:40 a.m. when the gunman entered a classroom and fired a gun shot.
Wegener and three sheriff's deputies contained the armed man to one classroom.
By 2:30 p.m. all students except the two hostages had been removed from the school, officials said.
Students in the high school and adjacent Fitzsimmons Middle School were bussed to Deer Creek Elementary about four miles east of Bailey were parents could pick them up.
Wegener called for assistance from the Jefferson County SWAT team and the Jefferson County Bomb Team.
The bomb team was called because authorities believed the gunman carried "a suspicious device," possibly a bomb, in a backpack.
"We tried to talk to this individual and we were having some success," Wegener said, with the gunman releasing four female hostages, one at a time.
At 3:30 p.m. the armed man ceased talking to negotiators. He previously set a deadline of 4 p.m.
When negotiations ceased, it was decided a tactical solution had to be taken, Wegener said.
The fatal shots were fired about the time the classroom was entered by Jefferson County SWAT team. The Park County SWAT team handled inner perimeter security.
Wegener said the gunman threatened the hostages "the whole time" and he was "shielding himself with one of the hostages."
Wegener, who said he knew families of the hostages, spoke with emotion during the press conference. "I'm still somewhat shocked this could happen in a rural county," he said.
Jake Engelkes, 14, a freshman at Platte Canyon High School, said he was in gym class in an adjacent building warming up for weight lifting.
He said a teacher ordered the class into the boys locker room and told students the school was in lockdown - that no one could enter or leave.
Engelkes said about 35 minutes later, eight or nine students came through the back door into the locker room.
"Their faces were red; they had been crying," he said, adding that's when he learned a gunman was in the school.
Engelkes said he saw a student he knew. That student, Cassidy Griggs, said he had been in the room with the gunman and he talked to the man. When the gunman told him to leave, according to Engelkes, Griggs said he wanted to stay.
"The gunman turned around, pointed the gun at him and told him to leave," Engelkes said.
Engelkes said students in the locker room were taken to the A gym.
"The whole school was there. We were told there was a gunman in the school and that six people had been taken hostage," Engelkes said.
From the A gym, students were taken behind the building and the old football field to five waiting buses.
"Everyone was packed in, three to a seat."
On the way from the high school parking lot Engelkes said he saw ambulances and cop cars scattered in the lot. Along the highway heading to Deer Creek Elementary, cars were pulled over.
Wednesday night U.S. 285 between Bailey and Shawnee was closed to all but local traffic and was expected to reopen about noon today.
Merle Baranczyk, Mountain Mail editor/publisher and Christopher Kolomitz, managing editor, contributed to this story.
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