The father of a 17-year-old girl slain in a school shooting in Colorado in December said at a memorial service Wednesday that he forgives his daughter’s killer, and asked others to do the same.
Michael Davis took a conciliatory tone toward Karl Pierson, a student at Arapahoe High who is believed to have been targeting a speech coach who had disciplined him when he shot and killed Claire Davis and then committed suicide, the Associated Press reports.
“My wife and I forgive Karl Pierson for what he did,” Davis said. “We would ask all of you here and all of you watching to forgive Karl Pierson.
“The fact is that Karl was so blinded by his emotions he didn’t know what he was doing,” he said.
Pierson, 18, entered the school with a shotgun, a machete and three homemade firebombs on Dec. 13, police say, but he shot himself as an officer at the school ran to confront him.
[AP]