A Time to Mourn


HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO – MAY 15: Robots are set up along the pathway at Cherry Hills Community Church for a Celebration of Life service for Kendrick Castillo on May 15, 2019 in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Two gunmen stormed the STEM school last week where Castillo was a student. Castillo with the aid of two friends took one of the gunmen down before being shot and killed. 8 other students were injured in the attack.   (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO – MAY 15: Robots are set up along the pathway at Cherry Hills Community Church for a Celebration of Life service for Kendrick Castillo on May 15, 2019 in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Two gunmen stormed the STEM school last week where Castillo was a student. Castillo with the aid of two friends took one of the gunmen down before being shot and killed. 8 other students were injured in the attack.
(Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

There is a time to talk about gun safety and mental health and all of the work that the AG’s office is doing to try to save the lives of Colorado students. But today is the time to talk about Kendrick Castillo, the young man who lost his life to protect his classmates. Today is the time to talk about Brendan Bialy and Joshua Jones, who tackled one of the shooters in the school as they saved lives.

Today is the time to think of the little ones leaving classrooms with their hands above their heads in surrender. Their crying faces haunt us. We see our own children in them, and we experience fear and mourning that has, to our terror, become commonplace. Today is the time to think of teachers, who go to work knowing that their classrooms could become a scene of tragedy. Today is the time to think of our eighth graders, seniors, kindergartners, third graders, and every other grade and year from preschool to college and know that they finish their cereal, put on their backpacks, and step into that same reality every single day.

Today is the time to think of them because they asked us to. They want us to think of the victims and to mourn with them.

So we mourn for Kendrick. We mourn for those injured. We mourn for the fear and trauma that will never completely heal.

We mourn for the loss of innocence in our own backyards.

Please know that we are working on policy and fighting for better legislation. We came prepared to fight that battle. But we were not ready, and we never will be, to lose more young lives to this violence.

They asked us to think of them. So today, carry their fears with you. Carry their hopes and dreams that will be forever shaken and altered. And know that 20 years from Columbine we have let down an entire generation. Think of them today and carry some of the burden in whatever way you can, so that, maybe, they don’t have to bear it alone.

We can and must do better.

Phil

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