Failure to act is responsible for the latest East High School tragedy

It’s been just four months since I wrote about the responsibility we must take as a society for the “monster” Club Q. It’s even more true of Austin Lyle, the young man who shot dead two East High School administrators last week.

I have not and will not name the Club Q shooter because I believe that notoriety served as a motivator for their actions. But Lyle is different. I don’t think he went to school with the intention of shooting anyone. It just happened.

And after it happened, he drove an hour west into the solitude of the Colorado mountains and appears to have died by suicide. Assuming both East High administrators survive — one was released and the other was in critical condition but appears likely to be alive — Lyle will be the only life lost in the incident. This is a tragedy all around.

It is also a tragedy that we as a society have helped create.

Gun violence among youth has been on the rise across the country, particularly in Denver. East High has been in the news numerous times since the beginning of the school year about gun violence in and around the building.

As violence increases, more children carry more guns for their own safety, which then leads to increased violence. Five times as many weapons (not necessarily firearms) were seized at DPS in the past year (200) as in 2018-19 (40), the last year before the pandemic. This is a deadly downward spiral.

The influencing factors are complex and interwoven. They range from access to psychiatric care to housing insecurity and a lack of positive extracurricular opportunities. Also, once someone is “in the system,” it can be difficult to get someone out.

That played out for Lyle, who was initially placed in a diversionary program for gun possession in Arapahoe County, but violated its terms before meeting all of the court-designated requirements.

I don’t apologize for what Lyle did. He carried a gun he shouldn’t have into a school and then pointed it at two people, nearly killing them.

But I also make no apologies for what our larger community has or has not done. If we had addressed the root causes of youth violence that led to a 17-year-old boy taking up arms in a school, we probably wouldn’t be talking about that incident now.

That means we need to start treating youth violence as a public health emergency. Elected leaders should issue policies that address the social determinants that inevitably lead to these outcomes. Nor is it a long-term answer to simply add additional School Resource Officers (SROs) to each school not a particularly good one either.

The addition of SROs can have an immediate calming effect on anxious members of the community, but data suggests they also disproportionately target black and brown children. That’s exactly how we end up with racial differences that perpetuate social determinants that subsequently lead to increased youth violence. The cycle must be broken elsewhere.

Since addressing so many of our societal ills is both a daunting and lengthy process, it means making it a reality in other areas. Specifically, it is about addressing access to weapons. After the march on the state capital just over three weeks ago, students were demanding gun reform legislation after another shooting near East High. They are again on Thursday and Fridayaccompanied by teachers and supporters.

While gun rights activists will point out that Lyle could not legally own the gun he used, that misses the point. Access to legal guns increases access to illegal guns. For this reason, research shows that even nominal changes to child-handling and concealment laws and similar policies have at least some effect on reducing gun violence.

Imagine what would happen if a few municipalities stopped biting the margins and used emergency powers to enact policies that would take guns off our streets. It might not be the right choice for Delta or Durango, but it’s hard to argue that Denver is doing anything more.

If we do nothing, we must remember that the next Austin Lyle will not be the real monster. Instead, it will be the reflection staring back at us in the mirror.

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