New stories of heroism, minutes of chaos described at hearings

Kendrick Castillo and two of his classmates were lauded as heroes for tackling one of the suspects in the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting, but another student and two school staff members also risked their lives by taking down the other shooter, testimony from a two-day court hearing revealed.

Evidence shown during the preliminary hearing for one of the suspects revealed previously unknown moments of heroism as well as more details about the dynamic between the two suspects, which one expert said mirrored relationships between other school shooting suspects who worked in pairs.

The evidence also showed for the first time what happened in the minutes immediately before and after the May 7 shooting, which left Castillo, 18, dead and eight injured.

At the conclusion of the hearing, a Douglas County District Court judge ruled that the Devon Erickson’s case could move toward trial. Erickson and the other suspect, Alec McKinney, each face 48 charges in connection to the shooting, including first-degree murder.

Unknown heroism

In the chaos of the first few minutes, people inside classroom No. 107 struggled to identify where the shots were coming from, said Detective Brian Pereira of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. But one student recognized that McKinney — standing at a different door than Erickson — also was firing.

Student Jackson Gregory lunged over desks to fight McKinney. Teacher Lauren Harper saw the fight and

joined in, as well as IT director Mike Pritchard, who had been nearby when he saw the scuffle. They took the revolver from McKinney, who had already fired nine bullets from his gun, according to court testimony.

McKinney was able to get away and grab another handgun from his backpack. A school security guard, Shamson Sundara, then detained McKinney.

Gregory suffered a gunshot wound and other injuries from the fight, Pereira said.

Minutes of chaos

The testimony from the hearing also for the first time showed how the suspects moved through the school in the minutes before the shooting.

After stealing guns from Erickson’s home, the suspects returned to school and entered through an unmonitored entrance. They gave each other a friendly dap and handshake before splitting up, surveillance camera footage showed. Erickson then went to classroom No. 107, where he was supposed to be in British literature. There, he told his teacher that he didn’t feel well. She sent him to the nurse’s station. He left, leaving a guitar case filled with guns in the classroom.

Erickson didn’t tell any of the adults in the nurse’s station about the imminent threat during the more than 10 minutes he was there. While Erickson was inside, McKinney stood outside the door to the nurse’s room.

Erickson emerged from the nurse’s room and rejoined McKinney. Erickson then returned to the classroom, where students were watching a movie, and knocked on the locked door to be let in. Castillo opened the door.

Once inside, Erickson sent a Snapchat message to McKinney: “Go now.”

Erickson then pulled out a handgun and yelled at his classmates to freeze, according to police interviews. Castillo immediately slammed Erickson against the whiteboard, and two other students, Brendan Bialy and Joshua Jones, joined the struggle with Erickson. Bialy said he punched Erickson multiple times in the face and had to pry the gun from his fingers.

Across the room, McKinney fired his gun, the detective said. Jackson lunged across a desk to tackle McKinney and two teachers joined the fight, and one pulled the gun from McKinney’s hands. But McKinney was able to break free from the group and get another gun from his backpack. He then walked into the hallway and held the gun to his head but didn’t pull the trigger before being detained by the security guard.

At least 13 bullets flew across the room, including one that blasted through the wall into an adjoining classroom and struck a student.

Dispatchers received the first 911 call about the shooting at 1:53 p.m. and deputies with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office arrived on scene within minutes. But law enforcement couldn’t enter the classroom because it was locked from the inside. They used a tool to breach one of the doors.

After his arrest, McKinney lay handcuffed on the ground and spoke in a monotone voice as deputies pulled handfuls of unused ammunition from his pockets.

Inside the classroom, Erickson sat handcuffed on the floor crying and telling deputies that he worried his house might be on fire, with his pets inside. He repeatedly apologized for what he had done.

“IthoughtIcoulddoitonmy own,” Erickson told investigators when answering questions about why he didn’t tell anybody.

Personalities

The evidence also showed that McKinney, 16, had considered a shooting for weeks and experienced homicidal thoughts. He then enlisted Erickson, who he thought would comply.

The teens’ personalities seemed consistent with the two other U.S. school shootings that involved a pair of suspects, said Peter Langman, a psychologist who studies school shootings. In both previous cases, one shooter with a dominant personality convinced a friend to participate.

A school counselor interviewed the day of the shooting said McKinney, the younger suspect, was a manipulative bully who preyed on vulnerable students such as Erickson.

Both students had joked about school shootings, but most friends did not take the jokes seriously, Pereira said. The suspects also researched school shootings, but it was unclear exactly what information they sought. Investigators also found racist and anti-Semitic messages between the two, who had become friends in the months prior, as well as conversations about drug use.

Langman said he classifies school shooters as either psychotic, traumatized or psychopathic.

Traumatized shooters come from broken homes where they suffered abuse, according to his studies. Psychotic shooters come from families with no history of abuse and have symptoms of schizophrenia or other personality disorders. Psychopathic shooters also have no history of abuse, but they demonstrate narcissism, lack of empathy or sadistic behavior.

In the school shootings that involved two suspects — the 1999 Columbine killings and a 1998 shooting in Arkansas — one shooter was a dominant psychopath and the other is either traumatized or suffering from mental illness, Langman said. The less-dominant person tends to follow along with the other’s plans.

Langman pointed to evidence that showed one of the Columbine shooters, Eric Harris, did most of the shooting while his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, refrained from firing when he wasn’t with Harris.

“There’s some reason to think Dylan was along for the ride, but it wasn’t the same bloodlust that Eric had,” Langman said.