AURORA — Three students were shot in the parking lot of a high school in Aurora, police said Friday. The shooting came after six students from another Aurora high school were shot and injured Monday at a park near their school.
Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson said that those shot Friday outside Hinkley High School were all juveniles and taken to a hospital. The shooting was prompted by a fight in the school’s parking lot and there were multiple shooters, she said.
“These are our kids that are shooting one another,” Wilson said during a news conference Friday afternoon. “We have disrespect and no concern for life whatsoever. I need the parents to get involved. I need you checking phones, I need you checking rooms, I need you checking cars and making sure you are taking these guns away from these kids.”
An Aurora Public Schools security officer returned fire and applied a tourniquet to an injured student, she said.
“Luckily none of these injuries we’re being told are life threatening,” Wilson said “but again, the emotional scars of not only those people who were hit today but people who witnessed it, are lifelong.”
Two of the injured students went to Hinkley High School, Wilson said. A third was an APS Avenues student.
Police cars converged on the high school with officers setting up yellow crime tape in the parking lot. The Aurora public school district was messaging parents about how and when to pick up their children.
Gov. Jared Polis said he was thinking about the injured people in the hospital — and added that the back to back shootings are a message that action to curb youth violence is needed.
“We as a state have to redouble our efforts on public safety,” said, Polis, a Democrat.
He added that “with the two shootings in Aurora we are going to have a renewed focus on youth violence.”
In Monday’s shooting, the six students from Aurora Central High School were the victims of a drive-by shooting and police have not arrested anyone yet. The two schools are only a few miles apart.
The victims in Monday’s shooting, boys and girls ranging in age from 14 to 18, were all expected to survive but Wilson said Tuesday that two of them had “significant” injuries and faced long recoveries.
Wilson could not confirm if the shooting Friday was related to the shooting Monday.
Numerous shell casings fired from different guns were found at the scene of Monday’s shooting and it is possible some rounds were fired by someone on foot, police said. Police have said they have located one of two cars involved in that shooting.
Wilson said after Monday’s shooting that everyone should be outraged by gun violence, which she called a public health crisis.
“There is a violence crisis across the nation right now, and so I think we all need to pay attention,” she said.
Colorado Sun staff writer Olivia Prentzel contributed to this report.