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Police see Columbine similarities in Colorado mall fire

LITTLETON, Colo. — Authorities couldn't help seeing similarities to the Columbine High School shooting after a fire forced the evacuation of a mall just two miles from the campus.

Just like Columbine, an unexploded pipe bomb and propane tanks were discovered Wednesday at Southwest Plaza Mall in Littleton.

In addition, the blaze coincided with the 12th anniversary of the deadly shooting that left 12 students and one teacher dead.

"We're concerned about the date, the time, things of that nature, but we don't have anything solid that would indicate any link at all other than, certainly, circumstances," Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink said Thursday.

No arrests have been made, but dozens of law enforcement agents were scouring security video and following other leads to identify a man seen entering the mall through a side door not normally used by the public.

No one was injured at the mall and the bomb didn't explode. The mall reopened Thursday. Security guards were on patrol but it seemed like a normal shopping day.

"It doesn't make sense, but of course it wouldn't make sense if it was the work of a crazy person," Cheryl Jenkinson said as she picnicked with her family near the Columbine campus in a park that's the site of a memorial to the people killed in the 1999 shooting.

The shopping mall can be seen from the memorial that stands atop a hill.

"I'm going shopping there," Jenkinson said of the mall. "I came here for what Littleton has to offer, not Columbine."

Mink said the community shouldn't feel threatened by the incident at the mall, hinting that progress was being made in the investigation.

"It isn't a situation where we don't have a good handle of the direction where we're going," he said, declining to elabor