Arapahoe High School Shooting (shooting incident at High School in Arapahoe County)

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MikeyB

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Hope the victim recovers. This one was quite close to home - my wife went to Arapahoe HS, we live about 1/2 mile from it and have 2 kids in Littleton Public Schools so at least 5 times, all 3 of our phones would ring with the recorded update from the school district. Good to hear the SRO responding almost immediately. Does anybody know what the 'William' units are? Paul units must be SRO, but don't see anything in the Wiki about 'William' units.
 

tinslep

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I am retired from LPS and just last month bought a Pro-106 scanner. I have separate scan lists set up for LPS, Arapahoe County, City of Littleton and Douglas County as well as other local departments and media. I was at lunch with a LPS employee when both our iPhones went crazy with the breaking news. We saw Littleton Fire responding from the restaurant we were at. My friend headed back to work but not before getting phone calls from a relative who heard about it in Canada and from the district. When I got home I turned on the scanner only to notice there was so much traffic on all channels that you really could not scan. I listened mainly to LPS, but switched a few times to Arapahoe and Douglas counties. There was so much mutual aid going on I could hear the different agencies sweeping the school. It is hard to listen to when you know and recognize many of the voices on the radio. I also got the 5 calls from the district even though I am retired. After Columbine I never thought this would happen at LPS and I hope my friends who still work there stay strong and can get through this OK.
 

MikeyB

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Regarding LPS - I was reading an article saying a LPS Security guard was present as well. Does LPS have armed security? It must have been interesting listening to the LPS security channel.
 

tinslep

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Most of what I heard on the LPS channels was direction being given on where to evacuate the kids. A lot of coordination with the different agencies and how to get buses to where the kids were. They put all schools on lockdown and sent most if the buses to Arapahoe so it was a real mess trying to get all the kids from the other schools home. They would not let any kids walk so it was either wait for a bus or have parents pick them up. I am not sure if Security is armed. My guess is the Director may be but I don't think the others are. I know they have an elaborate video and security system they have developed since Columbine. They probably have video of everything that happened.
 

MikeyB

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Interesting to see the changes to the response. Apparently it only took 80 seconds between the time he entered and the time he killed himself. Audio of the SRO coming onto the scene quickly. Paramedics quickly getting into where the victim was without delay. It seems the response was very good. Would have been interesting to hear the initial dispatch of the call. On the Arapahoe County SO feed that was posted on denverpost.com, it began with the SRO talking and other units already being en route.
 

dw2872

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Arapahoe High School Shooting (shooting incident at High School in Arapahoe C...

They are now saying it took 5 minutes to get to the shooter and by then he had already killed himself (fortunately).

Not much coordination between agencies on any common radio channels either. I wonder what happened with that?
 

MikeyB

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They are now saying it took 5 minutes to get to the shooter and by then he had already killed himself (fortunately).

Not much coordination between agencies on any common radio channels either. I wonder what happened with that?

I think in this case since the threat was gone so quickly it didn't matter, but it is a great learning opportunity. This is an area of town where not much happens so there isn't much opportunity for multiple agencies to talk but because the swath of Centennial that is covered by ACSO is only about 3 miles wide - from County Line to about Orchard there are only a handful of deputies covering this area and then Littleton PD, Greenwood PD and Douglas SO become quickly the next nearest. I'd be curious how the coordination was on the ground.
 

greenthumb

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As far as operations go, thee wasn't a need to call in every agency under the sun and have everyone on the same channel since the situation resolved itself so soon. I did hear some chatter on BLUE SE and BLUE NE but it was very little and I didn't tune in until about 45 minutes after it happened. My guess is that coordination with follow-up agencies (e.g. DCSO bomb squad) was just done face-to-face.

If the incident carried on for longer or involved more victims, there likely would have been more chatter on interop channels.
 

dw2872

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Arapahoe High School Shooting (shooting incident at High School in Arapahoe C...

True about the situation resolving itself so quickly. However, there were a lot of agencies that did continue to respond (even emergent) long after that because they thought they were still needed due to lack of coordination. Denver, Aurora, CSP, and many others.

Additionally, you can hear on the other agency channels (such as CSP) a lot of confusion over where to evacuate the kids and where to take witnesses. I'm sure there were other issues that were very confusing due to lack of that coordination. There absolutely was a lost opportunity for that.
 

wtnfs

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As far as coordination, keep'm coming until you know, really know, you do not need them. One thing that is lost on LE is staging and reporting to the command post. At one point someone did say report to the command post, but I never heard anything more. You don't need radios for everything, face to face is far better and that is why there is a staging area and incident command post. They all think once they get on scene they have to go to work, that is were freelancing and lack of coordination come from.

There was massive confusion about evac and reunification, listening live I picked up on this, but the evacuation and reunification is not LE responsibility, that is the responsibility of the school. LE will support it but responsibility falls to the district. Unfortunately schools never, ever practice this. They stop at the lockdown. Schools just do not have the guidance to really exercise all their plans. I have seen many administrators turn into a soup sandwich at the slightest bit of fear induced tachycardia.
 

dw2872

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Arapahoe High School Shooting (shooting incident at High School in Arapahoe C...

It's a great point about "keep em coming". Aurora told Metro agencies on METRONET that they had enough officers on scene of the theater shooting, but then requested emergent response from all metro agencies 10 to 15 minutes later. Those officers could have been there by then.

Interestingly, for the Arapahoe HS incident, I heard Homeland Security and FBI both get on the CSP 1C talk group (and I noted their radio IDs) for coordination while everyone was responding. They do have DTRS radios and often come up on the Network First BLUE TGs, this is the first I heard them on CSP TGs. It sounded like the CSP dispatcher's first time hearing them too.
 
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jimmnn

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Update: Claire Davis, victim of #ArapahoeHigh shooting, has died according to hospital spokesperson.

Jim<
 

dw2872

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Another Arapahoe HS security officer coming forward (after one has already done so) to expose flaws and cover-ups in the way the principal, superintendent, and HR dealt with the shooting (before and after the incident). Very interesting video piece here:

Arapahoe H.S. security guard says officials ignored warning signs before shooting | FOX31 Denver


And this after it had already been discovered that Arapahoe HS reported to the Dept of Education that "zero first and second degree assaults" and "zero dangerous weapons" incidents occurred during the 2013-2014 school year, the same year the shooting and death occurred. They used a loophole to avoid reporting it to the Colorado DOE what everyone knew actually happened.

Here is the video on that one:

Fatal Arapahoe High shooting not reported to Dept. of Education - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com


The way they are going, nothing will change.
 

dw2872

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Update on the story... Colorado Dept of Education is NOT allowed by state law to investigate claims of schools falsely reporting serious offenses as less serious. In the video below, a DOE employee says so.

Arapahoe HS also filed a report with the school district for DOE reporting as an "Alcohol Offense" when it was actually a "Weapons Offense". Then there was an "Abusive Language" report they filed, even though it was an "Physical Assault". Much more is under that tip-of-the-iceberg, I am sure about that.

State education board responds to accusations Arapahoe H.S. officials ignored warnings before shooting | FOX31 Denver
 

dw2872

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And now they have suspended the second security guard for an unexplained infraction. They won't explain what it is, but it seems pretty obvious why... The principal and superintendent that keep covering up things and not explaining anything to parents, reporters, or the public... they are still on the job though.

Security guard: Arapahoe HS shooting preventable
 
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