East High School shooting suspect, presumed dead, was expelled from Overland High School, officials say

AURORA | The boy suspected of  shooting two school administrators at East High School Wednesday morning was a former Overland High School student who was expelled last year, according to Cherry Creek officials.

He is presumed dead.

A body was found in a forest-area west of Denver, close to the abandoned car 17-year-old Austin Lyle, accused of wounding two administrators in a shooting at East, a coroner’s office said.

Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw said the body was discovered Wednesday not far from the student’s car in a remote mountain area about 50 miles southwest of Denver, near the small town of Bailey, in Park County. The town had been ordered to shelter in place while while officers from a number of agencies including the FBI combed the forest.

Earlier in the day, Denver police identified the suspect as Austin Lyle. The Park County coroner’s office confirmed in a Facebook post that the body was that of Lyle’s. Cause of death wasn’t released, pending the completion of an autopsy.

The shooting occurred  while two administrators searched Lyle for weapons, a daily requirement because of the boy’s behavioral issues, authorities said. Lyle fled after the shooting.

According to police, Lyle was under an agreement to be searched each morning before entering the school. He was being patted down when he shot and injured two school administrators, according to Denver police.

One of the wounded administrators was released from the hospital Wednesday afternoon and the second remained in serious condition, said Heather Burke, a spokesperson for Denver Health hospital.

In a Wednesday afternoon statement, Cherry Creek School District spokesperson Lauren Snell said Lyle was “previously disciplined for violations of board policy and was removed from Overland High School.”

“Our thoughts are with East High School and Denver Public Schools today,” she said.

The shooting occurred at a school shaken by frequent lockdowns and violence, including the killing of a classmate that prompted East High School students to march on the Colorado Capitol earlier this month. Parents who converged on the 2,500-student campus on Wednesday faulted officials for not doing enough to protect their children.

The gun used in the shooting was not immediately recovered, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said.

“I am sick of it,” said Jesse Haase, who planned to talk with her daughter about taking her out of classes for the rest of the school year.

Amid the flurry of criticism over lax security, Denver school officials said after the shooting that they would once again put armed officers into the city’s public high schools.

Cherry Creek is currently on spring break. In a message posted to the district website, Aurora Public Schools interim superintendent Mark Seglem provided a list of the district’s mental health resources and encouraged students and staff struggling with the news to take advantage of them.

Seglem said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of the shooting.

“Any report of violence at a school is heartbreaking and we know that many of you and your student(s) may be struggling with news of this attack,” Seglem said. “As we all process our emotions stemming from this event, please know that Aurora Public Schools is here to support our students, staff and families.”

The shooting, which comes on the two-year anniversary of the mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers where 10 people were killed, is the second shooting at East High School in the span of weeks. On March 1, 16-year-old student Luis Garcia died after being shot outside the school on Feb. 13. The school was also one of the schools targeted in the wave of hoax phone calls about school shootings in Colorado schools last month.

Garcia’s death prompted hundreds of students to go to the state Capitol on March 3 to lobby for stronger gun control measures. A slate of four bills that would expand Colorado’s existing protections is currently making its way through the state legislature.

“Today in Colorado on the 2-year anniversary of the Boulder King Soopers massacre, the students of Denver East High suffered their third gun violence incident this year,” state senator Tom Sullivan, who is sponsoring two of the new bills, said Wednesday on Twitter. “We own these brave students and all gun violence survivors action on gun violence prevention.”

Both APS and Cherry Creek have extensive security plans in place and work with the Aurora Police Department and the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office to provide school resources officers in the districts’ schools.

Denver Public Schools has not had SROs for the past two years after a board vote to remove them in 2020, but in a Wednesday letter  Marrero said he intended to reinstate armed police at all the district’s comprehensive high schools regardless.

After Wednesday’s shooting, two armed officers will be posted at East High School through the end of the school year, and other city high schools also will each get an officer,  Marrero said.

In a Wednesday letter to the city’s Board of Education, he said his decision violated district’s policies but added he “can no longer stand on the sidelines.”

“I am the leader of this district who is charged with keeping our scholars and staff safe every day,” he wrote. The school board said it supported the decision.

Gun violence at schools has become increasingly common in the U.S. with more than 1,300 shooting incidents recorded between 2000 and June 2022, according to government researchers. Those shootings killed 377 people and wounded 1,025, according to a database maintained by the researchers.

Students from East High School had been scheduled to testify Wednesday afternoon before the Colorado Legislature on gun safety bills.

“This is the reality of being young in America: sitting through a shooting and waiting for information just hours before you’re scheduled to testify in support of gun safety bills,” said Gracie Taub, a 16-year-old East High School sophomore and volunteer with Students Demand Action in Colorado.

Marrero said safety plans for students are enacted in response to “past educational and also behavioral experiences,” adding that it’s a common practice throughout Colorado’s public schools. Officials did not give further details on why Lyle was searched daily.

But daily pat downs are rare, said Franci Crepeau-Hobson, a University of Colorado Denver professor specializing in school violence prevention.

“Clearly they were concerned,” said Crepeau-Hobson. “I can’t imagine they’d do that if there wasn’t a history of the kid carrying a weapon.”

Safety plans often follow threatening or suicidal behavior from a student, said Christine Harms with the Colorado School Safety Resource Center.

School safety has become a prominent topic of conversation across the metro area. In a report presented to the APS school board earlier this month as part of its ongoing superintendent search, the search firm said that district students named issues with violence and drugs at schools as one of the district’s biggest challenges.

In a Monday interview, board president Debbie Gerkin told the Sentinel that the district’s new superintendent should be prepared to work with the community to ensure that students and staff feel safe on campus.

“Whether or not you feel safe is going to affect how you learn and how teachers teach,” she said.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.