Highlands Ranch school shooting hero Kendrick Castillo honored with memorial dedication
Six years ago, Kendrick Castillo sacrificed himself to protect his Highlands Ranch classmates. Now, his memory will live on forever with a physical presence in the community.
The Douglas County Community Foundation, along with Castillo’s parents John and Maria, unveiled a memorial for the former STEM School student Friday morning at Highlands Ranch’s Civic Green Park, with hundreds of community members in attendance.
“We tend to be a society that forgets our heroes, that seems to struggle to accept that horrible things happen and it is those who are willing to sacrifice that keep the horror contained,” said Commissioner George Teal, looking at John and Maria seated in the front row. “(Kendrick) probably just thought he was doing what you guys taught him to do, and it cost him his life.”
Just weeks before he was set to graduate high school, Castillo died on May 7, 2019 after two students opened fire at the STEM School, injuring eight other students. Multiple students said that he tackled one of the gunmen while suffering a shot to the chest, a shot that eventually killed him.
Several speakers Friday morning acknowledged the heroism behind Castillo’s actions and said that his actions that day saved an unknowable amount of others who could have also been victims of the shooting.
A 7-foot-tall stone pillar, Castillo’s memorial is wrapped in an engraved American flag and features a cross on the left side chiseled above his name and birth date. On the front, the date of the shooting and a passage from John 15:13 sit below a photo of Castillo wearing an orange and blue flannel shirt.
Flat walking stones are imprinted with Castillo’s own footprints at the base of the monument, allowing visitors to quite literally stand in his shoes.
Rocks around the base of the pillar are inscribed with symbols related to Castillo’s personality and hobbies, from the Greek letter 𝜋 to a quote from Albert Einstein.
“It has been said there is no accident that on May 7 when evil entered the STEM School and was dead set on killing, part of their plan did not include Kendrick,” John Castillo said during Friday’s event. “When the door flew open and the gun came out, Kendrick was on the shooter. And God was with him.”
Douglas County commissioners also honored Castillo by renaming Lucent Drive in Littleton to Kendrick Castillo Way earlier this year.
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