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STEM School guard who accidentally shot student during May attack wasn’t supposed to be armed

Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun
A combined SWAT team waits outside the middle school entrance at STEM School Highlands Ranch after a shooting that killed one and wounded eight students. The shooting required the services of law enforcement across the Denver metro area, as well as the services of 79 fire department units, approximately 148 fire and medical personnel and three medical helicopters. (John Leyba, Special to The Colorado Sun)

STEM School Highlands Ranch asked the private security company hired last year to patrol the K-12 campus to make sure its security guards were unarmed.

But when two students began a deadly attack at their school in May, the on-duty guard not only had a gun, but court records indicate he shot and wounded an uninvolved student while accidentally firing at a responding sheriff’s deputy.

Additionally, the gun the guard was carrying appears to have been concealed because “STEM administration and leadership were not aware that the guard was armed,” the school said in a written statement.



Douglas County School District policy forbids private security guards from carrying concealed guns on its campuses. 

The Colorado Sun discovered STEM School’s stipulation to the security company, BOSS High Level Protection, through an open-records inquiry filed after the school declined to answer questions about whether it had asked for unarmed guards. This week, after the documents were delivered, the school confirmed the Sept. 5, 2018, request to BOSS.

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