Karl Halverson Pierson
US News
The 18-year-old Colorado man who shot a fellow student before killing himself Friday intended to shoot numerous people, but his rampage was interrupted by a school resource officer who responded to the shooting, officials said Saturday.
“His intent was evil,” Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said of Karl Halverson Pierson. “And his evil intent was to harm multiple individuals.”Upon entering the school, Robinson said, Pierson fired one round down the hallway. He then shot Claire Esther Davis, 17, who just happened to be sitting nearby with a friend as he headed toward the library. The girl suffered severe head trauma and remains in critical condition at Littleton Adventist Hospital.
Confronted by the officer, the teen committed suicide less than a minute and a half after he entered the building, armed with a shotgun and multiple rounds of ammunition that he purchased legally, the sheriff said.
Robinson said the response of a school resource officer was “absolutely critical” to the fact that that there were no additional injuries or deaths.
Robinson said Pierson entered the school from the north side and fired one random shot down the hallway before firing at the victim at point blank range.
ierson then entered the library and ignited one of the Molotov cocktails. The deputy sheriff then ran through a long hallway from the cafeteria to the library. While the deputy was containing the shooter, the shooter took his own life at the north end of the library, Robinson said.
