wetnwildgrl LRFA's blog: "Erica's blog"

Bailey - This grieving mountain town celebrated the short life of Emily Keyes on Saturday after a hostage standoff left the 16-year-old fatally wounded in her English classroom three days earlier. Echoing a text message the Platte Canyon High School junior sent her dad in the hours before her fatal shooting, the memorial service started with Emily's own words: "I love U guys." That message - originally meant for parents John-Michael and Ellen and twin brother Casey - washed over hundreds of relatives, schoolmates, teachers, neighbors, rescue workers and sympathetic strangers, leaving most of the crowd in tears. Gathered along the north fork of the South Platte River under Saturday's cloudless sky, the mourners strove to remember Emily's life, not her brutal death. A desire to find meaning in the seeming randomness of Wednesday's attack inspired the group to wear pink ribbons reading "Random Acts of Kindness for Emily." "Emily was a part of my life and a part of all of your lives. ... That part was torn away and stolen this Wednesday," Casey Keyes said at the service. "But the part of us that can never be torn away and never be stolen is the love and strength that keeps us together." The name of carpenter Duane Morrison, the 53-year-old hostage-taker and gunman, wasn't mentioned. "You will always be loved" Instead, the mourners focused on collages of Emily's childhood photos - her first Halloween costume, baths with her brother as a toddler and rides on a merry-go-round as a grade- schooler. In most of the pictures, she hugged her family, hugged her pets and hugged her friends. "Happy B-Day Mommy! I love you so much. I hope I can be the best daughter to you. You deserve it," read one card she wrote for her mom. Speakers remembered Emily's smile, her ease at forgiveness and the lavishness of her affections. They recalled her love of loud music and how she delighted in riding the kiddie coaster at Six Flags Elitch Gardens. They spoke of her in both the present and past tense. Among the messages friends wrote with markers on a white blanket laid out after Saturday's service: "You made such an impact on my life," "You will always be loved and never forgotten" and "I never thought I would see this day." For many of the teens in attendance, it was their first time mourning. "I changed a million times because I didn't know what to wear to a funeral. So I picked this because it was Emily's favorite color," said one Platte Canyon student in a shirt of the same pale pink as the ribbons hung throughout town in Emily's memory. Other students stood in a circle before the service talking about Wednesday's attack as if they had not spoken of it before. "It could have been any one of us," said one girl. Striking silences Before, during and after Saturday's service, clusters of students, teachers and rescue workers stood embracing one another in long, intense hugs. "This is the hardest thing that I'll ever face," said Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, a speaker at the service. "And I want the Keyes family to know that if I could trade places with Emily, I'd do it in a heartbeat. That wasn't supposed to happen. Going into a school wasn't supposed to happen." Wegener continued: "I hope I do this community proud. And I hope you'll let me know if I don't." Two of Saturday's speakers urged the crowd to free themselves from guilt that somehow they could have saved Emily. "You couldn't have done any more. That man had a gun," said Platte Canyon speech teacher Ruth Barth. "Let that go. You need to let it go. There's nothing you can do," added Jay Vonesh, a youth pastor at Platte Canyon Community Church. "We need to go forward in Emily's name and Emily's honor and turn this random act into random acts of kindness," Vonesh added. "Let's live and love extravagantly in ways that don't make sense, in ways that make other people wonder what you're up to." Despite the many remembrances and songs Emily's friends played in her honor, the most striking parts of Saturday's two-hour memorial were its silences. For 15 minutes before the service and 10 minutes after, at least 1,000 mourners stood so quietly they could hear the aspen rustling and the river running nearby. People along the aisles reached out and touched Emily's parents and brother as they entered and exited, tightly clutching onto one another. They came and went accompanied by a quarter-mile procession of police cars and rescue vehicles that slowly wound in, then out of the canyon, its aspen fully golden and wrapped with ribbons in pale pink.

The Platte Canyon High School student who told NBC's "Today" show yesterday that he had been in the classroom at the beginning of a fatal hostage standoff was back on the program, apologizing for lying. "I just want the people that were in the class to know that I'm sorry, as well as those that called me a hero," Casey Grigg said. "I'm just another kid that was there." "I hope that people will know me for who I am, and not a liar," he said. Grigg told NBC that the man walked in, fired a warning shot at the floor and ordered the students to line up. He told some to leave and others - all girls - to stay. "You could tell that he wanted the females," Cassidy said. "He tapped me on the shoulder and he told me to leave the room. I told him, 'I don't want to leave."' "He told me that if I didn't go then he would pretty much kill me On Thursday afternoon, Casey's mother, who appeared with her son on the TV show, revealed that she had subsequently learned her son had lied, and had not been in the classroom. Also this morning, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener appeared on CBS' "The Early Show." "I want to put an end to whether it was random or whether it was a deliberate attack," Wegener said. Investigators say Duane Morrison, 53, shot 16-year-old Emily Keyes before killing himself just as SWAT team members broke into the second-story classroom where he had held the students over four hours on Wednesday. They still were unaware of any connections between Morrison and the school. On Thursday, Wegener said the suspect approached a male high school student Wednesday and "asked about the identity of a list of female students." The sheriff said he wasn't sure if it was a written list or names rattled off by Morrison. It was not disclosed whether the list included Keyes. KCNC/CBS4 TV in Denver reported that video from cameras outside the school showed Morrison sitting in his Jeep in the school parking lot for about 20 minutes and then mingling with students as classes changed, nearly 35 minutes before the siege began. Investigators said the 53-year-old Morrison was a petty criminal who had a Denver address but apparently had been living in his battered yellow Jeep. Morrison walked inside the school with two handguns and a backpack that he claimed contained a bomb. Investigators did not say what was in the backpack. During the siege, Morrison released four hostages. While still holding two girls, he cut off contact with deputies and warned that "something would happen at 4 o'clock," authorities said. About a half-hour before the deadline, a SWAT team used explosives to blow a hole in a classroom wall in hopes of getting a clear shot at him. When they couldn't see him through the gap, they blew the door off the hinges to get inside, said Lance Clem, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. Morrison fired at the SWAT officers, shot Keyes as she tried to run away and then killed himself, authorities said. During the gun battle, police shot Morrison several times, they said. The sheriff said he spoke to Emily's family and explained his decision to try to take Morrison by force. "They were surprisingly supportive of everything I did," Wegener told CBS. "They are extraordinary people indicating that are going through a rough time. I hold the responsibility for Emily in my heart. I'll live with that for the rest of my life."

Duane Morrison apologized for the actions he was about to take in a letter sent to his brother on the day of his fatal siege at Platte Canyon High School, authorities said Friday. Even though it declares "this is not a suicide note," Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said it referenced suicide many times. The 14-page handwritten letter was delivered Thursday, having been postmarked Wednesday in Shawnee, immediately outside of Bailey. The letter did not reference Platte Canyon High School or any other school, nor did it mention harming others, Wegener said. "It doesn't tell me a lot of why, but it does maybe tell that the conclusion of the events of the 27th may have been my worst fears," said Wegener. "That he probably intended to kill both the young ladies and then kill himself or have us kill him." Morrison took six female students hostage, sexually assaulted some of them, released four girls and then killed 16-year-old Emily Keyes as police broke in after a four-hour standoff Wednesday. Also Friday, Emily's mother, Ellen Keyes, sent an e-mail to some participants of the recent PeaceJam event. "Emily and I (and many others in our group) were at Peace Jam. We loved it. Emily loved it. You have sent such a powerful message. The only good thing that can possibly come from her death is to continue the message. We can't let the bad guys win," she wrote. "Please continue with your strength. We want us and our children to be kind and strong. Practice random acts of kindness in the name of Emily." PeaceJam co-founder Dawn Engle said she was touched by Keyes' effort to reach out. "It's so strong and beautiful," she said. Wegener said Morrison's letter, which appeared to have been written over several days, left him with the impression that Morrison had a calculated outcome. "It was going to be either him or us," he said. "Unfortunately, Emily paid the price." Colorado Bureau of Investigation Division Director Steve Johnson said he couldn't divulge everything in the letter until investigators had a chance to go over its contents with the families of those affected. "I don't know at this point whether we'll be able to say what all he was trying to say in the letter. It takes a lot of different directions," he said. CBI spokesman Lance Clem said Morrison sent the letter to one of his brothers. The brother presented it to authorities unopened, Wegener said. Clem said he hadn't seen the letter but was told it is primarily directed to Morrison's family and doesn't shed much light on Wednesday's school standoff. "It's long and doesn't seem to be all that clear about anything that happened," he said. Investigators still chasing leads In other news Friday, Wegener said: Investigators are checking into a rumor that Morrison may have targeted his victims by trolling through the home pages for students at Platte Canyon on a social-networking website. Detectives are still interviewing students, including one who says Morrison approached him with what he said was a list of female students. The identity of that student has not been released. Two guns found at the scene were tied to Morrison, and preliminary indications link him to an assault rifle found down the road from the school. One of the handguns was traced to a relative, but authorities said there is not reason to believe the relative had any knowledge of his plans. It appears that Morrison may have visited the high school in the days leading up to the attack, perhaps to conduct reconnaissance, the sheriff said. And the high school, which has canceled classes and sporting events, will host a football game Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. Violent threat in shooter's past Clem said the CBI has completed its investigation of the school, though the criminal investigation of the hostage standoff and shootings continues. Police records in Littleton show Morrison threatened two years ago to kill salesmen and staff at Rocky Mountain Harley-Davidson with an assault rifle. During a profanity-laced Nov. 22, 2004, phone message to the Littleton store, Duane Roger Morrison complained about getting a promotional flier. "What do you think it will take to get this stopped?" he asked. "Ah, maybe, ah, maybe a visit with an assault rifle? Damn, I'd sure hate for it to come to that. Maybe we can get something stopped before then." "It's very disturbing," said Sgt. Sean Dugan, Littleton police spokesman. Morrison was charged with harassment in the case. He was released on a $500 bond but failed to appear on the warrant. He was given a suspended sentence Aug. 15 of nine days in jail, according to court records. The threat wasn't the first Morrison had given to staff at the motorcycle shop. Linda More, 52, a Harley-Davidson employee, told police Morrison had previously made other harassing phone calls. He had also called company headquarters in Milwaukee to complain. "I guess my last threat down there didn't carry very far. Ah, wow," Morrison said on his Nov. 22 phone threat. "Well, ah, what happened?" Six months later, Morrison claimed that 15 pistols and rifles were among items stolen from his Denver apartment at 1300 S. Birch St. Sometime in May, a thief had pried open his bedroom window and taken the items, including a .30-caliber Weatherby rifle and a .270-caliber Belgium rifle, both with scopes and each worth $2,000, Morrison reported. Also stolen from his apartment was a watch, $310, a coin collection and binoculars.

The murder of Emily Keyes on Wednesday was rough on Tom Mauser. Every school shooting brings back painful memories, but this one was so close, and so many of the images from Platte Canyon High School were familiar, it made the crime particularly awful. "The helicopters, the kids running from the school, the buses, the parents waiting for their kids at another school ... "Obviously there have been other school shootings since Columbine, but this one was especially difficult," said the father of Columbine shooting victim Daniel Mauser. Seven years later, he can be back in that moment in a heartbeat. "The first stage is just the shock," Mauser said of the process of coping with something no parent should have to face. "People would use words like 'the incident.' I always hated that word. Or they would call it 'the massacre' or 'the tragedy.' Face it, it's a murder. They were murdered," he said. And that word "has such a heavy connotation to it." Part of that connotation is that murder should be preventable, or at least that a parent, a teacher, a cop should be able to protect a child from it. "You spend a lot of time wondering why they were deserving of this, why did this person choose my child for murder," Mauser said. Then months or maybe years later, the parent of a murdered child must face the reality that, unfair as it is, the child is not coming back and life is changed forever. It's not closure, Mauser said. Closure is a myth. If anything, it's modest acceptance that life goes on. "For me the key was thinking, 'What would Daniel want me to do?' I came to the conclusion that I don't think Daniel wants us to be miserable people trying to figure this out for the rest of our lives." Mauser and his wife, Linda, grieved in very different ways. A very private person, she drew inward. Mauser channeled his grief into activism. "I realized skills and gifts I had that I could use in public speaking, in acting in a proactive way, in leading," he said. "It was all rolled into the healing process for me." Mauser has become a national leader in the movement to outlaw automatic weapons and to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. His outspokenness was a product of "that adrenaline rush that comes from going through what I went through." He also turned his grief into deeper relationships with his family, impatience with petty differences that divide people and a close identification with the survivors of violent crime. Like the kids who weren't killed in the library at Columbine, the survivors of last week's hostage crisis at Platte Canyon High School worry him. The names of the killers and the victims will be remembered, but in a very short time the survivors will be alone to deal with their fears and their nightmares, to wonder why they lived and Emily Keyes didn't. "They will tend to be the forgotten ones," he said. "Those lives are changed forever." It makes him angry. "I don't think anything in the laws could have changed what happened," Mauser said. The killer, Duane Morrison, was not prohibited from owning a gun. And when someone is suicidal and murderous, "I don't think there's a whole lot you can do. It's just a question of who he was going to take with him." The proliferation of guns in the U.S. makes it too easy, though, he said. "The fact that it's a readily available tool for getting out one's frustrations or lack of power or in this case this man's sickness, that really raises my blood pressure." So as another wave of grief washes over him, Mauser will reach out to his wife, his 21-year-old daughter, Christine, and his 6-year-old daughter, Madeline. He'll hit the streets campaigning against candidates who oppose the modest gun- control measures he supports. He'll remember Daniel, and his heart will break all over again thinking about the child who was killed and children terrorized in their high school in Bailey. He'll feel all the pain anew because it never ever goes away.

Park County - This is a place that embraces its solitude. Before the shooting, Deb Garnett thought she had chosen the perfect place to raise her four children, in a home among the rough canyons and pine and aspen that coat the landscape. On Thursday, in a week that stole the heart from so many people here, Garnett had to explain to her confused 5-year-old daughter, Serafina, that a funeral is not like a wedding. "She started crying and crying when I tried to tell her. She was sad because she had nothing black to wear." Before the shooting, Lori Crawford, the general manager at the county's weekly newspaper, used to shrug off some of the crazy suicides that happened around town: the guy who blew up his house, the man who had a standoff with police in June. Now, she can't help crying. "They just come," she said of the tears, "and you can't stop it." Before the shooting, Kelly Murphy, who owns a restaurant in Bailey, used to love seeing a particular teenage girl in town with her family. Emily Keyes always had something lovely to say. Last week, Murphy's husband climbed a ladder in the restaurant's parking lot and replaced the specials with a message: "Pray for Emily. Pray for Bailey." "We're left to move on," Murphy said. "It hurts, though." Those interviewed say they will move on; they're just unsure how. Tranquility disturbed Park County, with a population of about 17,000, will now be known, at least in part, as home to Platte Canyon High School after a 53-year-old man held students hostage before killing one of his captives and taking his own life when police stormed into the classroom. But before the shootings, it was a county where people went to get away. A place to fish and hunt and hike, and, most of all, to raise children. Here, far from the influences of the city and the streets, people thought life was better, cleaner, safer. It was a place where a person could walk miles in wilderness without seeing another soul and, at that moment, realize their insignificance in the world. Park County is 2,200 square miles of splendid isolation, a county twice the size of Rhode Island and larger than Delaware. It takes an hour and a half to drive east to west through the county. Every turn on its dirt roads reveals another of nature's secrets - golden aspen shedding leaves in the late summer heat, an open trail leading to an azure lake bathed in morning sunlight. "You go outside and see all this beauty around you, and you realize how blessed you are to be here," said Patti Kupfermann, a native New Yorker who owns a pizzeria in Fairplay, the county's seat. "And then something like this happens." Strength in numbers The county attracts an eclectic group of residents, from techies who commute to Denver to those who live on 100-year-old family farms to those looking to escape something or someone. That Duane Morrison's motive for attacking the school is unknown is making life these days so frustrating, so painful. In Park County, people here say, they raise pretty, athletic girls. They don't bury them. But now, they are left to mourn a 16-year-old girl, her family and their community. They must deal with the scars that one day in September has wrought on their lives. They see that their community is being beamed to televisions worldwide, a little place in the middle of nowhere that found its way everywhere. Chalk it up to the randomness of life, some say, that everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, can become a victim. Blame it on the new people in town, others say, the ones who brought their Land Rovers and BMWs to this place of rutted roads and septic tanks and almost doubled the county's population in 15 years. "The city folk want to come to a rural community, but then they want to drag the city in with them," said Jerry Teel, 56, a cashier and shelf-stocker at the Sinclair gas station in Fairplay. "Park County isn't what it used to be." Still, say those in the towns near the shooting, there is a sense that the community has never been stronger. People have survived myriad wildfires and the deaths of students from car crashes in years past. The shooting is another emotional hurdle for them to clear. In a way, they are like the aspen. In the mountains, they seem solitary, alone in the vast green of pine trees. But below ground, where no one can see, is a network of roots, bound and twisted together so that one cannot be separated from the other. It is one organism. "We were violated, and maybe there was some innocence peeled back, but we'll be stronger because of that," said Jonathan Cleary, 50, a close friend and business partner of Emily's father. "Something good will come out of this," he said. "It has to." Unwanted notoriety Up a hill leading into Bailey, a vinyl sign supporting the county sheriff, Fred Wegener, and his decision to storm the classroom is tied to a worn white fence. It was during the siege, when Emily tried to run, that Morrison shot and killed his teenage hostage. Messages, from old men to young girls, are scrawled in red pen: "You and your crew saved my kids and I will never forget that." "Thank you so much for everything." "Thanks for getting my class out safe! I love you!" Doug Tamminga stared at the words. His son is a Platte Canyon sophomore. "We've talked, but he seems to do better around his friends," Tamminga said of his son, who escaped safely. "Me? I'm sad and angry. I'm an emotional wreck." If anything, the folks here say they have pushed themselves to the limit. Some wonder if any school is truly safe, whether another sick person could come through their own front doors next time. The community's Internet blog, pinecam.com, has been inundated with questions about how to address the shooting with small children. "You try to explain this, but how?" asks Garnett. "There are some things you just can't explain." Which is why the community is beginning to close in on itself from the prying eyes of outsiders. People in Bailey are starting to complain about the media that invaded their hamlet. Signs on some stores ask reporters to stay away. "Respect our community," one reads. At the fire department's administration building east of the town, an employee spotted a reporter. "Go away," the man said. "There's no one here but grieving firefighters." They worry that their town will become another roadside curiosity, much like Columbine High School in Jefferson County or JonBenét Ramsey's former home in Boulder. Preserving a legacy of beauty But they are determined that the shooting will not be their legacy. Up U.S. 285 on Friday, Fermin Romero and his wife, Hazel, stopped at Kenosha Pass. The retired couple from Bailey wanted to capture a late summer view. They passed the high school on the way out. "You can't let (Morrison) do this to you," the 69-year-old husband said. "We live in a beautiful area, and I'm going to enjoy it."

A Marine accused of staging his disappearance to avoid returning to duty had invented an "amazing plan" to be presumed dead so he could collect insurance money through his brother, his girlfriend said. Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, 21, has been missing since Aug. 30 when he and a friend fabricated a story about Hering falling while they were hiking in Eldorado Canyon State Park, sheriff's officials have said. Hering was missing when the friend came back with help. Hering was on leave from Iraq when he disappeared. He was due back at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Sept. 18. According to a search warrant released Thursday, Hering's girlfriend, Kaley Sutton, told authorities he had talked about disappearing. She said he had come up with a "great idea, an amazing plan" about a year ago and intended to tell only her and his brother, Air Force Lt. Brendan Hering, about it. Sutton said Lance Hering intended to fake his death and assume a new identity in another country using insurance money by naming his brother as a beneficiary and having the money funneled to him. Hering's father, Lloyd Hering, said Brendan Hering knew nothing of the plot and that the stress from his younger son's time in Iraq - not the notion of the insurance money - led to his disappearance.

FIRESTONE - A man is in jail Sunday, accused of shooting his 5-year-old stepson in the leg late Saturday night. Police said 29-year-old Nolberto Ojeda admitted to the shooting. However, they are still trying to determine whether it was an accident. The shooting happened overnight in Firestone, a city about 30 miles northeast of Denver on the I-25 corridor. According to police, just after 10 o'clock Saturday night, Ojeda fired several shots into an alley by his home. At least one of the shots hit his stepson in the left leg. The boy was rushed to Children's Hospital in Denver. Police say the 5-year-old had to undergo surgery overnight. There is no word on his condition. Ojeda had been drinking before the shooting happened, police said. One neighbor said he heard Ojeda was trying to teach his stepson how to shoot a gun. However, another neighbor doesn't think this was an accident. "I don't think it had anything to do with him teaching his child how to fire a weapon at all, in my personal opinion," says Abigail Mahalic. "Because of the way the shots sounded, they weren't evenly spaced, they weren't one or two." Neighbors said they can't believe this could happen in their area. "Firestone's a very quiet town," said Brandon Ohmie. "Very out of the ordinary, just very weird." Detectives will be back at the scene today searching for further evidence. They will also be canvassing the neighborhood. Even though the investigation is ongoing, Firestone Police Chief David Montgomery said Ojeda will face charges. Montgomery said charges will include felony child abuse, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and felony possession of a firearm. Chief Montgomery said this case will be handed over to the district attorney Monday morning. He also stressed this was an isolated incident, and there is no threat to the community.

Students at Platte Canyon High School and Fitzsimmons Middle School in Bailey will resume their normal schedules on Thursday, district officials announced today. The schools have been closed since Wednesday, when Duane Morrison entered the high school and held several students hostage before killing 16-year-old Emily Keyes and then turning the gun on himself. "Our students and staff continue to grieve and to heal. I thank all of you in our Bailey community and the broader community across the country for your support," Platte Canyon School District Superintendent Jim Walpole said in a release. "I ask that you take time for a special prayer for our students, parents, and staff at your church services today and tomorrow's Yom Kippur day of prayers. I also ask you to pray for our community officers and emergency response personnel who are experiencing the pain of this tragic event." Walpole said district officials are concentrating today on collecting personal belongings to be returned to students this week and on preparing the schools for reopening. The district is asking middle and high school students and their parents to come to school Wednesday between 8 and 11 a.m. to meet with teachers, obtain schedules and new room assignments, and pick-up personal items left during the evacuation. There will be no school at Deer Creek Elementary on Wednesday. Classes resume Thursday on a regular schedule.

A bearded drifter walks into a Colorado school and fatally shoots a student before taking his own life. Wisconsin authorities charge three boys with plotting a bomb attack on their high school and, two weeks later, a student in a rural school allegedly shoots his principal. A gunman bursts into a Vermont elementary school looking for his ex-girlfriend and guns down a teacher. All of this in the past month alone. Since the 1999 Columbine massacre that left 15 people dead, there has been a determined effort among administrators, principals and teachers to improve school safety. Law enforcement officers across the nation and around the world have added training specifically intended to address school violence. But experts say there is simply no way to guarantee that a stranger or student won't be able to injure or kill on school grounds. "There's no perfect security, from the White House to the schoolhouse," said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm in Cleveland. Since Columbine, school officials have gotten better at preventing student violence, he said, but authorities can't prepare for every problem. "When you factor in unpredictable outsiders, when you have a roaming monster walking into the schools, we have to be realistic," Trump said. "There are some incidents you're not going to be able to prevent." Trump's firm counts 17 nonfatal school shootings so far this school year, beginning Aug. 1. There were 85 the previous school year and 52 in the 2004-2005 school year. Since Columbine in 1999, the number of fatal school shootings in a school year has ranged from three (2002-03) to 24 (2004-05), according to National School Safety and Security Services. The firm does not track cases before Columbine. Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener was among the law enforcement officials who eagerly applied for federal aid to beef up security at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, the site of last week's attack in which a man held six girls hostage before killing one and himself. A deputy was assigned to be the school's resource officer - essentially, its security guard. But that guard was called away on sheriff's business last Wednesday and gunman Duane Morrison walked inside with two handguns. He reportedly sat in the school parking lot and wandered the hallways for as long as 35 minutes before the siege began. Despite the death of 16-year-old Emily Keyes, things could have been worse, authorities said. "Basically, the tragedy of Columbine taught law enforcement and educators how to avoid future tragedies," Gov. Bill Owens said. "In a couple of significant ways, the tragedy of Columbine may have helped prevent an even worse tragedy (here)." He said educators had been instructed in August on what to do. The school was also designed using concept learned from the Columbine attacks, which helped authorities keep the gunman in one room. Ever since Columbine, school officials have been taught to write emergency response plans and practice them, to lock down schools and evacuate when it appears safe. That seemed to work well in Bailey as hundreds of students were whisked to safety. Law enforcement officers who once were taught to set up a perimeter and wait for SWAT teams to show up are now trained in "active shooter" programs that call for the first officers on the scene to enter the building and work as quickly as possible to locate the gunman, Trump said. "That's why we were able to isolate it to just one room and get everybody else out," Wegener said. "Still, you can't prepare for something like this. You do the best you can." Student Zach Barnes, 16, also said students last year practiced drills for emergencies including a gunman in the school. Students were told to remain calm, taught where to go and how to leave the school. Still, there appeared to be at least one glitch Wednesday. "We were sitting there in math class and over the intercom they said, 'Students and teachers, we have a code white, repeat code white,' and nobody really knew what a code white was," Barnes said. He said his teacher pulled a sheet of paper from her desk, checked it and then herded her students into a nearby classroom that had a solid door. After about 25 minutes, a police officer led them into the hallway and out of the school. Colorado has left decisions on providing security in schools up to some 172 school boards, but state lawmakers said they will look at training and other issues following the Bailey attack. Providing security guards at every entrance to every school would be difficult, said Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Golden, but others said video cameras and security systems could help fill the gap. "If we could plug in some technology, that would help," said George Voorheis, superintendent of Colorado's largely rural Montrose & Olathe Schools District RE1J.

A fishing trip with his older brother was the only happy memory Duane Roger Morrison recounted in a farewell letter in which he describes a difficult, abusive childhood. His childhood was so crippling, he told five siblings in the rambling 14-page letter, that he was never able to function normally, and it was time to end his pain, a law enforcement official said Morrison wrote. The letter said that as long as he lived, he would never forget the abuse at home and how petrified he was whenever his father approached him. The Denver Post obtained previously unpublished details Saturday about the contents of the letter. The letter, mailed from Shawnee, just outside of Bailey, was received by one of Morrison's brothers Thursday, the day after Morrison entered Platte Canyon High School, took six girls hostage, sexually assaulted them and ultimately killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself. Morrison gave no hint in the letter of what he planned to do at the high school, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said. The letter stated that Morrison was in emotional pain because of treatment by his father, said Joe Gordon, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' assistant agent in charge of a five-state region that includes Colorado. "He said his father was always screaming and yelling," he said. "That in no way justifies the horrific crime he committed." Contacted by phone Saturday, Duane Morrison's father, Bobby Morrison, who lives in Tulsa, Okla., did not comment. A woman got on the phone and said: "This is private." "It was a very sad letter," Gordon said. "At the end he makes it clear this is his final farewell. "He wants (his family) to know his final moment will be painless and he will be at peace. He said, 'Don't you feel guilty for this. You're absolved from any responsibility."' The letter said he loved all his brothers and sisters and apologized for what he was about to do, Gordon said. He thanked them for trying to help him over the years. The letter only indicated that he would take his own life, he said. Morrison mailed the letter Wednesday to one of his older brothers. Gordon did not know which brother. Two ATF agents spoke with the brother for two hours Wednesday night, and the brother gave the letter to them unopened after he received it in the mail Thursday. "He couldn't emotionally bear to read it," Gordon said. The ATF turned the original letter over to Park County officials. A team of ATF and FBI profilers at the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime in Quantico, Va., will study the letter for years to come, Gordon said. The ATF has traced the two guns Morrison used in the school attack from the store where he bought them to the manufacturers, he said. They were purchased legally, he said. While Morrison did not threaten the school in his letter, he clearly considered a grudge with a Littleton motorcycle shop to be unsettled. "That jumped off the page at you," Gordon said. "He certainly still carried some significant ill will towards them." On Nov. 22, 2004, Morrison left a profanity-laced phone message with Rocky Mountain Harley-Davidson after he received a promotional catalog in the mail, according to a tape of the call obtained from the Littleton Police Department. "What do you think it will take to get this stopped?" he asked. "Uh, maybe, uh, maybe a visit with an assault rifle? " Though he had pleaded guilty to harassment Aug. 15 and was given a suspended nine-day jail sentence, Morrison said in the letter that the matter wasn't over, Gordon said. Morrison wasn't clear if he meant he intended to appeal the sentence or whether he planned to settle the matter by violent or other means, Gordon said.