Students streamed back to their reopened high school on Thursday, a week after a gunman took six girls hostage in a classroom, sexually assaulted them and then killed one.
“It’s a little scary, but I’m kind of glad we’re going back so we can try to get into a routine and kind of get back to normal,” said Hannah Mladjan, a sophomore at Platte Canyon High School.
Duane Morrison, 53, took the girls hostage in the classroom on Sept. 27 and molested or sexually assaulted them before releasing four, Sheriff Fred Wegener said.
Emily Keyes, 16, and another girl were still in the room when a SWAT team blasted its way in. Morrison shot Emily to death as she tried to run and then shot himself; SWAT officers also hit him with three shots, authorities said.
Platte Canyon School District Superintendent Jim Walpole said Tuesday that the classroom, Room 206, will be sealed off for the rest of the school year. He said additional security personnel have been hired, and adult visitors will be required to wear name tags in the school. Bailey is about 40 miles southwest of Denver.
Five days after that attack, a 32-year-old man in Pennsylvania fatally shot five girls and then himself at a one-room Amish schoolhouse. Pennsylvania State Police have said the gunman may have planned to molest the girls, based on his own notes and items he had with him, but there was no evidence that he actually did.
