Denver — John and Maria Castillo are still trying to process the fact that their son, Kendrick, is gone.
“I’m sad, I’m mad. I have all these emotions. I feel like my life is blank as of yesterday,” said John, speaking with reporters from the family home in Denver. CBS Denver was there.
“It’s like shutting the door you know? It’s like, I’m not going to get something back ever. It’s never going to be the same, and I wonder how we’re going to weather, but I’m not surprised about what he did,” he said.
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Because what he did, John said, was a direct reflection of who was.
“I’d like the world to know that this wasn’t your average kid,” he said, adding, “He was extraordinary.”
Kendrick is being hailed as a hero by fellow students and authorities alike for leaping into action during the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting Monday. He leaped up to block one of the suspects but was shot.
The 18 year old was into engineering and just days away from his high school graduation.
When the Castillos heard that something was happening at the school and couldn’t find Kendrick at the rec center, they began to fear the worst.
“I was texting and I tried to FaceTime him, and I was getting nothing and my anxiety and my lump in my chest was growing. I just couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe that this was happening to my son.”
On a tip, they went to the hospital, hoping to find him there Instead, they would learn their son had died at the school.
“One of the kids told me that like a flash he jumped up. She said, ‘You know he’s a hero — he saved me.”
What he did, was extraordinary.
“He just loved people that much,” John added.
