Colorado School Shooting 17-Year-Old Victim Remains In Critical Condition

As details start to emerge in the Colorado school shooting, police are saying that the 17-year-old victims, who remains in critical condition in the hospital with a head injury, was likely “in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson gave a chilling account of the timeline of events that began at 12:33 pm on Friday at Arapahoe High School, when an armed Karl Pierson entered the building through a side door close to the library. The shooting was over eight minutes later.

According to the Sheriff, Pierson, a senior and member of the debate club, parked his car in the student lot at the suburban Denver High School, and carried a bandolier, which contained a shotgun, shotgun shells, a machete, and a backpack with three Molotov cocktails.

Sheriff Robinson said, Pierson didn’t go out of his way to hide the fact that he was armed as he fired one shot down one of the hallways and encountered Claire Esther Davis, 17 and a friend who were seating together.

The attacker at the Colorado school “shot the female victim point-blank” in the head. “There was no time for the victim to run from the shooter,” Robinson told reporters on Saturday.

Pierson then fired another shot down the hallway and entered the library, where he fired his shotgun again. He then ignited one of the Molotov cocktails, which set at least three bookshelves on fire, causing the library to fill with smoke.

Robinson states the shooter then fired a fifth round inside the library, before running back to the room “and there took his own life.” It was 12:35 pm.

The events of the Colorado school shooting were captured on surveillance video, starting with the Pierson’s entrance to the school, and the shooting of the innocent 17-year-old girl.

“His intent was evil, and his evil intent was to harm multiple individuals,” Robinson said about the shooter, adding that the victim “probably was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“She was an innocent victim,” sheriff says of Claire Davis, teen wounded in Arapahoe shooting. http://t.co/r8YizVaUec pic.twitter.com/UlSXDIO0qO

— CNN (@CNN) December 15, 2013

All Littleton, Colorado schools on lockdown after a shooting at Arapahoe High School: http://t.co/gbWARYu6wa pic.twitter.com/ZaxJYg0zEY

— CNN (@CNN) December 13, 2013

Pierson allegedly had a specific teacher as his target, the librarian who was in charge of the debate team and had disciplined him in early September.

The librarian and one of the janitors left the school soon after Pierson started the Colorado shooting.

“It just looked weird,” Fabian Llerenas, the janitor said. “He went in and I heard two pops. That’s when I knew. I said, ‘They are shooting in the school.'”

“In my opinion, that was the most important tactical decision that could have been made,” Robinson said on Friday of the faculty member who left the building “in an effort to try to encourage the shooter to also leave the school.”

Reports indicate that the real hero was a Sheriff’s deputy that was in the building at the time of the Colorado school shooting, and likely prevented the attack from becoming a massacre.

Once he heard the shots, the deputy, along with an unarmed security officer and two administrators, ran the long hallway alerting teachers and identifying himself.

“It’s a fairly long hallway, but the deputy sheriff got there very quickly.” Sheriff Robinson explained. “We know for a fact that the shooter knew that the deputy was in the immediate area and, while the deputy was containing the shooter, the shooter took his own life.”

“He went to the thunder,” he said. “He heard the noise of gunshot and, when many would run away from it, he ran toward it to make other people safe.”

The Sheriff also says the Colorado school shooter purchased his weapons legally on December 6 at a local store.

Robinson read a statement from Davis’ parents asking for prayers for their daughter and praising the efforts of first responders and the trauma team at Littleton Adventist Hospital in saving her life. She has severe head trauma, according to hospital reports. The family also asks for privacy during this difficult time.

The Colorado school shooter’s body was left in the building until approximately 5 am Saturday while police continued their investigation.

[Image via Twitter]