Karl Pierson has been identified as the Colorado high school shooter who walked into Arapahoe High School and targeted a librarian, wounding two people before killing himself.
The gunman reportedly opened fire with a shotgun inside Arapahoe High School on Friday, injuring two students in the attack. One of the students was treated for a minor injury while the other was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.
Karl Pierson was identified by 7News in Denver as the shooter, citing law enforcement sources. Students in the school said Pierson was looking for librarian Tracy Murphy.
“The shooter just ripped through the door, started yelling ‘Where’s Murphy?” a student, Max Minne, told the Denver Channel. “That’s the main librarian of the school. I saw him bust through the door of the library with a gun, so I just took off and started yelling, ‘Everyone get out, everyone get out.’”
By mid afternoon on Friday police said the Colorado high school shooting had ended and that students at Arapahoe High School were no longer in danger. Police said there was no indication of a second shooter, but proceeded as if there could be to be cautious. Overhead cameras showed students being led out of the building in an orderly fashion in single-file lines, some of them with their hands raised above their heads.
Students were also seen on the outer reaches of the school’s campus. The Araphoe County Sheriff’s Office asked parents to go to nearby Shepherd of the Hills Church to find their children.
Araphoe High School is a school with close to 2,000 students in an affluent suburb of Denver. It is located eight miles from Columbine High School, where in 1999 two shooters entered the school armed with a number of guns and homemade bombs, killing 12 classmates and a teacher. Araphoe High School is also the same county where last summer James Eagan Holmes is accused of killing 12 people in a movie theater in the town of Aurora.
COLORADO UPDATE Gunman identified as 18-year-old Karl Pierson, federal and local officials confirm to @ABC http://t.co/gNynKZkqqk
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) December 14, 2013
There was not yet an indication as to why Colorado high school shooting suspect Karl Pierson wanted to target the teacher.
Though details are still emerging about Pierson, sources said he held strong pro-gun views. A post on the school’s speech and debate team Facebook page under the name Karl Pierson referred to a rifle, saying “Sorry, Peter Galloway, but the Ar-15s wouldn’t be ‘school appropriate’ how’s this?”