AURORA | Aurora Public Schools and the Cherry Creek School District closed all schools and canceled all after-school events Wednesday, April 17, in response to a safety threat to Denver metro schools. All classes in both districts are canceled for the day as well as all athletics and after-school programming. Pickens Tech classes in APS are also canceled for the day. Dozens of other Front Range school districts, including Denver Public Schools, have also announced they are not holding classes Wednesday as a result of the threats. The cancellations will keep hundreds of thousands of children out of school. Cherry Creek officials on Twitter Tuesday night said that, while the decision will affect district families, Denver metro police agencies including the FBI Denver bureau have raised credible concerns about a woman reportedly obsessed with the Columbine school massacre who has threatened schools. After a metro area conf call tonight I determined that All @CCSDK12 will be closed tomorrow, 4-17, due to safety concerns related to a credible threat against schools in the area. CCSD is joining other Denver metro school districts in making this decision. Safety is the priority! — Scott Siegfried (@SuptSiegfried) April 17, 2019 The unspecified threats led Columbine and several other high schools outside Denver to lock their doors Tuesday for nearly three hours. All students were safe, school officials said Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoon, authorities in Jefferson County identified an 18-year-old woman named Sol Pais as a suspect in their investigation of the threats. Authorities said Pais recently arrived in Colorado and has made threats, which have been mostly verbal. Dean Phillips, special agent in charge of the local division of the FBI, said late Tuesday investigators have confirmed Pais, who is from the Miami area, purchased a pump-action shot gun and ammunition shortly after arriving in Colorado. “She has made some concerning comments in the past,” Phillips told reporters. “She has expressed an infatuation with Columbine and the events, the shooting there that happened tragically 20 years ago, and because of that we were concerned.” Pais has not made any specific threat to any particular school, according to authorities. Pais is believed to be 5 feet, 5 inches tall and was last seen in the foothills of Jefferson County, officials said. She is believed to be wearing a black t-shirt, camouflage pants and black boots. “She is armed and considered to be extremely dangerous,” authorities tweeted. Colorado State Patrol issued a statewide alert for Pais late Tuesday afternoon. Officials warned people who may come into contact with Pais not to approach her. Pais does not have any preexisting connection to Colorado, Phillips said. He said FBI officials are working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office as well as local district attorneys to determine possible charges. Currently, officials would not have enough probable cause to arrest Pais if they were to find her. “We will certainly hold her for as long as we can legally,” Phillips said. Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader said threats referencing the Columbine massacre 20 years ago are not uncommon. “We take these threats seriously,” Shrader told reporters Tuesday night. “It’s certainly not the first threat that we’ve had that involves Columbine High School or references it, and in that regard I know that this opens a wound, especially on an anniversary week for those families who were most deeply impacted by this.” People with potential information related to Pais’ whereabouts are encouraged to contact the local division of the FBI at 303-630-6227 or [email protected]<doc-sep>^ Keep Westword Free Support Us Local Community Journalism I Support Support the independent voice of Denver and help keep the future of Westword free. Support Us Editor's note: Sol Pais has been reported to have died. Get additional information about her in our post "Columbine Threat Suspect Sol Pais Reportedly Dead" and "What We Know About Columbine Threat Suspect Sol Pais." Continue for our previous coverage. Sol Pais, an eighteen-year-old Florida woman said to be obsessed with the Columbine High School shooting, remains at large, and because she reportedly purchased a shotgun shortly after arriving in Colorado, she's considered armed and dangerous. Because of this threat, sixteen school districts across the Denver metro area will be closed today, April 17, three days prior to the twenty-year mark of the April 20, 1999, Columbine shootings, which killed twelve students and a teacher. The districts include Jefferson County Public Schools, which encompasses Columbine. At 12:01 a.m. today, the Jeffco district sent out this tweet: "In collaboration with other Denver-metro area school districts, all Jeffco Public Schools will be closed on Wednesday, April 17 due to the ongoing safety concern. All facilities and programs are closed for the day — no employees are to report." This secondary message followed: "There will be no afternoon activities or athletic competitions. We will continue to keep families updated on this situation before the end of the day on Wednesday." Denver Public Schools tweeted a message nearly identical to the first one above at 5:03 a.m. That this communication was delivered so late in comparison with Jeffco's is in keeping with the general tardiness of DPS when it came to dealing with the Pais matter, which was the subject of a late-night press conference streamed by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Here it is: At 2:48 p.m. on April 16, more than two hours after the Jeffco district first notified the public about the situation and instituted lockout procedures, the Colorado Department of Education tweeted: "Due to a credible threat to schools by an individual identified by the FBI, the Department of Public Safety recommends all schools in the Denver metro area conduct a lockout and controlled release immediately. More info to come." However, there appears to have been a lag of close to an hour between this alert and communication with at least some DPS schools; indeed, many of them dismissed as usual before learning about the concern. One charter school in Denver whose classes end at 4 p.m. was an exception to this rule: Staffers were all shown photos of Pais and instituted heightened security procedures when parents and guardians arrived to pick up their kids. However, teachers at that facility weren't given a heads-up until approximately 3:40 p.m. Likewise, notifications to parents in the district were slow in arriving. DPS subsequently posted this explanation on its website: "We also understand that there were technical difficulties in our communications today that delayed receipt of some of the messages sent to families via text, robo-call and email. This was not acceptable and we will be reviewing our software immediately to determine why these delays occurred in the delivery of messages." Look below to see the list of Denver area school districts that are closed today. 27J School District Adams 12 Five Star Schools Adams 14 School District Aurora Public Schools Boulder Valley School District Cherry Creek School District Clear Creek School District Denver Public Schools Douglas County School District Englewood Public Schools JeffCo Public Schools Littleton Public Schools Mapleton Public Schools Sheridan School District St. Vrain Valley Schools Thompson School District Anyone with information about Sol Pais, who was last seen in the foothills area after purchasing the shotgun and ammunition at a Littleton retailer, is encouraged to contact the FBI tipline at 303-630-6227 or denverfbitips@fbi.gov.<doc-sep>
UPDATE: Sol Pais Dead, Massive Colorado Manhunt Over DENVER (CBS4) – Sol Pais, the female suspect who is on the run after after making threats that led to the closure of school for more than half a million students on Colorado’s Front Range Wednesday, allegedly has been obsessed with the Columbine High School shooting for many years. This weekend marks 20 years since the mass shooting in Jefferson County. “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, we consider her to be a credible threat certainly to the community and potentially to schools,” said FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Dean Phillips. SCHOOLS CLOSED: See The Full List Of Colorado Schools Closed On Wednesday A statewide manhunt is underway for Pais, who is considered to be armed and dangerous. The 18-year-old is from Florida and made some comments about the Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999, that apparently caused great concern. She was apparently “infatuated with the perpetrators of Columbine.” Authorities haven’t said exactly what she said, and it’s not clear if those comments were made before or after her purchase of a pump-action shotgun once she arrived in Colorado on Monday night. She apparently wasn’t specifically threatening any specific school in her comments. The threat first led to a lockout on Tuesday afternoon of Columbine High School and other schools in the Jefferson County School District. Schools were let out on a normal dismissal in the afternoon. Pais was last seen in the foothills of Jefferson County, west of Denver. She is described as a white female, 5-foot-5, with brown hair and was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, camo pants and black combat boots. The FBI and Jefferson County Sheriff’s office are among the police agencies leading the investigation. Anyone with information that could be helpful to police is asked to call the FBI Tipline at 303-630-6227. “We want our schools to be a safe place for kids to learn and where they can be productive. And that’s why we take this threat seriously today,” said Sheriff Jeff Shrader. LINK: Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers The closures of schools Wednesday include the majority of schools — both public and private — in the Denver metro area. That includes Columbine High School and other Jeffco schools and all of Denver Public Schools, the state’s largest school district. Other closures stretch into northern Colorado — Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Estes Park Schools and Greeley-Evans School District 6 are closed. See the full list of closed schools. Pais is a student at Miami Beach Senior High School. Her family is asking her to turn herself in. CBS4 in Miami talked with her father through a closed door at the family home in Surfside. “It’s like a bad dream. We don’t know. We don’t have any ideas,” he said. “I think that maybe she has a mental problem.” 20 YEARS LATER: Columbine Legacy