My kids go to Stem School Highlands Ranch (High School and Elementary) and I’m glad to say are safe and still processing what happened.
I’ve already seen posts sharing innocent looking pictures of one of the shooters, and it makes me ill. We need to stop giving these people any attention, beyond basic information. Instead, we should focus on people like Kendrick Castillo, a senior who would have graduated next week, who didn’t hesitate to jump up and try to tackle one of the shooters, costing him his life, but giving his fellow students time to take cover, saving more in the process.
Or Brandon Bialy and Joshua Jones, who also rushed the gunmen. Joshua was shot in the leg, but said in an interview that he plans to be off crutches and walk across the stage at Graduation next week. Brandon came away uninjured, thankfully. Also all of the teachers, staff and first responders who kept the rest our kids safe and reunited them with us in an organized and timely manner, even if it felt like forever to us parents.
I’m thankful to every single one of them because if not for everyone who helped that day, this could have been so much worse and more of us might not be hugging our babies today.
The time will come for discussions about how to stop these tragedies, but we can start by focusing on the people who dd their part to keep as many people as possible safe. They are the people we should focus on. Making martyrs out of those who wanted to kill and hurt people doesn’t help anyone.
