Kendrick Castillo: Colorado school shooting victim's father warned him "not to be a hero", but he diasgreed, "you raised a good person"
One of the brave heroes from the Colorado school shooting, Kendrick Castillo, died while protecting his fellow classmates after he hurled himself at one of the shooters. It has now been revealed that he had spoken about the prospect of a school shooting with his father.
The teenager's father John Castillo told NBC news on Wednesday that he had a conversation with his son where he had told the teen, "You don’t have to be the hero."
However, 18-year-old Kendrick did not pay heed to his father's advice and insisted that he would attempt to disable a shooter if the situation occurred. John revealed that Kendrick said, "You raised me this way. You raised me to be a good person. That’s what I’m doing."
Unfortunately, their conversation became a frightening reality when two gunmen opened fire at Kendrick's Highlands Ranch, Colorado, school. Another student Brendan Bialy who also rushed at the shooter's shared with NBC that Kendrick immediately sprung into action and did not think twice before attempting to save the lives of his classmates.
Bialy shared, "He charged the shooter and was immediately on top of him, complete disregard for his own safety. He was immediately there to respond; he was immediately there on the shooter, and he was ready to end the threat."
Another classmate, Nui Giasolli spoke about how the shooters entered the classroom saying, "nobody move." Giasolli shared with the Today show, "That’s when Kendrick lunged at him and he shot Kendrick, giving all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe and to run out … across the room to escape."
"I think I wouldn’t be standing here right now, I think I wouldn’t be able to tell the stories for how brave Kendrick was, how brave Jackson and Lucas and everybody were because they made that choice to sacrifice themselves so that all of us could go home that night," Giasolli further added.
The authorities detained the two suspected shooters at the scene of the crime on Tuesday. Five out of eight students were released from the hospital, while the remaining three are believed to be in a critical condition.