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Sol Pais, Woman Wanted Over Columbine Threats, Is Dead ‘Infatuated’ With Columbine: Threats and Fear, 20 Years After a Massacre
(about 5 hours later)
DENVER — A Florida student who officials said was on a “pilgrimage” to Columbine near the 20th anniversary of the shooting was found dead on Wednesday. Her threats had prompted a massive police hunt in the Denver area and the closing of hundreds of schools. DENVER — The 20th anniversary of the attack at Columbine High School was supposed to be marked with prayers and memorials.
Sheriff Jeff Shrader of Jefferson County, Colo., said the woman, identified as Sol Pais, 18, was found dead from an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Instead, millions of parents, students and educators across Colorado awoke on Wednesday to news that an armed 18-year-old woman with an infatuation with the massacre had flown across the country to Colorado and that hundreds of schools had closed as a precaution as the authorities frantically searched for her.
Before she was found, the authorities said Ms. Pais had traveled to Denver and was considered armed and “extremely dangerous,” leading to the decision to keep about half a million students home in two dozen school districts. By day’s end, the woman, a Florida high school student identified as Sol Pais, was discovered dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in the mountains west of Denver.
An F.B.I. bulletin sent to local law enforcement agencies on Tuesday said Ms. Pais was “infatuated” with the Columbine attack, and officials expressed concerns about her mental stability. She had also purchased a shotgun and ammunition after arriving in Denver, the authorities said. [Here is what we know about Sol Pais.]
Ms. Pais, a student at Miami Beach Senior High School, had last been seen wearing a black T-shirt, camouflage pants and black boots, the authorities said. Law enforcement officials said they had been worried by Ms. Pais’s determination: She bought a plane ticket, made the journey and bought a gun. John McDonald, the school safety executive director for Jefferson County Public Schools, which includes Columbine, called it a “pilgrimage.”
Sheriff Shrader said it did not appear that she had any help from friends in the area, just a fascination with the Columbine area and the horrendous crime that took place there 20 years ago. To many parents, the school closings and the frenzied manhunt drove fears that Columbine still had the power to captivate would-be attackers and that the community would never be free from the massacre, which took place on April 20, 1999, and left 12 students and one teacher dead.
He said that he did not believe that law enforcement officials were “in active pursuit at the time she was found dead.” “What does this mean for tomorrow and the next day?” asked Dana Gutwein, 34, who has a first grader and third grader in the Jefferson County Public Schools District, which includes Columbine. Ms. Gutwein was unsure whether she would immediately let her children go back to class when the hundreds of schools that had closed on Wednesday reopen.
Officials knew immediately that the threat was serious, said John McDonald, the school safety executive director of Jefferson County. “The shadow of Columbine looms pretty large,” Mr. McDonald said. “We are used to threats certainly at Columbine. This one felt different.” “I’ve felt like I’m on the verge of throwing up since this started,” she said.
Law enforcement officials were worried by Ms. Pais’s determination: She bought a plane ticket, made the journey and bought a gun, he said. Mr. McDonald called it a “pilgrimage.” Across the Denver metro area, parents struggled to find the right words to explain the latest safety warnings to children who have grown up in an anxious era of lockdowns and active-shooter drills. At Columbine, students who were organizing a day of service to mark the 20-year anniversary saw their preparations eclipsed by emergency text messages from the school district, news alerts on their phones and dread.
When she bought the gun at a shop in Littleton, near Columbine, that raised the threat, officials said. “This week our message was supposed to be about love and recommitment,” said Rachel Hill, 17, a senior at Columbine. “But now all the news surrounding Columbine is about fear.”
The decision to close schools across the area was made when they realized that Ms. Pais was moving over a wide area, from the airport, to Littleton to the foothills of the mountains. They suggested that she had used Uber to get around. Some parents said they told their children to play close to home on Wednesday. Others shook their heads at how a threat from one teenager could keep half a million students home from school and throw an entire city into panic.
But officials said they had been making contingency plans to reopen the schools in case the threat continued, even if that meant overcoming logistical hurdles such as sources of transportation and food service. “We did not wish to have one person hold all of the schools in the front range of the whole state hostage,” said Jason Glass, the superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools. Mr. Glass said that even though those plans had not been carried out, they would be saved for the future. As the anniversary approaches, the threat and the fears have turned what was supposed to be a time of healing into a renewed source of trauma, said Urania Glassman, a clinical social worker and professor at Yeshiva University in New York.
Mr. McDonald, the school safety director, said the system did not want to play into the fascination with Columbine. “We’re not a place to come visit if you’re not a student,” Mr. McDonald said. “We’re not a tourist attraction. We’re not a place for you to come and gain inspiration.” “You have somebody who wants to throw a grenade on that parade and so do harm again,” Dr. Glassman said. “It retraumatizes people who were present and survived, it retraumatizes the families and it retraumatizes the communities.”
Ms. Pais’ parents reported her missing to police in Surfside, Fla., on Monday. Officers there alerted Miami Beach Police, where Ms. Pais went to school. Investigators there found alarming social media posts apparently written by Ms. Pais and contacted federal law enforcement, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said. Even 20 years later, young people across America continue to be influenced by the symbology of the Columbine shooting and the students who carried it out, according to researchers and educators.
[Here is what we know about Sol Pais] Law enforcement officials said that Ms. Pais, a student at Miami Beach Senior High School, had been “infatuated” with the Columbine shooting and had made alarming social media posts and threatening statements to friends and family.
Daisy Gonzalez-Diego, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, confirmed on Wednesday that Ms. Pais was a student at Miami Beach Senior High School. The school district was assisting the F.B.I. with its investigation, Ms. Gonzalez-Diego said. On Monday, she flew from Miami to Denver and bought a pump-action shotgun and ammunition at a store in Littleton, not far from Columbine High School.
The F.B.I. said that Ms. Pais had arrived at the Denver airport and bought a pump-action shotgun and ammunition at a store. “She was then taken to an area where she was last seen out toward the foothills,” Mr. Phillips said. Colorado tightened its background check laws in recent years, but it does not have a set waiting period before buying a gun.
“Because of her comments and her actions, because of her travel here to the state, because of her procurement of a weapon immediately upon arriving here,” he added. “We consider her to be a credible threat — certainly to the community and, potentially, to schools,” he said. Ms. Pais’s parents in Surfside, Fla., reported her missing to local police on Monday. They provided investigators with information that helped them track her to Colorado, said Chief Julio Yero of the Surfside Police.
The search for Ms. Pais quickly upended families across the Denver region. Thousands of parents woke on Wednesday morning to discover that schools had been canceled and that they would have to explain the cancellation to their children. Law enforcement officials issued warnings on Tuesday expressing concerns about Ms. Pais’s mental stability and saying that she was armed and “extremely dangerous.” They launched what they called a “massive manhunt.” Schools across suburban Denver, already anxious about the approaching anniversary of the shooting, locked all their doors and stepped up security.
For some of the youngest students, this was their first introduction to the Columbine shooting, and to its legacy. “We are used to threats certainly at Columbine,” said Mr. McDonald, the school safety director. “This one felt different.”
Some parents decided that they would keep their children inside all day; others said this would effectively hand Ms. Pais a victory. Sheriff Jeff Shrader of Jefferson County, Colo., said it did not appear that Ms. Pais had any help from friends in the area, just a fascination with Columbine and the horrendous crime that took place there.
At Miami Beach Senior High School, Katherin DeVargas Gil, a 17-year-old senior who took freshman Spanish and A.P. studio art with Ms. Pais this year, described her as “kind of in a corner.” Classmates said she was quiet and intelligent, but Ms. DeVargas Gil said a social media account with disturbing posts attributed to a Sol Pais had also made the rounds among her classmates.
“We talked about it in our first-period class,” Ms. DeVargas Gil said. “I even texted my mom, crying, saying I don’t want to be here.”
Brandon Bossard, a sophomore who had a second-period class with Ms. Pais, said she usually sat in chairs up against the classroom wall, alone.
“I didn’t believe it. I didn’t understand it,” he said. “She’s so quiet. How could someone so quiet be like that?”
An online journal that the authorities said they were investigating in connection with Ms. Pais read like a catalog of isolation, depression and anguish, illustrated with pictures of knives and guns. In a July 2018 entry, the journal writer described waking up every day feeling “lost, hopeless, angry, pissed off.” F.B.I. officials would not say on Wednesday whether they had determined if Ms. Pais was the author.
It was a tactical team from the Clear Creek County sheriff’s department that found Ms. Pais’s body, near Echo Lake, according to the sheriff, Rick Albers. According to the sheriff, Ms. Pais had taken a rideshare to a lodge by the lake.
At some point she had hiked about half a mile from the lodge, and then about 100 yards up a hill. She would have had to hike through snow to get there, somewhere between one and four feet deep, officials said. Clear Creek deputies found her by a stump, dead from a gunshot wound. She was in the same clothing the F.B.I. had reported her as wearing — boots, camouflage pants and a black shirt. She was also wearing a plaid jacket, and had a bag and a shotgun with her. Mr. Albers said that he did not know of any other guns found on her.
For some of the youngest students at home on Wednesday, the episode was their first introduction to the Columbine shooting, and to its legacy of worry and tripwire responses to threats to schools.
“It’s sad and scary,” said Jeff Desserich, a math teacher at a charter school in Denver, who spent the morning trying to explain to his daughters Anais, 8, and Elena, 6, why they would not be going to class.“It’s sad and scary,” said Jeff Desserich, a math teacher at a charter school in Denver, who spent the morning trying to explain to his daughters Anais, 8, and Elena, 6, why they would not be going to class.
“I said, ‘There is a lady, she probably has some sort of mental health issue,’” he said, “And I talked a little about the sad events of Columbine and how her flying to Denver and buying a weapon, that’s a really big flag for law enforcement.” “I said, ‘There is a lady, she probably has some sort of mental health issue,’” he said. “And I talked a little about the sad events of Columbine.”
Just last Friday, Colorado’s Democratic governor signed a “red flag” law that would allow guns to be temporarily seized from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others. The act was bitterly opposed by more than a dozen sheriffs and officials from largely rural, conservative counties who vowed not to enforce it. Emily Fern, whose 5-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter go to school in Littleton, sat in bed on Wednesday morning debating whether to say anything at all to her children about why they were staying home. Her son, Hayden, loves Spider-Man and superheroes, so Ms. Fern decided to explain the threat in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys.”
The state also passed significant gun control measures in 2013 that expanded background checks, but despite that, Colorado does not have a specific waiting period for someone who wants to buy a gun. Before leaving for her job as a hair stylist, Ms. Fern, 38, said she told her babysitter not to go farther than the front lawn of their cul-de-sac on Wednesday, and to run inside, lock the doors and call 911 if she saw anything suspicious.
In Florida, The Miami Herald reported that a man who answered the door at Ms. Pais’s address on Tuesday identified himself as her father and said he had lost contact with her on Sunday. “I think maybe she’s got a mental problem,” he told The Herald. “I think she’s going to be O.K.” “Just that feeling that she could be lurking in the neighborhoods,” Ms. Fern said of the threat. “You’re kind of looking everywhere.”
In Colorado, the announcement prompted “lockouts,” or heightened security measures, at schools in Jefferson County and the surrounding area on Tuesday. During a lockout, all exterior doors are locked at a school but business continues as usual inside. Police officers aided in end-of-day student release. County officials said that all students and staff members were safe. In Jefferson County, officials were making contingency plans to reopen schools, even if that meant overcoming logistical hurdles like changes in transportation and food service. “We did not wish to have one person hold all of the schools in the front range of the whole state hostage,” said Jason Glass, the schools superintendent.
It was not the first threat for students at Columbine High School. In December, an anonymous caller claimed bombs had been planted inside the school. The police responded, but the threat proved to be a hoax. Mr. Glass said even though those plans had not been implemented and schools would open on Thursday, they would be saved for the future.
During the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999, two students shot and killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher. Mr. McDonald, the school safety director, said the system did not want to play into the fascination with Columbine. “We’re not a place to come visit if you’re not a student,” he said. “We’re not a tourist attraction. We’re not a place for you to come and gain inspiration.”
The shooting’s aftermath was widely televised, and young people across America continue to be influenced by the symbology of the Columbine shooting and the students who carried it out, according to law enforcement officials, researchers and educators.
In May 2018, a 17-year-old junior in Santa Fe, Tex., shot his teachers and fellow students with a sawed-off shotgun while wearing a black trench coat and carrying Molotov cocktails, his arsenal and attire inspired by the Columbine gunmen. The 20-year-old attacker who killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 had compiled materials on the Columbine attackers on his computer. And in his manifesto, the 23-year-old student who shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 had called the Columbine gunmen by their first names and described them as “we martyrs.”
The killers have achieved dark folk hero status in the corners of the internet where their carefully planned massacre is remembered, studied and in some cases even celebrated, officials say. Their admirers, often known as “Columbiners,” are frequently depressed, alienated or mentally disturbed, drawn to the Columbine subculture because they see it as a way to lash out at the world and to get the attention of a society that they believe bullies, ignores or misunderstands them.
Jefferson County, home to Columbine High School, has spent the past 20 years grappling with that legacy.
Students, teachers, families and law enforcement officers have had to deal not only with the emotional trauma of the shooting, but also with the people who have become obsessed with it and the copycats who have carried out their own attacks.
In an interview last year, the head of safety for Jefferson County schools, John McDonald, said he had often apprehended people who came from around the country to try to enter the school, a major safety concern. These visits — and interest in the shooting — have only increased over time, he said: “I’ve been dealing with this for more than a decade, and it’s never been more of an issue than it is now, 20 years later.”