Published: Nov. 2, 2003

News Release from the Office of the Attorney General

Denver-- Attorney General Ken Salazar on his own behalf and on behalf of the Columbine Records Review Task Force today recommended to the U.S. District Court the use of the Colorado State Archives as a repository for all Columbine shooting records and evidence.

Salazar also recommends to the Court that Dr. Del Elliott, Director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder and world-renowned expert in the study and prevention of youth violence, be permitted to review the records at issue before the Court and other records. Dr. Elliott would issue a public report upon the lessons to be learned from that study for the prevention of violence in the future.

The recommendations are contained in a Notice filed in U.S. District Court as a follow-up to Salazar and the Task Force's motion to intervene in two civil cases in order to object to the September 23, 2003 ruling of U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Patricia Coan ordering the return or destruction of publicly and historically significant records concerning the Columbine High School shootings of April 20, 1999. The records were compiled by the various parties in the two cases and are presently in the custody of the Court.

The two cases are Taylor v. Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. No. 01-WY-2076-CB and Rohrbough v. Harris, No. 00-B-808 (PAC). The various objections and motions to intervene in connection with the records at issue in these two cases have been consolidated for resolution by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Babcock.