School district officials in Colorado are considering demolishing Columbine High School, where 13 people were killed in a mass shooting 20 years ago.
In a letter Thursday by Jefferson County School Superintendent Jason Glass, school officials are considering asking voters for funds to build a new school and tear down the current structure, KMGH reported.
Twelve students and a teacher were killed at the school on April 20, 1999, The Denver Post reported. Another 20 people were wounded.
Glass said school shootings -- including a 2012 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year in South Florida -- have created a "morbid fascination" with Columbine High School, KDVR reported.
That included an incident last month in which Sol Pais, an 18-year-old South Florida student described as "infatuated" with the shootings at Columbine, flew from Miami to Denver and "made threats" to the metropolitan area before authorities found her dead of an apparent gunshot wound.
>> Sol Pais, woman infatuated with Columbine, is dead
"The tragedy at Columbine High School in 1999 serves as a point of origin for this contagion of school shootings," Glass wrote. "School shooters refer to and study the Columbine shooting as a macabre source of inspiration and motivation."
A $15 million renovation of the current high school was approved by voters last year, KMGH reported. The proposed plan to build a new school would cost between $60 million and $70 million, Glass wrote, adding that a new building would keep gawkers away.
"We have hundreds of people who try to enter the building or walk onto the grounds or slow-roll by it," Glass told KMGH. "We even have tour buses of people that stop outside Columbine High School. It's just a constant threat to the kids that are there."
Sandy Hook Elementary was demolished 10 months after a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, the television station reported.
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