Wednesday’s sickening events at Platte Canyon High School hit home in so many ways that we literally have to gasp for breath. The more we learn about the gunman who assaulted a group of girls and killed 16-year-old Emily Keyes, the more confounded we are by his horrific crimes.
Duane R. Morrison, 53, took a half-dozen teenagers from an honors English class and sexually assaulted several of them before killing Emily Keyes and then himself.
Police described Morrison as a loner who was living out of his Jeep, which they found full of camping gear. He had no known connection to the school in the mountain community of Bailey. The address authorities had for him pegged him as a Denver resident. His brother-in-law said he was a carpenter.
The scant rap sheet that has emerged for him so far – including possession of marijuana and obstructing a police officer – doesn’t hint at the potential to commit much darker crimes. Questions about his motives and choices far outnumber the answers. Why Platte Canyon High School, in a peaceful community like Bailey? What triggered his violent outburst? What did he want?
Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Emily Keyes, as well as to the other students who were terrorized and assaulted by Morrison.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, who has lived in the community for 36 years, knew the victim and her family. On Thursday, he expressed sentiments that likely are shared by many. “I’ve gone from upset to angry,” he said. “Angry that this man has done this to our community. Angry that this man has done this to our children.”
Parents were beside themselves, and no wonder. You send your children off to school expecting at the least that they will be safe. To have a rabid gunman prowling the corridors of a school in search of girls to sexually assault and kill is stunning. As more details emerge, parents everywhere will be watching closely for an explanation of how that came to pass in this post-Columbine world of increased school security, and what must be done now.
The shock waves reverberating through Bailey are shared by all of us – the moments of terror, anger and relief as parents learned of the situation and wept with joy at finding their children unharmed. And of course the shock and grief that accompanied the final classroom scene.
We have to be grateful there weren’t more fatalities or injuries, and we hope the process of sifting through the clues left in Morrison’s wake will give us some way to understand how this horror came to be.
