School Administrators Made Arapahoe Shooting Investigation Difficult
Documents show the district was slow to get investigators the interviews and documents they requested.
Arapahoe High School officials have said they were overwhelmed with the investigation in the weeks following the shooting.
Recently released documents show that Arapahoe High School officials didn’t always make things easy for the police investigating the 2013 school shooting.
Information released Jan. 18 shows that school officials weren’t always cooperative with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office as authorities requested documents and interviews with school staff members, according to the Denver Post.
In the days following the shooting, district and school officials prohibited investigators from entering certain parts of the school and delayed police interviews with school staff until administrators could “touch base” with them. The school also had difficulty providing police with the complete files that investigators requested.
RELATED: Arapahoe Shooting Report Highlights Flaws in District’s Threat Assessment Process
The district’s unhelpful approach to the investigation may have delayed the process for months.
The school has been faulted for failing to track the safety concerns of Karl Pierson, the 18-year-old student who killed classmate Claire Davis before taking his own life in the school library. The school had conducted a threat assessment on Pierson that a later review found deeply flawed.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the Davis family spent months fighting to publicly release information surrounding the tragedy.
Still, more than two weeks after the shooting, police had not received Pierson’s school records, and a month after the shooting investigators had still not received all of the documents they had requested.
RELATED: What Went Right During the Arapahoe High School Active Shooter Incident
School officials have said they were overwhelmed with the amount of police involved in the investigation and the number of documents they were requesting.
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