Troy A. Eid (rhymes with “Side”) served on the independent review commission created by Colorado Governor Bill Owens to develop legal and policy reforms in response to the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4382514-The-Report-of-Colorado-Gov-Bill-Owens-Columbine.html. He was Governor Owens’ Chief Legal Counsel at the time. Troy went on to serve as Colorado’s 40th United States Attorney, appointed by President George W. Bush, when the Platte Canyon High School shooting unfolded in Bailey, Colorado more than seven years later. Student Emily Keyes was tragically murdered in that attack. However, first-responders at Platte Canyon had trained using the Columbine Review Commission’s recommendations – including immediately engaging the active shooter – and credited those recommendations with avoiding an even greater loss of life.
Under President Barack Obama, Troy chaired the Indian Law and Order Commission, the national advisory board on public safety and criminal justice issues concerning all 573 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States. Several of the Commission’s recommendations have since been enacted into law, including amendments to the Violence Against Women Act recognizing Indian tribes’ ability to punish non-Indian perpetrators who commit domestic violence crimes on tribal homelands. Troy currently practices law in the Denver office of the international firm Greenberg Traurig LLP (www.gtlaw.com), where he co-chairs the firm’s American Indian Law Practice Group and serves on the Energy, Environment, and White Collar Crime and Special Investigations Practice Groups.
SESSIONS
10:30 AM - 11:15 AM Thu, Nov 29, 2018 TBC
Continuing to Learn from the Columbine High School Tragedy
The April 1999 attack on Columbine High School, in which two students armed with firearms and improvised explosive devices murdered 12 other students and one teacher, changed how educators and law enforcement prepare for, assess and respond to potential threats of mass violence. In May 2001, an independent advisory board created by Colorado Governor Bill Owens, the Columbine Review Commission, issued a report and recommendations for avoiding and mitigating future such tragedies, many of which have been subsequently implemented regionally and nationally. This presentation by a member of the Commission looks at lessons learned, and perhaps still to be learned, from Columbine.Learning Objectives and Participant Outcomes:
Understand how lessons learned from the Columbine tragedy have been applied to strengthen school safety and security while exploring possible additional reforms.Learning Objectives:
- Identify evolving first-responder protocols used when mass violence occurs in school settings, including the current emphasis on law enforcement engaging active school shooters immediately to neutralize their threats to others
- Understand the importance of strengthening collaboration and information-sharing between schools and law enforcement under federal and state law
- (3) Explore the challenging yet essential task of developing more effective threat-reporting, detection, assessment and early-warning systems to shield students, faculty and staff from potentially dangerous individuals who might otherwise threaten public safety
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand the rationale for why law enforcement, paramedics and others responding to incidents of mass violence typically focus on engaging and neutralizing active shooters and immediately evacuating and treating the wounded, a key recommendation of the Columbine Review Commission that marked a paradigm shift in law enforcement training and deployment
- Understand how first-responders’ radio and other communications technologies, as well as information-sharing policies and protocols between law enforcement and schools, have changed since Columbine, and how they might be further strengthened to improve collaboration in support of enhanced school safety and security
- Understand the effectiveness and limitations of current reporting systems and anonymous tip hotlines, such as Colorado’s Safe2Tell, and the development of inter-agency early-warning methodologies to assess and act upon potential threats of mass violence, while exploring how such approaches might be furtherenhanced to promote greater school safety and security