Proponents argue legislation would prevent school shootings

Colorado officials on Monday claimed that the Evergreen High School shooting could have been prevented if social media companies had been required to respond faster to warrants — and they are pushing legislation at the state and federal levels to speed up that process.

Current laws allow social media companies 35 days to respond to warrants regarding disconcerting posts, something U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen called a “devastating and glaring policy failure.”

The proposed legislation would require social media companies to respond to warrants by providing the information within 72 hours.

“This legislation could have prevented the emotional turmoil felt by the entire community,” Pettersen said outside of the Wulf Recreation Center just a stone’s throw from the high school where a shooter critically injured two students before taking his own life on Sept. 10.

Lawmakers have responded to mass shootings by pushing changes to gun laws. Notably, the Democrat-dominated General Assembly has sought to restrict access to guns. Last year, legislators passed a law to require training through Colorado Parks in Wildlife in order to purchase a semiautomatic weapon. They have also increased the minimum age to purchase ammunition to 21 and prohibited openly carrying firearms near election-related activities.

The new legislation being proposed doesn’t deal with access to guns. Rather, the focus shifts to social media companies.

Governments and social media companies have been grappling with how to define the limits of requests by law enforcement for digital data at a time when big tech stores huge swaths of information about users. Government actors have complained that big tech has been too slow to respond to warrants, even in the most serious criminal cases. Meanwhile, in a case out of New York, for example, Facebook had raised issues of privacy rights and unreasonable searches and seizures.

On Monday, Pettersen discussed the proposal along with state Rep. Tammy Story and Jefferson County Sheriff Reggie Marinelli.

The legislation would require social media companies to report posts regarding violence or self-harm to law enforcement within 24 hours and to acknowledge receipt of warrants within 24 hours.

“Under our current system, it can take three warrants just to identify an individual,” Story said. “By the time the information for the Evergreen case was finally complete, the shooting had already happened. The clock had ran out.”

The state and federal proposals would not require companies to remove posts, but sponsors said they could help law enforcement identify threats in time to intervene.

The proposed legislation comes months after 16-year-old Desmond Holly walked into Evergreen High School with a revolver and fired off around 20 rounds.

The shooting injured two students, who survived but face life-long injuries.

Reports of Holly’s troubling internet history were sent to the FBI in New York on July 5, when the Anti-Defamation League provided a tip regarding “credible warning signs” on TikTok, according to Pettersen.

Due to current laws, the FBI had to go through three warrants and wait weeks for information. The bureau was not able to get Holly’s information and address in connection to the posts until right after the shooting occurred, according to Marinelli.

He said the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office didn’t hear about the information until two days after the shooting.

“I knew that I could not let this information be nothing more than bad news,” Marinelli said. “I knew that we had to take action.”

“We need this now more than ever as we see an exponential increase in the radicalization of our kids online with easy access to firearms,” Pettersen said.

The sheriff’s office claimed that Holly had been “radicalized by some extremist network,” though the details remained murky.

The investigation wrapped up earlier this month and, though no direct motive for the shooting was found due to a lack of a journal or manifesto from the shooter, the sheriff’s office stood by its claim that Holly was radicalized.

“There is no clear motive for the shooting,” Jacki Kelley, a spokesperson, told The Denver Gazette. “Him being radicalized is still the case, but that doesn’t explain the motives in any way, shape or form.”

Pettersen, the congresswoman representing the 7th Congressional District, said Holly had signaled what he was going to do.

“He was basically saying what he was going to do,” Pettersen said. “He was part of a network where they would post terrible, horrific videos of people dying or their plots to actually go through it.”

With quicker warrant responses, Marinelli said, the probable cause would allow police to search a suspect’s residence and investigate directly.

Psychiatric help could then be provided, if necessary, he said.

If guns were found in the home, the police could then ask a judge to issue an extreme risk protection order, which allows the state to temporarily restrict a person’s access to firearms.

Pettersen said that she hopes to see bipartisan support for the federal bill, but she has seen pushback from social media companies in the past.

Story said that the state bill has a solid enough draft that proponents can soon start meeting with social media companies.

She said the proposal will be introduced in the next few weeks.

“No community, and certainly no kid, should have to endure the type of pain, hate and loss that we have. I hope this is a priority for us,” said Tyler Guyton, a senior and one of two student body presidents at Evergreen High School.