Pierson reportedly stormed the school with a shotgun and a Molotov cocktail while on the prowl for his debate coach when he fired a shot at a fellow student, injuring her critically. By the time the police arrived, Pierson had committed suicide.
One of the wounded students, a girl, was in serious condition, Robinson said. The other student suffered minor injuries and was expected to be released from the hospital Friday night, he said.
Pierson wasn’t trying to hide the shotgun when he entered the school from a student parking area and started asking for the teacher by name, Robinson said. According to accounts by fellow students who were interviewed after the ordeal, Pierson found that teacher and fired one shotgun blast at him, but missed.
Deputies and police officers who responded to the school immediately entered to engage the gunman as students were kept locked in their classrooms.
“Within 20 minutes of the time of the report of the shooting, our deputies found the suspect dead inside the school,” Robinson said.
Schools across the state entered into lockdown mode as soon as the news of the shooting spread. This latest high school shooting came on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Arapahoe High is located in Centennial, Colo., a city of about 100,000 people not far from Denver — and just eight miles from the city of Littleton where two teenage shooters killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves in 1999.
Students at Arapahoe were seen walking toward the school’s running track with their hands in the air, and television footage showed students being patted down. Robinson said deputies wanted to make sure there were no other conspirators but now believe the gunman acted alone.
