Woodland Park police still looking for suspect that prompted 2 day school closure

Woodland Park law enforcement and school administrators are still looking for the person who threatened to “shoot up” the school on Wednesday.

In an abundance of caution, the school stayed closed through Thursday. It is scheduled to reopen after police teamed up with several agencies and their K9 units to check the school for firearms.

Sean Goings, Woodland Park Security & Safety Coordinator said, “We had dogs from several different agencies come up and go through our schools to make sure we didn’t have anything that was unsafe.”

Police are still searching for the suspect but say it won’t interfere with a normal school day, Goings said, “we want the kids to come back to school. We want the parents to know and have confidence that we’re going to take care of their kids while they’re not with them and that we’re going to educate our students.”

He continues, “there’s going to be increased police presence, a lot more patrol cars, staff members won’t be coming out of the building they’ll be in the building with their students, extra security walking through and patrolling with a lot of increased visibility and lot of increased vigilance.”

Members of Woodland Park were surprised to see the threat happen in the community. Rusty Merrill, a retired teacher said, “it’s bad because this used to be a sleepy little town so I don’t know this is just another phase in how the whole nation is going.”

School administrators say even though school is back in session, this investigation is nowhere near over.