Colorado Governor Visits School Shooting Victim

Colorado’s governor asked the nation Sunday for prayers for the 17-year-old girl who was critically wounded by a classmate at her suburban Denver high school.

Gov. John Hickenlooper also credited security procedures adopted after the 1999 massacre at nearby Columbine High School for helping put a quick end to the Arapahoe High School shooting by Karl Pierson, an 18-year-old student who shot Claire Davis at point-blank range before killing himself.

“We all have to keep Claire in our thoughts and prayers,” he told CBS. Davis is hospitalized at Littleton Adventist Hospital.

Investigators think she was shot at random by Pierson, who had gone into the school looking for a teacher with whom he had a dispute.

Pierson may have been nursing a grudge against the teacher – a librarian and head of the school debate team — since September. Pierson was on the team and had been disciplined by the librarian for reasons yet to be disclosed, the sheriff said. He said Pierson threatened that teacher in September and came to the school Friday intending to harm him and inflict numerous other casualties.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the December 16th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.