Suit says department failed to prevent shootings and properly protect victims

By Sue Lindsay
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

JEFFERSON COUNTY — Columbine High student Isaiah Shoels and 12 others died April 20 because sheriff's deputies didn't react quickly enough, a lawsuit filed Tuesday charges.

Despite promises to rescue students, Sheriff John Stone and his deputies "stood by while innocent children were shot," according to the wrongful-death suit filed in Jefferson County Court.

The suit is the first in a series expected to be filed against the sheriff's department by Thursday, the anniversary of the nation's worst school shooting and the statutory deadline for filing claims against the department.

Jefferson County Attorney Frank Hutfless declined to comment.

Families of 19 people slain or wounded in the tragedy have filed intents to sue.

Lawyers and family members were at the sheriff's department Tuesday studying its draft report on what happened at Columbine, a document a judge this week ordered released to them.

The suit filed Tuesday on behalf of Isaiah's parents, Michael and Vonda Shoels, seeks unspecified damages for wrongful death, gross negligence, breach of duty and outrageous conduct.

"We plan on holding the police accountable," Michael Shoels said. "This suit will give us the power to find out what they know and didn't know about this whole sorry situation."

Shoels said police could have prevented more deaths had they stormed into the school as soon as they arrived.

Several deputies exchanged fire with gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold outside the school, the suit contends, but those deputies didn't pursue the killers inside the school or launch a counterattack.

Instead of pursuing the gunmen, commanding officers decided to secure a perimeter around the school, the lawsuit said, and ordered that all law enforcement officers leave the school.

One police officer who broke rank and started toward the library was ordered to "stand down," the lawsuit said.

"The sheriff's department, Sheriff Stone, Lt. (Terry) Manwaring and the deputy sheriffs made no effort to rescue the students to whom (they) had promised through a 911 operator that 'Help was on the way,''' the lawsuit said.

Stone, Manwaring and other deputies breached the duty owed to students ''by refusing or failing to intervene to protect them from imminent danger during the massacre,'' the lawsuit said.

Stone and Manwaring could not be reached for comment.

The department's failure to act began long before the April 20 rampage, the lawsuit said.

Deputies failed to respond adequately when they learned that Harris' Internet Web page contained threats to shoot and kill people using a sawed-off shotgun, as well as descriptions of pipe bombs built and detonated by Harris and Klebold, the Shoelses contend.

''The Columbine tragedy could have been prevented if the department had confronted Harris and Klebold as well as their parents about the Web site, informed school officials and searched the Harris and Klebold homes," the lawsuit said.

The two gunmen were building pipe bombs at the same time they were in a juvenile diversion program for breaking into a car and should have been under heightened scrutiny by the county, the lawsuit charged.

The department also failed to act on a March 18, 1999, complaint by Randy and Judy Brown that Harris had repeatedly threatened to kill their son, the lawsuit said.

Deputy Neil Gardner, an officer assigned to Columbine, knew or should have known about the danger posed by Harris and Klebold, the lawsuit said. Gardner should have known about video tapes showing a mock attack in which Columbine students were killed and other tapes showing Harris and Klebold in possession of firearms, the lawsuit said.

Contact Sue Lindsay at (303) 892-5181 or lindsays@RockyMountainNews.com. Staff Writer April Washington contributed to this report.