Parents of Colorado school shooter won’t face gun charges, sheriff’s office says

DENVER (AP) — The parents of a 16-year-old boy who wounded two students at a Colorado high school with an old revolver his family said was kept in a locked gun safe won’t be charged with any crimes, authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators looked at whether the parents of Desmond Holly, who killed himself after opening fire, could possibly be charged with allowing access to the Smith & Wesson .38 special revolver or for not storing it safely, but decided there wasn’t enough evidence for that, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.

Holly killed himself after opening fire at Evergreen High School on Sept. 10.

Investigators didn’t find the parents’ DNA on the gun after getting a court order to collect DNA samples from them, the sheriff’s office said. It said the family’s lawyer recently told investigators that the gun, described as a family heirloom that had been owned by a grandparent, was kept stored near the back of a large, locked gun safe, the office said. Holly didn’t have access to the safe except for brief times when it was opened by his father, according to the lawyer.

The family’s lawyer, Douglas Richards, told The Associated Press the family believes Holly must have secretly taken the gun, which was never used, from the safe while he was cleaning other firearms with his father.

“Its disappearance didn’t becom...