The father of Colorado’s Arapahoe High School gunman called on school officials to be more forthcoming with details about the interactions they had with his son, reports the Denver Post. Karl Pierson, 18, walked into the school Friday with a shotgun, machete and Molotov cocktails. He shot and seriously wounded 17-year-old Claire Davis, who remains in a coma, before killing himself in the library.
Mark Pierson and his ex-wife, Barbara, said, “We are shattered by the tragic events… We cannot begin to understand why Karl did what he did.” Debate coach Tracy Murphy was Karl Pierson’s target. Students told The Post that Pierson and Murphy had ongoing confrontations about debate team issues. One friend quoted Pierson as saying he wanted to kill Murphy. The boy was not suspended or kicked off the speech and debate team, said a law-enforcement official, although teammates believed he had been kicked off.