Adams County Magistrate Michal Lord-Blegen was a school administrator in Aurora when two teenagers killed 13 people and themselves at Columbine High School in 1999. The massacre was a lens through which she viewed her subsequent work as a principal and as a lawyer.

“We’ve got a lot of kids with guns,” Lord-Blegen said earlier this month. “But these kids are not shooting up schools. They’re either not in school or school is actually one of the places they feel safe.”

Lord-Blegen was one of the speakers at an Oct. 16 discussion sponsored by the Colorado Bar Association broadly covering children’s access to firearms 25 years after the Columbine shooting. Prosecutors and defense attorneys discussed their handling of juvenile gun cases, as well as the various security strategies schools have turned to.

“I believe SROs actually contribute greatly to school safety, in that they are there for the purpose of relationship-building with the students,” said Lauren Asher, a prosecutor with the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, referring to school resource officers. “I think the myth is, ‘If we don’t have SROs, the police won’t contact our students.’ That’s just simply not true.”

As a truancy magistrate, “when I ask kids if they have a trusted adult, they will often name the SRO,” added Lord-Blegen.

Whether school resource officers enhance safety or promote unnecessarily criminalization of children’s behavior has been the subject of multiple studies. The Denver Public Schools’ Board of Education voted to remove police officers during the 2020-2021 school year, but returned them in 2023 after a shooting at East High School.

Erin Pier, a former school psychologist and executive director of the Transformative Justice Project of Colorado, described a case study in which the same student was disciplined on two occasions for punching a hole in the wall at her school.

The first time, the principal escorted the student to the SRO, who gave him a ticket for destruction of property. The student was subsequently suspended. The second time, during the next school year, the student walked into Pier’s office after damaging the wall. The principal entered and thanked the student for only punching the wall and not another student, and for seeking help from an adult. The principal also suggested they would devise a plan to help repair the damage.

Pier said the student cried, walked out of her office and hugged the student he had gotten mad at originally. He also apologized to his teacher and helped fix the hole.

“Same kid. Same issue,” Pier said. “But the response to that behavior was so different under those different leadership styles.”

Asher, the prosecutor, echoed the concern that administrators should not reflexively call an SRO because it is “easy.”

“In the DA’s office, we receive filings from an SRO because they have to send it to us,” she said. “And we’ll review it and say, ‘I don’t want this case. This should have been a school matter. This should have been handled in the school building — restorative justice, potentially. This does not need to be a state charge.'”

“I want to call our attention to the fact that the juveniles, the kids we’re talking about,” added Lord-Blegen, “these are not typically the kinds of kids that are doing the mass school shootings of Columbine. We’re talking about one kind of school safety right now, the kind of safety all of us touch every day and encounter. But it’s really sort of different than Columbine-type things.”

To that end, Lord-Blegen said it would be “very rare” for her to detain a child if the only charge was possession of a handgun. She indicated a second arrest or an escalating threat would be required for incarceration.

The panelists noted that students’ learning disabilities or difficulty navigating the COVID-19 pandemic have led to disruption or possibly violence — in some cases, without a clear path for intervention.

“I don’t mean to say it’s too late for a 17-year-old,” said Asher, “but if I know their name already because of law enforcement contact, we should have been there seven years ago.”

Potential firearms charges for adults

The discussion also touched on the ways in which adults may be charged for the use or possession of firearms by children. Recently, a Michigan couple was convicted and sentenced to prison for their role in facilitating their teenage son’s killing of four students in 2021. Last month, Georgia prosecutors similarly charged a man for allegedly enabling his son’s slaying of two students and two teachers through his own actions.

“In Colorado and most states, the parent-child relationship itself does not automatically render parents liable,” said Renée Franchi, a personal injury attorney and former prosecutor. “The real linchpin for liability in these cases is the parent’s knowledge of the potential for harm and their ability to control the child and the child’s actions.”

She added that if a parent provides their child with a firearm and later learns of the potential for violence, they have an obligation to take away the gun.

“Generally speaking, nationally, the courts really are placing a significant emphasis on whether the child’s actions were foreseeable to the parents,” Franchi added.

First Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Shapiro walked through Colorado’s various firearm statutes, which cover unlawfully providing a handgun to a juvenile, secure storage of guns, and failing to report a lost or stolen firearm, among other things. For an adult to be held liable, their actions generally must be knowing or reckless.

“It’s not a Second Amendment issue. This is adults who are violating their obligation to make society safer,” Shapiro said. “It’s our job to make sure law enforcement is properly versed on these statutes… so they can ask the right questions when developing evidence.”

Denver’s specialty handgun court

Finally, panelists from the Denver Juvenile Court spoke about the “Handgun Intervention Court,” an idea that originated in 2018 and was designed to address the root causes of why children are acquiring guns. Handgun possession charges among Denver juveniles nearly doubled between 2005 and 2022, from 63 to 118, with the uptick largely happening after 2015

The specialty court, which will start its 11th group of participants next month, is intended for those charged with possessing a handgun, but who do not have a criminal history.

Juvenile defendants who are accepted into the diversion receive a six-month deferred adjudication with the requirement that they participate in a seven-week program.

“Basically, that means a person pleads guilty to the charge. The guilty plea does not actually enter onto their record — thus, it is deferred for a period of six months,” said Magistrate Courtney Denson, noting the child will be on probation during that period.

As a former defense attorney, “this is a pretty beneficial deal,” continued Denson. “We’re not only looking for the youth’s engagement and involvement but the parents’, as well.”

In response to a question about recidivism among program participants, the panelists responded that an analysis is being done.