"What he did was legendary": Colorado school shooting hero remembers the friend who acted first
One of the students who helped end Tuesday's shooting at a Colorado high school is praising the friend who died confronting one of the attackers. Brendan Bialy was friends with Kendrick Castillo, the lone fatality in the attack on STEM School Highlands Ranch.
Bialy called Castillo's final actions "legendary" and credits him with making the first move to rush one of the gunmen. He said his longtime friend immediately took action when one of the accused shooters walked into their classroom and pulled out a gun.
"I'm not going to pretend I wasn't scared like that was immensely terrifying," Bialy said. "It happened so fast it was such an intense, intense couple seconds there was no speaking it was just movement and fighting and whatnot."
Bialy said another student – Joshua Jones – joined them in the fight. The three students jumped from their desks and slammed the gunman against the wall. The shooter fired off several shots as they struggled with him. Jones was shot twice and is at home recovering. Bialy said he wrestled the handgun away from the shooter, but not before Castillo was shot. He died in the classroom, just days away from his high school graduation.
"What he did was legendary, like, he's a hero," Bialy said.
Bialy met Castillo freshman year and said the senior was a car buff and electronics whiz.
"Kendrick was a, like, just super kind guy, funny, incredibly intelligent, very memorable. He wasn't just somebody who sat in the back," he said.
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock is not releasing many details of the investigation, but confirmed the shooters entered the campus through the middle school entrance without metal detectors and were armed with handguns they were not old enough to legally own.
"How were they able to get in with those weapons? How did they conceal the weapons?" CBS News' David Begnaud asked Spurlock.
"Well that information we're not releasing, but I can just say that they did get those guns into the school through a ruse and we're still investigating that," he said.
"This coward that came into our school," Bialy said. "Attempting to wreak havoc and hurt people, he lost, like, he completely and utterly lost."
Bialy said he noticed the shooter was acting strangely the entire day. During one of the vigils Wednesday night, STEM students broke out in protest, chanting "mental health."