CENTENNIAL – Support and concern for a 17-year-old girl critically wounded by a fellow student at a suburban Denver high school poured in Monday, both online and outside the school.
People offered prayers and left notes of support for Claire Davis at a fence at Arapahoe High School where white cups spelled out “Pray 4 Claire (heart)” A notebook and a Christmas stocking filled with pens hung from the fence, while others left stuffed animal horses because of her love of riding.
School graduate Parker Semin, 21, said he knelt in front of the fence to pray for a speedy recovery.
On Twitter, people offered prayers in several languages for Davis, who is in a coma at a hospital a couple of miles away from the school.
Hundreds of students and other supporters turned out at the school’s track on Sunday to pray and show support for Davis, described as fun, bubbly and caring.
“She is someone we need back, and we’re hoping she gets better because Arapahoe won’t be the same without her,” LinsiAn Loadman-Copeland said.
Maggie Hurlbut recalled how she was upset in the hallway at school once and Davis, whom she didn’t know very well, stopped to ask her how she was doing and offer help.
“She just wants to take care of others,” she said.
Authorities believe she was shot at random by fellow senior Karl Pierson soon after he entered the school Friday armed with a shotgun, extra ammunition, a machete and three Molotov cocktails, looking for a faculty member with whom he had a dispute. Davis was sitting with a friend near the school library when Pierson shot her in the head point blank.
In their first comments since the shooting, Pierson’s parents said they were shattered and devastated by the shooting and offered their thoughts and prayers for Davis, her family and the entire school community.
“As parents, we loved our son Karl dearly, and we are devastated by what happened Friday. We cannot begin to understand why Karl did what he did,” Barbara and Mark Pierson said in a statement.
