JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Evergreen High School will have a full-time school resource officer in the wake of last week’s shooting, deputies with the sheriff’s office confirmed with Denver7 Monday.
Concerns about the lack of a full-time school resource officer (SRO) on campus were raised twice prior to the shooting during PTA meetings on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, hours before a 16-year-old boy opened fire at Evergreen High, injuring two of his classmates. The shooter sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound and died of his injuries that same day.
A day after the shooting, deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said the school had a full-time SRO, but they were on medical leave at the time of the shooting. To fill in the gap, Evergreen High has been utilizing part-time SROs.
“We have a couple of part-time SROs that share this school right now. There was no one from the SRO unit at the school when the shooting started,” Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said on Thursday. “He was there until about 10:30, 10:45, and then he was dispatched out here for an accident.”
Speaking to Denver7’s Adria Iraheta last week, Evergreen High School PTA president Cindy Mazeika said they learned about the SRO change during Tuesday's meeting, in which those concerns were brought up to the school's principal.
“[Jeffco Public Schools] decided that the mountain community is a low-chance incident in place, and that we were being deprioritized with funding, and that we will have a shared resource officer through all of the schools in the mountain community,” Mazeika said.
But that changed Monday, when another spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told Denver7 in an email that they could confirm Evergreen High School will have a full-time SRO “going forward.”
Classes at Evergreen High School remain canceled following last week's shooting. It's not known when they will resume.
The two victims in the shooting remain hospitalized in serious and critical conditions, according to hospital officials.
Authorities are still investigating the shooter’s motive, but said investigators have determined the gunman had been “radicalized by some extremist network.”
In the aftermath of the shooting, officials from Aurora Public Schools told Denver7 they plan to analyze safety protocols throughout the district.
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