[ad_1]
DENVER – The frantic hunt for a young gunwoman who threatened Columbine High ended Wednesday near the foot of a mountain 40 km west of the school. Sol Pais, 18 years old and victim of a nearly 20-hour human hunt, was found dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound, according to authorities.
It is unclear how long she had died when she was found. Sheriff Jeff Shrader of Jefferson County said officials did not think she was working with accomplices.
Video: An armed teenager wanted for the Columbine threat is found dead
Pais went to Colorado this week from his home in Florida. Upon her arrival, she legally bought a shotgun at a gun store near Columbine High School, and apparently disappeared.
Pais' threats triggered a lockout in Jefferson County public schools on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the eight largest state school districts were closed. More than 400,000 students have been touched, adding to this already stressful week for the community: the twentieth anniversary of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School takes place on Saturday.
"Frankly, we are used to threats in Columbine, which was different," said John McDonald, head of school district safety and security. "It was different."
Video: Dir. of school safety: Shadow of Columbine occupies an important place
With the crisis over, the schools will reopen on Thursday. Anniversary commemorative events, including a high school alumni meeting, will be held as planned.
Parents of Pais reported the disappearance of the teenager Monday night after losing contact with her Sunday. She is not known to have a criminal record. The Miami-Dade Police Department announced Wednesday that it has searched incident reports dating back 18 years and found none under the name of Pais.
Online publications and a diary that appear to have been written by Pais indicate that for a year she has been struggling with an increased sense of isolation and anger.
In an entry dated Jan. 15, Pais – whose online nickname is "Dissolved Girl" – hinted that she could lead an attack. "My views and thoughts [are] more and more extreme and solidified over time, "she wrote in the diary of her personal website.[I] Feel like a saucepan of rumbling water about to overflow. "
At the end of March, Pais wrote on the National Gun Forum's website asking how she could acquire a gun in Colorado if she lived in another state.
"Hello everyone," she wrote. "Resident in Florida here I am planning a trip to Colorado in about a month and want to buy a shotgun while I'm there and wondering what restrictions would apply to me?" I found some private sellers that I might wish to buy from … Thank you for reading, I appreciate your answer! "
Several users intervened with advice.
"First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer my question and, to that extent, I really appreciate it," she wrote.
The interest of Pais for Columbine is far from being a new phenomenon for the forces of the Colorado order. The 1999 attack has long been of great interest to netizens, known as "Columbiners", obsessed with investigative records, school plans, and writers' writings made public.
Dozens of school shooters, including the killers of Sandy Hook Elementary School and Virginia Tech, are among those obsessed. They publicly or privately worship Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 of their classmates and one of their teachers in 1999.
"People talk to them because they see Columbine as a case of oppressed students rising up against their oppressors, the brutes," said Peter Langman, an expert on the 1999 attack and the 39, other shootings in a school. "It's a complete misunderstanding of what happened in Columbine – but it's a common vision."
As the 20th anniversary of the Columbine attack nears, the Jefferson County Public School District has experienced an increase in threats and disturbing messages, often in the form of e-mails to the school or to the school. phone calls to the 24-hour service center by the district security team.
More than 150 people a month were apprehended on the Columbine parking lot, trying to take pictures of the school or to introduce them there. Although most of these threats and intruders were considered harmless, Pais' threats were deemed much more serious.
John Nicoletti, a psychologist who works as a consultant for Jefferson County Public Schools, said the shares accumulated by Pais – buying a plane ticket, taking the flight, buying a weapon – were showing "someone". one who is determined to carry it out. "
"What we want to avoid is to say that we do not think that person really thinks so," Nicoletti said. "So, if they do something, how do you explain that?"
Parents in the community felt only ephemeral relief to the news that Pais was no longer on the run. The anniversary of the 1999 shooting was still in two days.
"We do what mothers do, we cry, we cry, watch press conferences and try to understand how we are going to talk to our children about what happened," said Tina Galterio, 46 years old, first year student at Jefferson County Schools.
Galterio graduated from Columbine High School in 1992 and cried as she recounted how she had taken her child to the Columbine memorial to honor her "regularly".
After filming Parkland last year, Galterio bought a bullet-proof backpack for the first student to wear at school. Now she will have to decide whether or not she feels ready to send her son back to school tomorrow.
This article was written by Reis Thebault, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Jessica Contrera, Washington Post reporters.
[ad_2]
Source link