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After a student at Evergreen High School wounded two other students in a September shooting, Jefferson County Sheriff Reggie Marinelli knew laws needed to be changed.
“When this happened, I brought all of our legislators together,” Marinelli said, referring to lawmakers who represent the county, “because the bottom line is we work in this community. We live in this community. These are our kids. These are our citizens. We just want to make sure that our community is safe.”
Last week, Marinelli stood with those lawmakers to announce state and federal legislation she helped craft in an attempt to prevent school shootings. A similar bill whose lead sponsor is from neighboring Douglas County was already making its way through the legislature, setting up a showdown that pits lawmakers responding to a tragedy in their backyard against those seeking to resurrect parts of a bill that was vetoed by the governor last year.
The bills would require social media companies to respond more quickly to law enforcement about suspicious online activity like the posts written by the 16-year-old Evergreen High School shooter Desmond Holly, who killed himself after the shooting.
State law currently gives social media companies 35 days to respond to a warrant.
The FBI started an investigation before the shooting into several suspicious social media posts made by the shooter. The FBI filed three warrants during the monthslong investigation, which began in July. But Jefferson County law enforcement didn’t know until after the shooting that it was Holly who’d made the posts because the process moved too slowly, Marinelli said.
On Thursday, Democratic state Rep. Tammy Story, of Evergreen, and Sen. Lisa Cutter, from Jefferson County, filed the legislation that Marinelli helped craft. Senate Bill 1255 would require social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours and comply within 24 hours unless a judge grants an extension.
The bill also calls for social media platforms to report certain threatening or illegal content to local law enforcement within 24 hours and says the state attorney general could enforce compliance.
The legislation has some similarities to a bill filed in January by Sen. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, and a bipartisan group of sponsors. That bill cleared the Senate this week and is on its way to the House.
Frizell’s bill represents a second effort at tackling aspects of last year’s Senate Bill 86, which Gov. Jared Polis vetoed. Senate Bill 86 would have required much more action from social media companies, including reports and taking down flagged accounts. Polis deemed it “fatally flawed” because it had the potential to infringe on free speech rights.
Frizell, who is the House assistant minority leader, said she and her fellow sponsors slimmed down this year’s bill, Senate Bill 11, to address concerns from the governor. Similar to Senate Bill 1255, Senate Bill 11 would require social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours but would give them 72 hours to comply. It would also require online platform operators to make a staffed hotline available to law enforcement.
Frizell said she has worked with community groups, including Blue Rising Together, on this issue for almost two years and doesn’t plan to work with Cutter or Story on their bill. She noted that Cutter and Story voted against her bill last year.
“My bill is moving quickly, and I want it to move quickly, because I want it on the governor’s desk and I want him to sign it,” Frizell said. She said she didn’t see any benefit to working together.
Cutter said she voted against Frizell’s bill last year because she had similar concerns to Polis. But Cutter said she agreed with the aspects of Frizell’s bill that would have improved social media companies’ responses to law enforcement.
Story said Thursday that she didn’t remember why she voted against last year’s bill, but noted that it was more broad than just the warrant requirements.
At the federal level, Democratic U.S Rep. Brittany Pettersen filed three Congressional bills inspired by Marinelli that would seek to prevent violence. Pettersen represents Jefferson County, parts of the Denver Metro area, and parts of several mountain counties.
The first bill would set a nationwide standard requiring social media companies to respond to warrants and subpoena requests regarding potential threats of violence within 72 hours. Lawmakers have noted that a Colorado law wouldn’t change warrant response times if a post is flagged in another state.
The second would allow grants for cities and counties to buy and distribute safe firearm storage boxes to community members. The last would create a grant program through the U.S. Office of the Attorney General to provide $500,000 for assistance and training on extreme risk protection orders, which are a court order to remove firearms from individuals who present a risk to themselves or others.
The social media bills aren’t the only legislation that state lawmakers hope to pass this year to curb gun violence. Lawmakers have also filed an update to the state’s ghost gun legislation they said would prevent access to home manufactured guns like the one reportedly used in the 2023 shooting at Denver’s East High School.
Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.
