Denver Public Schools is heading back to court over the 2023 East High School shooting, after a federal judge torched the district’s safety decisions and refused to toss a lawsuit filed by a former dean who was shot on campus.
In a March 25 memorandum, U.S. District Judge Gordon Gallagher ruled that former East High dean Eric Sinclair can move forward with his civil suit against the district. Gallagher wrote that "Mr. Sinclair has shown that the defendants seem to have knowingly opened the door for a mass shooting," calling the district’s safety decisions "illogical, baffling, and plausibly conscience shocking," as reported by The Denver Post. The ruling keeps Sinclair’s claims alive, prevents an early dismissal of his 2025 federal complaint, and sets the stage for a closer look at how the district handled the student who later opened fire.
How the attack unfolded
The shooting traces back to a March 2, 2023, report to East High and a photo that appeared to show 17-year-old student Austin Lyle with a handgun. In response, the school placed Lyle on a safety plan that required daily pat-downs by staff.
School officials say Lyle fled when staff tried to search him on March 2. On March 22, according to those accounts, he allegedly rubbed a gun across Dean Eric Sinclair’s hand during a search, then shot Sinclair and a second dean before running from the building. Lyle was later found dead in Park County. Those details were reported by Denverite.
What the judge found
Gallagher focused on the timeline that Sinclair laid out in his complaint. Only three weeks passed between the initial tip on March 2 and the March 22 shooting, and Lyle returned to class without any intervening school days after the first report. The judge said those facts, taken as true at this stage, made the risk feel immediate and concrete.
Gallagher allowed Sinclair’s 2025 lawsuit to move ahead against Denver Public Schools while trimming some individual defendants from the case. District-level claims survived, according to local reporting on the order. BusinessDen reviewed the opinion and the underlying filings.
Legal implications
The decision is procedural, not a final verdict on whether DPS broke the law. The court has simply said Sinclair’s claims are strong enough to be litigated in full.
DPS, for its part, has argued that its safety plan for Lyle was an attempt to manage risk, not ignore it. The lawsuits accuse the district of broader policy failures, including the 2020 removal of school resource officers and weaknesses in staff training. The district has asked judges to dismiss claims that it had notice of an immediate threat and has framed its defense around timing and legal standards. For more on the legal back-and-forth, see coverage from Sentinel/Chalkbeat.
What comes next
Sinclair’s case now moves into the federal court’s pretrial phase, which could force the release of internal records on DPS safety policies, training, and decision-making around Lyle’s return to school.
Another former East High dean, Wayne Mason, has filed a separate lawsuit that remains active and levels similar criticisms about district policy and training. Ongoing coverage from CBS Colorado and the federal docket shows both cases continuing to move forward and potentially generating additional public records. The case file is available on Justia.
