Boulder experiences trauma from pair of police active shooter alerts…

Two large police responses to reports of active shooters in downtown Boulder in the last week have students, educators and residents grappling with trauma.

Boulder High School was placed in lockdown and then evacuated after a report of an active shooter that appears to be tied to a statewide hoax that shut down multiple Colorado schools on Wednesday morning. Police also gave a shelter-in-place order for the Goss Grove neighborhood near Boulder High.

On Monday, a few blocks away, a man reportedly shot up his hotel room at the Millenium Harvest House, then ran from police. There were no injuries, but police did issue a shelter-in-place order for the surrounding blocks as SWAT units swept the building.

University of Colorado Boulder students, whose campus is nearby, received emergency alerts for both incidents.

Kate Parker, Mental Health Partners’ vice president of clinical care and a Boulder High parent, said that, “ever since the King Soopers shooting, it has just been one thing after another.” A man is accused of killing 10 people at a King Soopers in south Boulder less than two years ago.

“What we’re seeing is just layers and layers of trauma,” she said. “With the children and youth, they don’t have a sense of safety.”

She said her daughter was driving to school early Wednesday morning to get a parking spot, saw the SWAT team and called her, not sure what to do. Two of her daughter’s friends who were already in the school also texted her daughter during the lockdown, who was desperate to go pick them up.

“It’s just that fear and feeling helpless,” she said.

She said responses to trauma can range from anxiety and depression to numbness, all equally concerning. She pointed to a video shown by Boulder High’s principal on mandatory student IDs as a safety measure. The feedback from students, she said, was that it wouldn’t keep them safe.

“There’s a sense that nothing can stop this from happening,” she said.

Still, she said, it’s important to talk about what happened and normalize those discussions. She encouraged parents to watch for signs of trauma, including not sleeping well and using alcohol or other substances. She noted there are a variety of options other than traditional talk therapy that can help, including yoga, massage and Acu Detox.

“There are a lot of different things you can do to take care of yourself,” she said.

Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty said incidents like the two this week have a significant impact on the community, making it a top priority to ensure those who engage in violence are held responsible.

Friday, the man accused of shooting a gun off in his hotel room at the Millennium Harvest House was charged with four felonies and two misdemeanors. No suspect has been identified in the Boulder High case.

“These two incidents preyed upon the worst fears of community members because of the prevalence of gun violence in our country, which is wholly unacceptable and requires real action,” Dougherty said in a written statement.

In the Boulder High incident, Boulder police said a person called the University of Colorado Boulder’s non-emergency line and said they were outside the school and armed with a gun. Boulder police Chief Maris Herold said the caller then said they were going into the school, followed by “very realistic gun sounds.”

Boulder High was placed on lockdown as officers searched the campus. Ultimately, police were unable to find any evidence of a shooter, and there were no injuries reported.

Boulder Valley School District in a tweet Wednesday acknowledged the incident appeared to be an instance of “swatting,” in which a caller reports a false emergency to get police to respond to a location.

Boulder High was on a delayed start because of professional development on Wednesdays, and Boulder Valley spokesman Randy Barber said only about 198 people, including an estimated 60 to 70 students, were inside the building.

While the delayed start limited how many students experienced the lockdown, he said, the experience felt very real for those in the school — and the fear affected not just Boulder High students and families, but those at other area schools.

Jason Giguere, Centennial Middle School counselor and school district trauma response team member, said there is a collective fear around school shootings.

“There’s a spillover effect into all of our other schools,” he said. “When the alerts went out, there were lots of people at other schools who were worried.”

Katie McGee, a mental health advocate on the trauma team, talked to more than half of Boulder High’s staff members on Thursday.

“They are really impacted because this was the real deal for them while they were going through it,” she said. “They’re here and they’re working and they’re OK, but their nervous system is really rattled from what they went through. I’m definitely hearing about cumulative effects. It doesn’t help that the last couple years are so hard.”

She added that while Wednesday’s incident turned out to be a hoax, it didn’t feel like one as it was happening.

“It’s one thing to practice with a drill,” she said. “It’s a different thing to here you’re in a lockdown and go to shut the door and see the police and the SWAT team with guns drawn.”

With both incidents happening near campus, CU students experienced similar trauma and fear. Students posted on social media about not knowing if it was safe to take their usual routes to campus or if it was safe to go to class.

Rebekah Jeffery, a theater major at CU, said the emergency alerts are anxiety inducing and don’t contain enough information. She said she has to follow Boulder police’s social media to get more up-to-date information so she can stay safe.

“The alerts have been becoming a lot more frequent, especially in the Boulder area,” she said. “There’s almost a numbing effect.”

The alert for Boulder High “was very scary,” she said.

“CU didn’t communicate that part of the campus was on lockdown,” she said. “There were no more instructions to CU staff and employees or students. The only information was to stay away from the area. I’m just really frustrated with how CU has been handling these alerts.”

She added she called her mom that morning because she needed to talk to someone about the anxiety created by the second report that week of someone with a gun near campus. Her mom suggested she skip her next class.

“I told her I can’t skip my French class,” she said. “I have a test.”

Mental Health Partners provided the following resources for those in crisis:
Colorado Crisis Line: 1-844-493-TALK (8255)
National Crisis Line: call or text 988
Crisis Walk-in Center: 3180 Airport Road, Boulder
Boulder Strong Resource Center: weareboulderstrong.org, 2935 Baseline Road, Boulder