Bailey – Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener heard few criticisms Thursday about his decision to send a SWAT team in after school gunman Duane Morrison, but he acknowledged being racked with second thoughts himself.
“I always want to make sure I did the right thing,” he said in a candid interview outside Platte Canyon Community Church. “I have to make sure that if someone else was in this position and I was a parent and it was my kid in there, I’d want to make sure we did everything we could.”
The sheriff was receiving reports from police negotiators that Morrison had been sexually abusing the six girls he took hostage, and Wegener took seriously the threats from Morrison that “something would happen” at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Morrison, he said, didn’t make any particular demands, and his communication with negotiators had all but broken off before 4 p.m.
“We did give him every opportunity through negotiation,” Wegener said.
By that point, he had released four of the six girls and was communicating with officers through the last two girls.
The freed hostages, however, gave chilling accounts that Morrison had been sexually assaulting the girls – more than just touching them – a crime Wegener described as “horrific.”
“He was sexually molesting each one of those hostages,” he said. “Given the fact that he was victimizing those girls, I didn’t feel we had any other choice.”
He authorized the SWAT team to move in.
First, they tossed in percussion grenades known as “flash-bangs” that are intended to stun, distract and disorient suspects. Then, sharpshooters entered, exchanging gunfire with Morrison.
One officer with a bulletproof shield attempted to get between Morrison and the girls, but the gunman shot hostage Emily Keyes in the back of the head as she tried to escape, Wegener said.
Moments later, Morrison was dead too, and Wegener was left with the regret of having failed to save a girl whose family he knew.
“You always re-evaluate your decision,” he said. “That’s what I want everybody to know. I think we did everything we could. And it was my last option. I didn’t want him terrorizing my kids anymore.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
