Gov. Bill Ritter said law enforcement agencies responding to the shooting at Deer Creek Middle School on Tuesday were able to communicate with one another, a huge leap forward from what happened during Columbine.
Ritter was Denver’s district attorney at the time of the 1999 slayings and a member of the Columbine Commission, which heard testimony about how Littleton police, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado State Patrol and other groups did not always know what the other agencies were doing.
“I do know from the chief of the State Patrol that the communication today was much improved since Columbine,” Ritter said Tuesday.
Other areas of improvement will be better known after more details of Tuesday’s shooting are released, he said.
“Obviously this was a very traumatic event, and you have to do everything you can to give the students and their families the tools to deal with this,” the governor said.
Ritter and other officials talked about protocols put in place after the 1999 fatal shootings at Columbine High School.
“There are a series of steps we made since Columbine,” said Linda Kanan, the director of the Colorado School Safety Resource Center, which is a part of the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
“This (shooting) just reiterates the need for that planning,” Kanan said. “I know that Jeffco schools put a lot of effort into that over the years.”
Those protocols include notifying law enforcement, evacuating the school and then contacting parents.
“Schools now are more prepared, but it certainly is sad to hear another incident has occurred,” she said.
Kanan said the resource center provides training, resources and technical assistance, “to be on the front end,” to help put the protocols in place.
Ironically, a two-day statewide school safety seminar was scheduled for Thursday and Friday this week in the metro area. The last one was last fall in Grand Junction.
