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 Claire Davis was the only person wounded on Friday by 18-year-old
gunman Karl Pierson, who police believe was bent on exacting revenge
against a school debate coach who disciplined him earlier in the
school year.
"Her condition has not changed," Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson
Robinson told Reuters. "She is still critical."
Armed with a pump-action shotgun and a bandolier of ammunition, a
machete and three Molotov cocktails, police said Karl Pierson
stormed the school on Friday looking for a teacher local media have
identified as school librarian and debate team sponsor Tracy Murphy.
Robinson said although the gunman was hunting for the teacher, his
intent was to create carnage at the 2,000-student school in the
Denver suburb of Centennial.
The rampage took place just 8 miles from the nearby scene of one of
the deadliest school massacres in U.S. history, Columbine High
School, where two students gunned down 13 classmates and staff
before killing themselves in 1999.
At Arapahoe High School, the suspected gunman committed suicide when
an armed deputy stationed at the school cornered him in the library.
The event lasted 80 seconds from the time Pierson entered the
school, firing the shotgun randomly and igniting one of the
explosives, until he ended his life. Davis was "in the wrong place
at the wrong time" when Pierson shot her as she sat with a friend
outside the library, Robinson said. Her family has asked for
privacy.
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"Our beautiful daughter Claire Davis has severe head trauma as a
result of a gunshot," Robinson said in a statement read on the
family's behalf at a Saturday news conference. "She needs your
continued prayers."
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who this year pushed through
tougher firearms laws in the wake of recent mass shootings, told the
CBS program Face the Nation that he had visited with Davis and her
family, and that she was in a coma.
Hundreds gathered Saturday night for a candlelight prayer vigil at a
park near the school for the popular senior, who is a skilled
equestrian.
"She is a real happy person with lots of friends," said Arapahoe
senior Chris Davis, no relation, whose locker is next to Claire's.
"There were always a bunch of people around her."
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Chris Reese)
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