An Arapahoe High Shooting Survivor Talks About The Lasting Impacts

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Photo: Arapahoe High School students in Jan. 2014 (AP Photo)
Arapahoe High School students walk together in January 2014, during a lunch break on the first day of classes since a fatal Dec. 13 shooting on campus, in Centennial, Colo.

The school shooting in Florida last week in which 17 people died broke Avery Griggs’ heart. She was a sophomore at Arapahoe High School in the Denver suburbs in 2013 when fellow student Claire Davis was shot and killed in a murder/suicide. Beyond the sadness, and the PTSD with which she lives, Griggs was also angry that another school had to go through what hers did.

Griggs tells Colorado Matters that these school shootings now feel so common that they’re forgotten too quickly. Political and community leaders offer “thoughts and prayers” and it’s not enough, she says, and she welcomes the political activism she’s seeing on the part of fed up Florida students.