WASHINGTON
Park County sheriff to be at violence talks
Park County’s sheriff and the head of a Colorado anti-violence center will take part Tuesday in a national conference on school safety convened by President Bush in the wake of school shootings in Bailey and Pennsylvania.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener, who coordinated the emergency response to the Sept. 27 hostage crisis at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey that left 16-year-old Emily Keyes dead, will join a panel at the conference, the White House announced. Also invited: Del Elliott, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Bush, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, will lead Tuesday’s conference in Bethesda, Md. Parents, teachers, school administrators, police and other experts from around the nation will take part, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
PUEBLO
Rep. Salazar’s office targeted in vandalism
U.S. Rep. John Salazar’s re-election campaign office was vandalized early Saturday, his campaign manager reported.
Sal Pace said someone broke into the office, “tore apart” a computer and threw a computer through the front window.
Most worrisome, Pace said, was that the only item taken was a stack of blank letterhead paper.
Salazar, a Democrat serving his first term, is running for re-election in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes much of southern and western Colorado. Republican Scott Tipton is his opponent.
METRO AREA
School precautions please administrators
No one was harmed in a spate of school security warnings and lockdowns across the metro area late last week, officials said.
Authorities generally were pleased with precautions taken Thursday when a series of threats were reported in a dozen schools, from Thornton and Aurora to Jefferson County and Colorado Springs.
The warnings included several bomb threats and a student’s comment about shooting students at another school.
“I think our schools are being more sensitive to threatening calls,” said Marlene Desmond, spokeswoman for Jefferson County Public Schools.
COLORADO SPRINGS
Killer called police to say “I’m the guy”
A man who shot and killed his 60-year-old hostage and then fatally shot himself called Colorado Springs police two hours before the shootings Thursday and said: “I’m the guy that you guys are looking for.”
Barnell Stidham, 38, already was being sought in the sexual assault of a 26-year-old woman earlier Thursday.
After that attack, Stidham arrived at the apartment of his friend Della Paulson, 60. When Stidham called police, he had already taken Paulson hostage, police said.
Police negotiators tried to talk to Stidham via cellphone, but lost contact. Later, when a SWAT team gained entry into the apartment, they found Paulson and Stidham had been shot.
