Craig Scott ｜ Surviving The Columbine Massacre & The Media's Agenda
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Summary
On the 22nd anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, former student Craig Scott talks about what he saw that day, and how it changed the way we think about school shootings, and what it meant for him and others who witnessed it.
Transcript
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Coming up on Tuesday is the 22nd anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting.
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I was pretty little at the time, but I remember that.
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It totally changed the culture, changed the way news was covered.
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I mean, really changed the way we thought about our schools.
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A lot of school shootings, a lot of proposals from politicians to, you know, stop the school shootings by getting rid of all the guns.
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I guess right now we don't even really have a lot of schools open.
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A lot of pushes by the teacher unions to keep schools completely closed.
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We are joined now by someone who saw those horrible events firsthand.
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He was a student at Columbine during the shooting, whose sister was the first victim of the shooters.
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And who has been speaking out on not just the shooting, but on solutions to these kinds of problems for more than 20 years since then.
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Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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So for those who don't remember, you know, there's a lot of youths who watch this show and who listen,
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who maybe actually don't remember that shooting.
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I hate to, hate to bring you back to a terrible time, but I know you've, you've recounted this a number of times over the years.
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Can you just bring us back to what that moment means for you today, 22 years later?
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Yeah, well, it's a day in history, in American history.
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And if viewers are watching that weren't born when the shooting happened, it was a day that kind of time stood still in our country.
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And anyone that is of age remembers exactly where they were, what they were doing when it happened, much like September 11th.
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So it was a center of a lot of media attention because we were wondering, why is this, why could this, how could this happen?
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And how is it in our culture that we got to a place where something like this would happen?
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And so that day I went to school with my sister.
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We were, got into a little argument in the car on our way to school because I was making us late.
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I was, I spent too much time on my hair and we got into an argument in a fight and I started to call her names and we pulled up to the school and I got out of the car and I slammed the car door shut, not knowing that'd be the last time I'd see her.
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I went to my classes and then to the library during my lunch period to study for a test.
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I heard some popping noises coming from outside the school.
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It was near the end of the school year, so I thought maybe some seniors were pulling a prank and had brought some firecrackers to school.
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And just hearing these poppy noises for a couple of minutes and then this teacher ran into the room.
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She ran over to the phone and called the police and started yelling at all of us students to hide and get underneath tables.
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And so I got underneath the table with two of my friends, Matt and Isaiah.
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And underneath the table, hearing the poppy noises becoming louder and louder and then the shooters coming into the school.
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And my two friends just started to freak out, very scared and frantic.
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And I felt like I heard a voice within just tell me to be still.
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And so I became very quiet, very still while my friends were kind of freaking out.
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And the poppy noise is getting louder and louder.
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And the shooters were throwing bombs as they were pipe bombs as they were coming towards the library.
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And the library was the first room that they came into, immediately shooting off their guns.
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They were taunting or making fun of students before they shot or killed them.
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They'd peek underneath the table and say peekaboo and shoot a girl.
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They came over to where I was and they saw my friend Isaiah.
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Isaiah was one of the very few black students at our school.
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And the shooters dwelled on a lot of negative media on a daily basis.
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And so when one of the shooters saw Isaiah, he said, hey, we have an N-word over here, a racial slur.
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And then the other shooter came over and they drug him out from underneath the table, calling him racial slurs.
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And the last thing that he said was, I want to see my mom.
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And they shot and killed Matt right next to me.
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And the whole time I just laid down, being very still and trying not to draw any attention to myself.
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And shortly after, they left the library with 10 students dead or dying and over a dozen wounded.
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My ears were ringing so loud from the shotgun blast.
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I thought they were bleeding and I wasn't sure if they were still in the room.
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I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
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And so I prayed and asked that my fear be taken away.
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And in that moment, I felt relieved from my fear.
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And it felt like I heard God speak to me and tell me to get out of there.
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And I was the first one to stand up, looked around, and I saw the shooters were gone.
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I yelled at everyone, come on, let's get out of here.
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And again, kind of rallied, let's get out of here.
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And I turned around behind me, it was a girl rocking back and forth underneath the computer
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She had had her shoulder blown off from a shotgun blast.
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And a group of us ran out of an emergency exit.
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And we all ran for our lives to get behind that police car.
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And I can't really describe the amount of joy, the amount of just exhilaration that when
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But at the same time, I felt bad for leaving my friends underneath that table.
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And other police cars began to come by and pick up students.
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And right before I left, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, I think there's
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And he points over towards the library exit door that we ran out of.
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My sister had been the first one killed right outside the school library.
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And so for the next couple of years, I had a real hard journey and dealt with a lot of
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different things, a lot of different emotions, and was just pretty broken and dysfunctional.
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And my mind was kind of fragmented and with a lot of grief, a lot of anger.
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And so that was the worst day of my life, but it also has led to the most purpose in my life.
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And now, 22 years later, looking back, I'm thankful for everything that I went through
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It's also helped me to really help a lot of people, a lot of teenagers across the country.
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So I do a lot of speaking in schools and share lessons learned behind the Columbine shooting.
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And actually, one of your producers, Ben Davies, is in the movie.
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I was going to try to work in some kind of insult about him there, but he does a great job.
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Well, maybe we still have time in the interview.
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He's a great guy, and he's the reason I'm on the show.
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And so we've been telling her story now for the last over 20 years, and millions and millions
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She wrote something really cool a month before she was killed in class in an essay she wrote.
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And in the essay, she talked about her values and her beliefs.
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She talked about showing forgiveness, mercy to people, not being quick to judge anybody,
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not being quick to judge just by an impression or by someone's appearance, but to look deeper,
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And so in this essay, she said, I have this theory that if one person will go out of their
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way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same, and people will
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never know how far just a little bit of kindness can go.
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And she ended her essay by saying, you just may start a chain reaction.
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And at the same time she wrote this paper a month before the shooting, the two shooters
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made a videotape in their parents' basement without their parents knowing.
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They were never released to the public, but victims' families got to see them.
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At the very end of the video, one of them picked up a sawed-off shotgun that he used to kill
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Isaiah and pointed it at the camera and said, we need to kickstart a revolution.
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We need to get an effing chain reaction going here.
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And he was talking about starting a chain reaction at school shootings.
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That was actually something that they wanted to kickstart.
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There's been some people that have idolized them and studied what they did and looked up
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But my sister's chain reaction is far outreached there.
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So I talk to kids a lot about if you allow it, the worst things that happen to you in
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your life can become a source of your biggest strength and can become a part of your purpose
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And so, yeah, it's been 22 years and I'm still going.
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I'm still sharing her story, still sharing my story.
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So I want to get in a moment to this ideological aspect that you've alluded to.
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They wanted to start a sort of chain reaction, a kind of political revolution.
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Very often in the media, these guys and similar criminals are depicted as having been bullied
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or, you know, it was really they were just reacting to mean old society.
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They were looking at other targets, that sort of thing.
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But I would like to go back for a moment to something you said, which is you're there,
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You sense a kind of divine voice or providence.
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And then you have this relief and this joy that you're behind the cop car and you survived.
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You have this horrible realization that your sister is there, has been killed, first death.
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So can you just take us through that, how you can believe in God, experience basically the
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most horrific thing you can possibly experience, go through a very difficult period of your life
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and then still believe that there is some providence, that God would permit this to happen,
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Well, I was taught by my father, who's a really great teacher.
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He taught me a verse out of scripture that basically, in essence, talks about being a
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And there's a verse that says, if your eye is single, it is full of light.
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And so I have this principle in my life that I was taught earlier on to be able to see through
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both the good and the bad that happens in my life and that there is a purpose in everything
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And if I can discover what that is, if I can be in touch with it, then things that happen
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But I can know that there's, I do believe in God and believe in a source that's ultimately
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And having that faith, really, Michael, that's the biggest, I have a number of keys of healing
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But really having that was the biggest thing for my healing.
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And how I tap into that is I just practice stillness.
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I do talk about believing in something bigger than yourself and believing in your own value,
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in your own purpose, that you have great potential within you just by being a person.
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Just spending time, because on the outside, you know, Michael, it looked like nothing but
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But if I could practice stillness, then God or spirit or whatever you want, conscious,
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could speak to me and tell me how I could get through this.
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Tell me what I needed to do, tell me how this was ultimately going to lead to me becoming
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a better person and being able to help more people.
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And so that was the biggest key factor was just having that faith in my life.
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You know, it's a beautiful, beautiful explanation that you're giving.
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And it's a traditional Christian explanation of why do bad things happen to good people.
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And it's because in the Garden of Eden, man sinned and falls out of paradise and sin and
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But that there is, as you say, a purpose to it, a telos.
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And so we sing on Easter, we just sang it recently on Easter,
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Oh, happy fault that won for us so great, so glorious a redeemer.
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That somehow amid all the horrific things, hard to get much worse than what you went through,
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there is a broader providence whereby God even can turn evil things to good.
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And so if you see that sort of purpose, it makes sense.
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And it makes total sense to me intellectually until something really bad happens, you know.
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And then in that moment, you just started to think, wait a second, hold on, wait a minute here.
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He wrote that book, Problem of Pain, on this problem of theodicy.
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And then his wife is dying and he said, it's a totally different experience when you've
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actually got to live it than when, you know, you're just thinking about it more rationally.
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Now that we are so far removed from it, 22 years after the incident, what is, I suppose
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it isn't amazing to me, but it still seems distasteful, is people continue to politicize
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And what I mean by politicize is they continue to try to read that event as a justification
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for some, in some cases, very distantly related partisan desires.
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And it might be on guns, it might be on school reform, it might be on this, that, or the other
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Do you have any thoughts on any of those moments, movements rather, and do you have any suggestions
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as someone who experienced it firsthand going forward?
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Yeah, there's definitely things that are taken, tragedies, events that the media picks
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They want to use it for whatever cause that they think is important or needs to happen.
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And, uh, you know, I've been involved and interviewed and questioned, um, over news media, I've been
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over on a thousand interviews throughout my life.
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And that, that's an issue that comes up a lot, but I, I know that that is a surface level issue.
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I know that, um, that when somebody has, um, real darkness, real hatred in their heart, uh, that if
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they want to take the time to plan and kill people, they can find a way to do it.
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There was actually a propane tank that was set at Columbine that was right underneath me.
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I was on the second floor in the library and directly below me in the cafeteria was a propane tank.
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If it had gone off, it would have killed 500 kids and we would have been, you know, banning propane
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tanks. But the, those, I'm not against, um, things that make legislation rules that make
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things safer, but rules don't change people. Laws don't change people's hearts. And so the real
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issue is dealing with on a cultural, you can call, I like to think of it as a spiritual, but, uh, sometimes
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it gets labeled as a mental health thing, but dealing with people's hearts. Um, my program has helped
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to stop documented school shootings and thousands of suicides. I have a, uh, book of emails from kids
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over the years, just that had contemplated suicide over a thousand of them and that heard this story
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and had a change of heart. And so, you know, I think that, um, you know, people that, that use these
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events for their own, uh, agenda, I think that a lot of them really believe that, that, that this is
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the problem. You know, they think that the gun, the guns are the problem, but it really wasn't the
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main problem. Uh, if you really want to look at, I, I, I know of every school shooting that's happened
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since Columbine. I get questioned by the media after everyone, I research it, I learn about it.
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And if I were to tell you the biggest thing, the biggest commonality between all of these school
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shooters, it's pretty simple. It's that they focus on everything that was negative in this world.
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They focus on everything that was negative in themselves and they didn't see the good in
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themselves or in other people. And they have this perspective of seeing the world. They could have
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been in the most beautiful place. They could have been in the Sistine chapel and, in Italy with
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Michelangelo's beautiful paintings and found dirt in the corner and focused on that. And when you have
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a view where everything is dark and jaded and you see nothing good, then in you, it creates
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a darkness. It creates an anger and a hatred. And what I've learned also about all these shooters,
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school shootings is that they all dwelled on a lot of very negative media, uh, almost on a daily basis.
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And if you can just imagine, um, and you know, of course there's, there's, there's, there's nothing
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negative in the media, right? When I ask that question to students in schools, I say, you know,
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how many of you guys would agree there's a lot of negative, like in the media, like every hand goes
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up. Yeah. Negative media, it's sort of a redundant phrase. You don't need to say both, right?
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You know, uh, it doesn't mean you can't address the negative or talk about it, but where's your focus?
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Because whatever we place attention on, we give power to whatever it is, whatever the media chooses
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to focus on. Um, the media told this narrative after Columbine, that really wasn't true.
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And Columbine was such a covered thing after the shooting. It was on the news for months. And we had,
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uh, uh, a news camp of reporters near the school for months. And the narrative that basically came
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out was this, two guys are pushed to the edge because of bullying and they get revenge at their
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school. The problem is that's really not the true story. That's really not the main issue. And even the
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psychologists that have looked into it, that have looked at everything that happened, don't believe
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bullying was a factor. They were bullied to a degree at school. I know of a couple of stories.
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I also know kids at my school that were bullied a lot worse. And I also know that they themselves
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were bullies at times and became the ultimate bullies that day. If I were to tell, when I talk to kids,
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I say the biggest reason they did what they did is that they focused on everything that was negative
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in this world. And that's, that's the bigger reason it's not bullying. Um, the bigger reason is,
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is what they focused on. And so I have a program called value up. And I named it that after reading,
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um, the book from Sue Klebold, her son was Dylan, one of the shooters at Columbine.
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Dylan wasn't going to go through with the shooting. He thought Eric, his friend who was very psychopathic,
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um, was crazy. And he only decided to go along with it in the last couple of months of his planning.
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He planned it for a year and, uh, but he was more suicidal. And what his mom said was, we valued
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Dylan, but he didn't value himself. And it struck me because I realized I had already spoken to over
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a million teens across the country in person. And I realized that's such a core issue when somebody
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doesn't believe in their own value, they're not going to treat other people with value.
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But if they can realize the truth and whether you want to come out this from a Christian perspective
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or other religion that, you know, Christian, you're fearfully, wonderfully made, um, other perspective
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that we just have the capacity within us to do great good. We have so much potential, especially
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young people. And so if they can realize it doesn't matter what they look like, it doesn't matter what
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other people say about them. It doesn't matter where they come from, who their family is, that
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they have a great potential in them to, and the capacity to do great things and be a positive
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influence in this world. Like my sister was, she did small things, stepped out of her way for, uh,
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a girl that sat all alone during lunch, who just lost her mom in a car accident.
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I, uh, a fr-, a friend told me how he has a slight disability and he was, uh, made fun of and ignored,
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usually ignored a lot at school. His name was Adam. And the first time she met him, she stood up,
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a couple of guys were, were making fun of him. She stood up for him. And he told me that the time
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that she reached out to him, he was having thoughts of taking his life. And after she met him every day in
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the hallway, she would just say hi to him. And he said, he literally started waking up in the morning,
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looking forward to this day that this pretty girl would say hi to him in the hallway.
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In a small act of kindness, human connection, what is going to really change our culture? What's
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really, how are we going to get to the root of the problem? Well, the root of the problem is in
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our hearts. The root of the problem is, it really is. It, those are where the problems are. It's also
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where the solutions are. So, um, you know, uh, again, you know, if there's a legislation that
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comes up, that seems smart, uh, that makes it harder for, uh, criminals or people that are insane
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or, um, you know, to get firearms, great, I'm all for it. But if they want to tell me that this is the
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answer to the problems, then I say, no, you're, you're really looking at it from a shallow point
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of view. And, um, those, those people that commit these atrocities break all those rules anyway.
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Uh, you could create a hundred more laws. They're going to, they, they get them illegally
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anyway. Um, so, you know, it is that argument that it really, it really affects the law abiding
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people than it, you know, than it does the criminal. Well, I love your, I love your point
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here on, uh, if, if you hate yourself, I'm not saying you, you have to be prideful and you have
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to think, you know, you're the bees knees and everything, but if you really truly hate yourself
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and you just focus in on all the worst aspects of yourself and of the world, you're going to lash
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out. You're going to have a dim view of the world. When Christ says, love your neighbor as yourself.
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Well, if you, if you hate yourself and you treat yourself poorly, then you're, you're obviously
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going to do the same thing to your neighbor by that, by that principle. So I think that's so
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smart. And your point on politics, you know, that at the legislative level, that's a little bit of
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the surface level because, uh, you know, we, we say that politics is downstream of culture. We've all
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heard that phrase a lot and culture is downstream of religion. Cult and culture come from the same root
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word. Uh, what a culture worships is going to define that culture. And so these things are not so
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easily separated. You do have to take it down. And when you're thinking of political public matters,
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you know, how we all get along together. Well, that is going to begin, not just by focusing on
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everybody else's problems. It's going to begin with, to quote Michael Jackson, the man in the
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mirror. That's good. You're going to have to focus on yourself too. If you have a country
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of vicious people, vicious, self-involved, miserable sort of people, then it doesn't
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matter how many laws you're going to pass. You're going to have a vicious, miserable nation. And so a
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little, a little personal self-help can, can work too. You know, Michael, my dad gave,
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he gave a poem, he read a poem to the House Judiciary of Congress, uh, three months after
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the Columbine shooting. And, um, it was widely, uh, sent along forwarded email. Internet Explorer
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told us it was the, the most forwarded email in 1999, but he went there. Um, actually, uh, the NRA
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had called him. My dad's not a member of the NRA. He doesn't even own a gun. And, and they said,
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would you come and share? And he, he taught, he opened up and saying, I'm, you know, I'm not here
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to defend them. I'm not here to support them. I just don't think that, that, that this is where
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the real issue lies. And he read this poem, uh, this beautiful poem that he actually wrote before
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knowing he was going to speak there. And he said, your laws ignore our deepest needs. Your words are
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empty air. You've stripped away our heritage. You've outlawed simple prayer. Gunshots fill our
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classrooms and precious children die. You seek for answers everywhere. Ask the question why
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you regulate restrictive law through legislative creed. And yet you fail to understand that God
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is what we need. And he gave his beautiful speech talking about how as a country, we used to recognize
00:26:35.280
that we're a three part being where body soul, which is our mind, our will intellect and our emotions
00:26:42.720
and our spirit, which is an intuitive thing. It's our conscious. And it's also a communion with the
00:26:48.000
divine. And we used to recognize that as a three part being for nearly 200 years, the United States
00:26:54.720
was number one in the world in education. As a first world nation, we were number one. And when we
00:27:01.040
were number one, my, uh, my father's a scholar in American history specialized in American education.
00:27:06.800
And he showed me that, uh, that every educator knew a motto. It's in teacher training manuals.
00:27:15.360
And it was the three H's. It was before the three R's reading, writing, arithmetic. And the three H's
00:27:21.840
were heart, head and hands. They believed it was their job as a teacher to first teach the hearts of young
00:27:28.560
people. Today, the focus of our educational system, the philosophy is knowledge or academic achievement.
00:27:36.160
And even though that's a great goal, that was secondary when we were number one. Today,
00:27:41.120
the United States is nowhere being near number one as a first world nation in education.
00:27:47.120
And yet, you know, that's the goal is to be at the top. When our focus was first teaching principles
00:27:53.040
of the heart of character. And of course, a lot of this happened, uh, removal of it in 1963,
00:27:58.720
when we removed prayer and 10 commandments from school. Um, but what also happened,
00:28:04.320
and I'm not suggesting putting religion back in school.
00:28:06.800
I am, but I, but you're a little nicer to the other, but I am saying that we have to look at
00:28:14.000
education that touches the hearts of young people and teaches them real life principles.
00:28:18.160
Because you know what? The two shooters at Columbine were very smart. The problem wasn't
00:28:22.800
the education of their mind. It wasn't their knowledge. It's the education of their heart
00:28:26.960
and life principles. And what would have stopped them or any other of these shooters from doing what
00:28:34.000
they were planning to do? It would have taken another person stepping out in compassion with some
00:28:40.640
love and some truth and reaching their heart, seeing past their, seeing past their exterior,
00:28:46.800
seeing past their negative attitude, their words, their demeanor, and seeing that this was a person
00:28:52.400
that was hurting, that needed some help that would have had an impact. I'll show one quick story.
00:28:59.120
One week before the shooting happened, Eric was really the leader of the two shooters. He actually
00:29:04.480
went to a youth group meeting and I've met with the youth pastor. He said that he was given his message
00:29:11.440
and all of a sudden it hit him. He said he was not planning this. It hit him out of the blue. He's
00:29:16.640
in the middle of his little message and his spirit speaks to him and says, say this. And he stops his
00:29:23.680
message and he says, I just feel to say this. He says, there's somebody here that is going to do
00:29:28.720
something terrible soon. They're going to hurt themselves and other people. And I want you to know
00:29:34.000
that this is, that you do not have to go through it, that this is your chance to, to change, to repent,
00:29:39.840
turn away from that if you want. And Eric Harris was sitting there in that audience. And of course,
00:29:47.040
he didn't, he didn't, he didn't, he, he, he was given a chance to change right then and there and he
00:29:51.360
didn't. And so, um, you know, if we, if we practice stillness, if we practice and you know,
00:29:58.240
all great philosophers from every, every religion talk about the power of meditation and prayer and
00:30:04.640
being still quieting your mind and listening deep within. And if we get in touch with that,
00:30:10.000
then there's a, there's an intuitive voice that will speak to us. It's the same voice that talked
00:30:14.560
to me that day that said, be still, that said, get out of there. It's the same voice that spoke to my
00:30:20.000
sister when she was writing in her journals and in her journals, she had this feeling that she was
00:30:25.280
going to live to be very old, but that God was going to use her to impact millions. She told the
00:30:30.240
number of my friends, her friends about it. And some of my family, she actually said that she didn't
00:30:35.120
think she was going to live old enough to get married. And the last, the, one of the last things
00:30:39.280
that she did was drew in her journal in class a half hour before she was killed. She drew this picture
00:30:46.240
picture of her eyes crying and 13 tears were falling from her eyes, watering a rose with
00:30:52.640
drops of blood coming off from it. She took her, this drawing up to her teacher before class ended
00:30:57.840
and showed her Mrs. Carruthers, who was later my teacher. Mrs. Carruthers told me that Rachel said,
00:31:03.280
she showed her and she said, wow, Rachel, it's beautiful. What is it? She said,
00:31:06.400
oh, it's my tears. She said, I'm crying. And then she's looked at her teacher and said, Mrs. Carruthers,
00:31:12.000
I'm going to have an impact on the world. And her teacher said, Rachel, I have no doubt of that.
00:31:17.920
She walked out of class and not even a half an hour later, she was killed. And that day,
00:31:23.200
there were 13 people that were killed matching the number of tears that she drew. And the rose
00:31:28.640
that she drew that had drops of blood. Well, rose is the U.S. national flower. Every state has a state
00:31:34.480
flower. And the rose is the American flowers, the national flower. And she drew the same rose other times
00:31:40.640
in her journal growing out of a Columbine flower. And when we, when my dad first got this journal,
00:31:46.240
and he got it from the sheriff's department, it had bullets that had had a bullet that had got
00:31:49.920
lodged into it after passing through her body. He went to go pick up her backpack and he flipped
00:31:56.000
open to the last page and he sees this picture that his daughter drew of her eyes crying, 13 tears.
00:32:03.040
And we found in her journals, four other times, she drew the same rose growing up out of a Columbine
00:32:07.600
flower. Columbine is the Colorado State flower. And he felt that that voice speak to him and said,
00:32:14.480
the rose represents the young generation. And it's going to grow spiritually from what happened
00:32:19.440
at Columbine. But it's Rachel's tears. It's the small sacrifices that she made for others.
00:32:25.760
It's her story and her death that's going to allow that growth to happen.
00:32:30.000
So we have to get back to being a country where we recognize that we're more than just body and mind,
00:32:36.960
that we have a spirit, we have something. And if we can do that, we can tap into an immense power.
00:32:43.120
You know, hearing that story, which I had not heard before, it reminds me of a line
00:32:48.000
that might sum it all up, which is all nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance direction,
00:32:54.400
which thou canst not see. And of course, the rose, the symbolism of the rose, even beyond the country,
00:32:59.600
goes down to the heart of our faith. Craig, we have to leave it there. Craig Scott,
00:33:04.000
the organization is ValueUp. Craig, where can people find you?
00:33:06.880
ValueUp.org. I'm really hoping that I can get back out there and get this message out to a lot
00:33:14.400
of teens. I do too. Absolutely brilliant. Really, really inspiring stuff. Such a pleasure. Wish we
00:33:20.000
could have gone on about seven more hours, but I'm sure, hopefully there will be more time in the future.
00:33:25.760
You'll like it. Get Ben to give me a call. That sounds good. Yeah. Not Shapiro. We can have
00:33:32.960
Shapiro give you a call too, but Ben Davies, our producer as well. And you can go check out the
00:33:37.360
movie that, coincidentally, my producer happens to be in. And I hate to admit it, he does a very
00:33:42.400
good job. Craig, thank you so much for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.