Second dean shot at Denver’s East High in 2023 sues DPS, alleging district failed to keep students and staff safe

The second dean injured in the 2023 shooting inside East High School is suing Denver Public Schools and its Board of Education, alleging the district’s discipline policies were “unclear and inconsistently applied” and that staff were not properly trained to search students.

Eric Sinclair filed his lawsuit Friday in Denver District Court, following a similar suit against the district filed earlier last week by Wayne Mason. Sinclair and Mason, as East High administrators, were shot by student Austin Lyle inside the city’s largest high school on March 23, 2023.

Lyle, who had been required to undergo daily weapons searches at the school, took his own life later that day.

Sinclair’s lawsuit was heavily redacted — his attorneys cited student privacy rules — but it alleges East High staff weren’t adequately trained on how to search students for weapons. It also alleges that, by removing police officers from schools in 2020, the board and district “shifted the responsibility to faculty and staff to manage, search, disarm and de-escalate potentially violent or volatile students.”

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges, DPS’s discipline policies, which have been criticized by parents and educators as too lenient, weren’t always implemented as written.

“Defendants actively obstructed East High School and other schools’ ability to suspend or expel students who violated Colorado law and Denver Public School policies and presented a danger to the schools,” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit was filed under Colorado’s Claire Davis School Safety Act, which says schools can be held liable if they fail to provide “reasonable care” to protect students and employees from violence that is “reasonably foreseeable.”

Sinclair was shot twice, in the thigh and through his stomach and chest, resulting in the loss of his spleen, according to the lawsuit.