Colorado Springs Has Seen Several Mass Shootings in Recent Years
Since Columbine, Colorado has experienced several mass shooting events in the last two decades. The following story tells our community’s experience and lessons learned.
(CNN) — On April 17, 1999, two men opened fire on a Colorado Springs movie theater and carried out 20 people, including 13 teens, before killing themselves, authorities said Monday.
The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Wade Michael Page, had been on a shooting rampage more than a month before, in which he killed three people and wounded another three, at a party.
The gunman — later identified as Eric Harris, a former U.S. Marine who had served two tours of duty in Iraq — remained at large for over 10 months.
“We all look back on this time in America with great sadness, and yet at the same time we look forward,” Colorado Attorney General Dan King said.
In the hours after the shootings, people at a press conference on the morning’s anniversary referred to the 1999 event as the Columbine High School massacre. On Wednesday, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported an anonymous survivor described the events that day as an “epidemic.”
The massacre was the deadliest in Colorado since the Aurora theater shooting in July 2012.
A man who walked into a theater Friday evening, armed with a large-caliber rifle, killed a man in the parking lot and wounded others before killing himself.
The man, who was not identified, fired at least 400 rounds in the parking lot before he entered the auditorium and shot the gunman, John Idalski, said Sgt. Mike Klarica with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department.
The suspect, who was killed during a shootout with SWAT teams, had purchased more than 400 rounds of ammunition before he entered the theater, according to the sheriff’s department.
On Monday, authorities identified the suspect as 22-year-old Wade Michael Page.
The Colorado Springs-area district attorney’s office, which has jurisdiction over the investigation, has not publicly named
