A fistfight between two Excel Academy students escalated into a shooting this week, sending people running for cover and setting neighbors around the Denver public high school on edge.
The fight-turned-shooting happened at around 12:15 p.m. Monday in the 3100 block of West Colorado Avenue, around the corner from Excel Academy, a pathway school that is designed to help students who are behind on credits get back on track for graduation.
Two students and their families were involved in the fight, Principal Cynthia Navarro wrote in a letter to parents Monday.
“At no point were our students or staff inside the building ever in danger,” she wrote.
The shooting comes as Denver Public Schools faces increased public scrutiny over its handling of gun violence among students, particularly in the wake of last year’s shooting at East High School in which a 17-year-old student wounded two school administrators.
People who live near Excel Academy said during a Denver Police Department neighborhood meeting Wednesday that they’ve raised concerns about the school for years — particularly around nuisance issues like students parking across driveways, littering or drag racing in the streets — and questioned whether school officials were doing enough to protect students and residents.
On Monday, two young women met in the street to fight while a crowd of about a dozen people watched, according to video of the incident reviewed by The Denver Post. Most appeared to be high-school-aged, but there were at least two adults in the mix, said Cyan Santillana, who witnessed the fight. One of the adults was encouraging the fight, she said.
After a couple of minutes of fighting, at least one of the people watching drew a gun and fired shots, the video shows. The crowd scattered, with people diving behind cars or into alleys for cover. A single adult man was shot in the incident and survived, Denver police said.
No arrests had been made by Wednesday and police did not answer questions about the man’s condition or about the shooting.
Fights in the neighborhood, which abuts Federal Boulevard, are not entirely uncommon, Santillana said, but this was the first time she could remember shots being fired.
“It’s getting to the point where something definitely needs to be done now,” she said. “There are kids in this neighborhood, there is an elementary school right down the street, and there was this active shooting right in front of the houses.”
She added that most of the 250 students at Excel Academy don’t cause problems, but that the small group who do “give the school a bad rap.” One student just happened to be walking by when the shooting happened and had to run for cover, Santillana said.
The shooting took place during the school’s lunch hour, when many students were out of the building enjoying warm weather, said Scott Pribble, spokesman for Denver Public Schools. The fight prompted a 20-minute “secure perimeter” at the school, during which staff and students stayed inside and locked exterior doors, Navarro said in the letter to parents.
Pribble said there’s no indication that any of the involved students had a gun on school grounds before the shooting happened. He declined to discuss whether the involved students faced discipline like suspension or expulsion, adding that the disciplinary process takes time.
Between 2018 and April 2023, Denver police responded to 59 incidents involving guns at 31 Denver public schools, data provided by the police department shows. About half of those incidents involved possession of a gun, and just over a quarter involved menacing. Only three incidents were considered aggravated assaults involving a firearm, according to the data.
None of the 59 gun-related incidents happened at Excel Academy, the data shows.
The school with the highest number of police responses to incidents involving guns was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Early College in Green Valley Ranch, with five police responses. Police handled three incidents at East High School during the more than five-year span, including the March school shooting.
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Shelly Bradbury
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