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Jessica Contrera
A business journalist focuses on stories of people whose lives are affected by current events
Ian Shapira
Corporate reporter covering the Washington area and beyond
DENVER – When she entered Colorado Gun Broker on Monday, Sol Pais knew exactly what she wanted to buy. A 12-gauge shotgun. The same pistol as one of the shooters used in the 1999 Columbine High School attack.
The twentieth anniversary of this attack was in five days and the school was less than three kilometers away.
It had been weeks since this 18-year-old girl was planning this trip, a pilgrimage from her home in south Florida to the suburbs of Denver, where the modern day of school shooting had begun. She was studying that day and had become "in love" with the massacre, the authorities said. Now she posed a significant threat to the school, its 1,700 students and the entire community.
But instead of hurting others, Pais would eventually run away from the FBI – and kill herself with the shotgun that she had bought.
Officials said Pais was found dead Wednesday morning in an isolated mountain area after a nearly 20-hour manhunt that had shut down the state's largest school districts and left hundreds behind. thousands of students and parents wondering how close they were to a new attack on their community. .
"It was the real deal," said John McDonald, head of security for the Jefferson County School District, in an interview with the Washington Post. "She made meaningful statements to her friends and social media. You add to the fact that she goes directly from the airport to the gun store. . . these are the red flags we always talk about. "
Authorities have launched a research on Sol Pais, 18 (Jefferson County Sheriff's Office / Documentation / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock).
He learned of Pais' existence on Tuesday morning, a day when the school district was already responding to a bomb threat in a college and was receiving warnings of a possible shootout at another high school, McDonald said.
[[[[The man protecting Columbine]
The Columbine community is seeing a resurgence of threatening messages and behaviors every April, as the date of the 1999 attack approaches, but this year, with such an important anniversary, the threats have been unrelenting. More than 150 people were apprehended on the Columbine parking lot last month, while they were trying to take pictures of the school or to get inside.
Most are considered harmless. It was clear to the authorities that Pais, who had taken advanced courses at Miami Beach High School and had no criminal record, was probably not. The teenager's parents reported her disappearance Monday night after losing contact with her on Sunday.
Online publications and a newspaper that appears to have been written by Pais indicate that she spent months struggling with a growing sense of isolation and anger.
In a message dated January 15, she wrote – under the pseudonym "Dissgirl" – "My views and thoughts [are] extreme and solidified over time, "notes the diary of his 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. "Florida resident here. I'm planning a trip to Colorado in the next few months and I'd like to buy a shotgun while I'm there and wondering what restrictions would apply to me? I found some private sellers from whom I could buy. . . Thank you for reading, I appreciate your answer! "
Several users intervened with advice.
On Monday, Florida 's security forces were warned about Pais, who lived with his parents in a posh neighborhood of Surfside, two blocks from the beach. On Tuesday morning, this information was transmitted to the FBI, who began to trace the young woman's footsteps. They found that she had bought three one-way tickets from Miami to Denver: one for Monday, one for Tuesday and one for Wednesday. Pais was on the flight on Monday. She was already in Colorado.
Investigators prepare to head for the forest along Mount Evans while searching for Pais. (David Zalubowski / AP)
They learned the ride she had driven to the gun shop and the gun she had bought. The last time she saw her, she was wearing a black shirt and camouflage pants. It was at this time that the Jefferson County School District locked Columbine and other high schools, securing the outer doors while continuing to give classes. The FBI published the name and photo of Pais and began a large manhunt.
Parents in the region, already nervous about the upcoming birthday, began to panic. Jessey Smithwick, 40, said she paced the street until she saw her fourth-grade bus.
She told her son, "Most people are good and we will not allow some bad people to stop us from feeling joy." That night, she let him sleep next to him. She locked the door to the bedroom.
[[[[Database: More than 226,000 students have been victims of gun violence at school since Columbine]
Meanwhile, Grade 6 students retreated to the mountains were being evacuated. Authorities discovered that Pais had traveled to the west. A Uber driver had taken her to the foot of Mount Evans, about 60 km from Columbine. The driver of the car said that Pais did not say anything suspicious during the crossing, said Dean Phillips, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Denver, at a press conference Wednesday.
After Pais got out of the car, she walked about 800 meters on a trail near the foot of the mountain, said Clear Creek County Sheriff Rick Albers. She then left the path and climbed a snowy pine forest. At nightfall, Pais was still not found.
A woman stands among crosses posted on a hill above Columbine High School after the 1999 attack. (Eric Gay / AP)
During the search, investigators learned more about Pais' fascination with Columbine – a mentality that is not new to Colorado's law enforcement community. The attack has long sparked a keen interest online for "Columbiners", obsessed with investigation records, school plans and writers' writings.
Dozens of school shooters, including the killers of Sandy Hook Elementary School and Virginia Tech, were among those obsessed. They publicly or privately venerated Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 of their classmates and one of their teachers before committing suicide.
"People talk to them because they see Columbine as a case of oppressed students rising up against their oppressors, bullies," said Peter Langman, an expert on the 1999 attack and the 39, other shootings in a school. "It's a total misunderstanding of what happened in Columbine, but it's a common vision."
At 3:30 am, school leaders decided to cancel classes in eight of the state's largest districts, reaching more than 400,000 students.
McDonald said they thought about student safety: "What if she shows up at a school? We can protect the school. But if we engage in a shoot-out on school property, even if we win, even if everything is perfect and the threat is neutralized, how do you say to the parents, "Hey, your child was there when that was 'has passed?
Throughout the area, parents and children were awake all night and waiting for news to know if Pais had been found. McDonald received word-by-text from family members of students who died in 1999, offering her support.
Stephanie Sprenger, a Jefferson County parent and preschool teacher, learned that her 12-year-old daughter had spent the early hours of the morning texting her iPod with updates from her friends.
"Before I even woke up, she knew everything," Sprenger said. "It's terrifying to think that my 12-year-old girl has learned all the details before talking to her."
Members of an alpine rescue team carry the body of Pais, near Echo Lake campground, 60 km west of Columbine High School. (Rj Sangosti / AP)
While the Coloradans began their mornings stuck once again on their television screens, the FBI was focusing on the location of Pais. It would probably be near Echo Lake Lodge, a restaurant and campground nestled on a picturesque lake in the woods.
At 10:50 am, Pais was found. By the time the authorities contacted her, she had died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted bullet wound. She was still wearing her camouflage pants. The shotgun was found near his body.
The FBI quickly published an update on Twitter: "There is no more threat to the community".
For Jefferson County School District officials, who planned to reopen schools on Thursday, this was only partially true. A threat had ended.
But the anniversary – with its alumni meetings, service projects and other memorials – remained in three days.
Contreras, Shapira and Thebault were reported from Washington. Lori Rozsa contributed to this report in Florida. Julie Tate, Mark Berman and Jennifer Jenkins contributed from Washington.
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