Woman ‘infatuated’ with Columbine shooting sought in threats, FBI says
Authorities say they're looking for an 18-year-old woman suspected of making threats against Columbine High School just days before the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 13 people.
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — Authorities said Tuesday that they are looking for a young woman who is “infatuated” with the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School and made threats just days before the 20th anniversary of the attack that killed 13 people.
The undisclosed threats led Columbine and several other high schools outside Denver to lock their doors for nearly three hours. All students were safe, school officials said.
Sol Pais, 18, traveled to Colorado on Monday night and has tried to buy firearms, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. Pais was last seen in the foothills west of Denver, and authorities said she was considered armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached.
The FBI’s Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force issued a notice Tuesday describing Pais as “infatuated with [the] Columbine school shooting.” The alert said police who come into contact with her should detain her and evaluate her mental health.
Sheriff’s spokesman Mike Taplin said the threats she made were general, not specific to any school.
The doors were locked at Columbine and more than 20 other schools in the Denver area as the sheriff’s office said it was investigating threats against schools related to an FBI investigation.
“We are currently investigating what appears to be a credible threat possibly involving the schools,” the sheriff’s department said in a tweet. “Children are safe. Deputies are at the schools.”
The Denver Post reported that a call to a phone number listed for Pais’ parents in Surfside, Fla., was interrupted by a man who identified himself as an FBI agent and said he was interviewing them.
The Associated Press left messages at two numbers listed for Pais’ relatives in Florida, while another number was disconnected.
Since April 20, 1999, when two teenage gunmen stormed Columbine, killing 13 people and wounding 24 more, threats of violence have become a painful fact of everyday life for the high school and the highly trained security team tasked with keeping it safe.
“Getting threats is not out of the normal for Columbine High School,” Taplin said.
This article contains information from the Washington Post.