More Details Emerge in School Shooting

An Arapahoe High student who launched a shooting spree last Friday at the Denver area high school arrived at the school with over 125 rounds of ammo and 3 incendiary devices. He might have been planning to attack students or staff in numerous different rooms throughout the school, said local authorities on Tuesday.

Grayson Robinson the Sheriff in Arapahoe County said on Tuesday that before Karl Pierson, the 18-year old student entered the high school he wrote a phrase on his forearm in Latin that said “Alea iacta est,” which translated means “the die has been cast.”

He also wrote numbers and letters that have been linked back to four classrooms and the school’s library.

Pierson was armed with a recently purchased pump-action shotgun, which was bought at a local store that sells sporting goods.

He entered the high school at approximately 12:30 p.m. looking for the school’s debate team leader and school librarian, who authorities said was his target.

The librarian was warned and immediately fled the school building. Pierson then shot Claire Davis a classmate in the head from close range before shooting and killing himself. Davis is currently in a local hospital in critical condition.

Pierson, said law enforcement authorities entered the school building with three different shotgun shells including slug and buckshot rounds. Some of the rounds were in bandoliers he had around his waist and chest. In his possession were three Molotov cocktails that were functional and a machete inside a backpack.

Pierson shot only fire five rounds before he turned the weapon on himself while a resource officer from the school was approaching the school’s library.

The entire incident lasted only 80 seconds. Authorities said the numbers, letters and phrase written on the arm of Pierson are indicators to the investigators of the teen’s plans.

Investigators are still attempting to determine if the shooter had planned to attack any specific staff or students inside the library or the classrooms and if he had been helped by anyone else.

Since the attack took place school has been closed, but is scheduled to re-open for all students on Thursday as the police wrap up their evidence search inside the building.