The News As it Happens

[airIam2worship]

In Colorado, a gunman is holding 4 people hostage inside a High School. The High School which is in the same county as Columbine High School shares it's campus with an adjacent Middle School. Both schools have been evacuated, except for the gunman and the hostages. It is no known yet if the hostages are students of faculty. Details are being released, as they are released to the media.

[Soldier4Christ]

They just announced that the two hostages are 2 female students.

[airIam2worship]

Those 2 girls must be horrified not to mention what their families are going thru, my prayers are with them right now. He's been letting some of the hostages go but we still haven't been told what the motive is.

[Soldier4Christ]

School standoff over, gunman reported dead 
Student hostage critically wounded, airlifted to hospital

"Code white" led to deadline school standoff

An armed gunman holding students hostage at Platte Canyon High School shot one teenaged girl, then killed himself as SWAT members burst into the room where he was holed up, according to Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener.

The student was flown by Flight for Life to St. Anthony Hospital, in critical condition. A spokesperson for the hospital said she believed the girl had been shot in the head, but said her family requested no further information be released.

Neither the gunman nor the hostages have been identified.

Lynn Bigham, a friend of the injured student, described her as 16, with a twin brother. She described the girl as "sweet and affectionate."

Initially, six students were taken hostage just before noon, in a second-floor classroom, she said, but four were released before the standoff came to an end, around 3:45 p.m.

Wegener said that negotiations with the man were initiated shortly after he walked into the school, carrying a handgun. Wegener did not know if he targeted the classroom purposely or at random. Students heard "Code white" over the intercom, which was the signal to teachers that the school was on lockdown.

The suspect's primary demand during negotiations was for law enforcement to back off. SWAT teams had a limited visibility because the gunman was using one of the hostages to shield himself, and he grew increasingly agitated. At one point, he set a 4 p.m. deadline, but around 3:30 p.m. he broke off communications. That's when the decision was made to move in, Wegener said. "A tactical solution needed to be done in an effort to save the two hostages," he said.

"We have almost no information on this suspect," Jefferson County spokesperson Jacki Kelley said, while the standoff was still underway. "We don't know who he is or what he wants."

Kelley said the gunman was an adult male, between 35 and 50 years old.

Park County authorities requested help from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad and SWAT team, said Jim Shires, Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman. Kelley said more than 20 jurisdictions had sent investigators. Shires said Park County is a small department and doesn't have a complete SWAT team.

As the standoff dragged on, frantic parents searched for information about the status of their children.

Televised images showed students lined up and boarding school buses in an orderly way, near the school, a few hours after the standoff began.

Cheers erupted shortly before 3 p.m., when the buses arrived at Deer Creek Elementary School, the designated pickup spot. Parents waved joyfully, many shouting, "I love you," when they spotted their children through the bus windows.

Sarah Mendoza was overcome with emotion when she spotted her son who attends Fitzsimmons Middle School.

"This is a parent's worst nightmare," she said of the standoff. "I can't tell you how happy I am."

Deer Creek's principal, Paul Sandos, was directing parents and students to a nearby hillside, segregating groups by high school, middle school and elementary school.

"They're pretty frantic," Sandos said of the parents. "But they're doing really good, considering what they have been through."

Patti Browning's son was on a field trip to Denver when he called her to let her know he was OK.

 "That was a relief," she said, "but I'm still worried for all the others."

Dawn Mack, whose daughter attends Conifer High School, was at Deer Creek to check on her friends' children. She had heard all sorts of rumors, including that some children were being molested by the perpetrator.

"You don't know what's going on," Mack said. "You don't know what to believe...In that condition, your mind just goes out there."

Patti Browning added, "They should just get a microphone and tell everyone what's going on so that we all know what the truth is."

Bill Twyford of Bailey said he received a text message at 11:43 a.m. from his 15-year-old son, Billy, that said, "Hey, there's a gun-hijacking in our school right now. I'm fine. Bad situation, though."

Twyford says he hasn't heard from his son since then, and he wonders if school officials wouldn't let students continue to use their cell phones. He said he heard all kinds of "conflicting stories" about what has occurred.

A 4-mile stretch of U.S. 285 that was closed during the standoff is expected to remain closed until noon Thursday. "The investigation is ongoing and it is critical that citizens remain out of the immediate area as well as the surrounding area," said Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gilbert Mares.

Residents are permitted to travel through the blocked stretch of 285 -- from Bailey to Shawnee -- if they show identification, Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said. Other motorists are able to circumvent the blocked portion by taking parallel Park County Road 64.

Trucks heading northbound on 285 are being directed off the highway at Fairplay; southbound trucks at Morrison.

During the standoff, at the area where the road was closed, parents were trying to get any kind of information they could about their children.

"We've had no phone calls from the district. We don't know what's going on," said Pat Bramelette, who has two children, one attending the high school, the other in middle school. His wife, Susan, said, "The most I got was off the bottom of the TV screen."

Lynn Setzer, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County School District, said four district schools that border the Platte Canyon School District were put on lockdown. Those were Conifer High School, West Jefferson Middle School, West Jefferson Elementary School and Elk Creek Elementary School. Those students were to be allowed to leave at the end of the school day.

Setzer said the district learned of the incident about 12:15 p.m.

Delia Ciano was worried about her son Dominick, 20, who is a special education student at the high school.

"He won't know what's going on," she said. "He won't understand."

Ciano said she knows the staff at the school would do whatever they could do to protect the students.

"The teachers will give their lives for these kids," she said.

Other parents were in a state of disbelief that their school was part of a hostage situation.

"Who is going to go into a school and do this?" said Susan Mueller, who has two children at the high school and one at Fitzsimmons Middle School. "I guess nobody is safe."

Denver resident Kim Martin said she was listening to her police scanner this afternoon and heard talk about hostages.

[Soldier4Christ]

 "Right  now, they have a sniper," said Martin, who said she is a fire-chaser for a catastrophe service. "I believe it was four hostages and now there's two hostages."

She said she heard reports that 10 rounds had been fired.

Platte Canyon parent Sally Impson sat at home praying that her son Andrew, a 17-year-old senior at the high school, would find a way to contact her.

"I'm so shook," she said. "I'd just like to know that he's OK."

She said her mother called her after seeing news reports that the school was evacuated.

"I'm just hoping Andrew will call me. He has a cell phone but it's not turned on. The phone doesn't work in the school anyway," she said. "It's just scary. You don't know what's going on. You hear shots are fired. I hope to God that everything is OK."

Impson said she hasn't called the school because she knows they are overwhelmed with phone calls, and the road to the school - about 15 minutes away - is shut down.

She said her son has been a student in the district since kindergarten.

Platte Canyon High School is located 46 miles southwest of Denver on Highway 285, near the Jefferson County/Park County line. It has about 467 students enrolled and was built in 1958 with an addition built in 2000, according to information posted on the school's website.

It is located about 40 miles away from Columbine High School in Littleton, the site of the nation's worst school shooting in April 1999. In that shooting, 12 students and a teacher were killed by teen gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who then killed themselves.

"I think it touches close to home," Kelley said. "A lot of the first responders out here today were first responders at Columbine."

[airIam2worship]

A 5 year old girl who slipped into a coma after receiving 3 different kinds of anesthesia for routine dental care has died. I have purposely left out specific information to protect the privacy of the young child's family.

I ask that you all join me in prayer to uphold this child's family as they are faced with the sorrow of losing their little girl.

[airIam2worship]

UPDATE: The young girl shot in the Colorado high school hostage situation has died of her wounds, please keep her family in prayer.

[Soldier4Christ]

It sounds like you have a lot of actiongoing on near you sister Maria. There is reported a lot of firing going on in the woods where the cop killer is suspected to be and the officer being interviewed by Fox news said they thought they had him and dropped the connection with Fox news.

[airIam2worship]

Yes, there are hundreds of police officers and swat teams from all over central Florida searching the heavily dense woods in an area in Polk County. The manhunt began yesterday after a man was pulled over for a routine traffic violation. The man jumped out of the car and ran into the woods, the police officer called for back up and a canine unit was sent out. The gunman shot and killed on officer and his canine, and wounded another officer. Two schools in close proximity were put on lockdown and the manhunt began. Just a few minutes ago a Sheriff was on the phone with Fox News and abruptly ended the conversation saying "I think we have him, I gotta go." A barrage of shooting was heard in the background. We have no word yet as to whether they got their man or not. The man has been identified, and he goes by 3 aliases. There is a 40K dollar reward for any information leading to the arrest of this man. Police have warned that this man is violent, scared, armed and dangerous. The school closest to the area where the man is believed to be is closed today.

[airIam2worship]

In Lakeland, Fl. the gunman who shot and killed a police deputy yesterday afternoon was shot and killed. Swat teams were within feet where the man had dug an area beneath a fallen oak tree and had been hiding, ordered him to show both hands, the man refused to raise both hands, he showed one hand and was holding a gun in the other. Swat teams opened fire killing the man, in his other hand swat teams found the weapon that belonged to the officer he killed yesterday. The man was hiding only 100 yards from where he originally shot the deputy that was killed.

[Soldier4Christ]

Praise God, at least no one else got hurt.

[airIam2worship]

AMEN

[nChrist]

Brothers and Sisters,

It appears that there are more and more evil events that defy all common sense and morals. Further, it appears that there are more and more criminals with no conscience at all who are actually psychopaths and sociopaths. Those without a conscience have driving forces that normal people will never understand. If you mix another factor of "no fear" with "no conscience", you have a truly dangerous person. These types of people are becoming more common by the day, and they share many of the same character traits as terrorists. Average people don't have a clue about how to deal with people like this, but I fear that many more good and decent people will be exposed to these "mad dogs". These are increasingly hard and evil times that we are living in.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 1:16-17 NASB  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH."