As two gunmen stalked through his school, eighth-grader Owen hid in his classroom and texted his mum.
Cami Brainard was at work at a hair salon when the chilling messages from her 14-year-old son at STEM School Highlands Ranch began streaming in. She witnessed police and fire crews zoom past the salon, a few miles from the school where her son Owen was. He wrote: "There were gunshots. We are about to get escorted to leave," Owen wrote to Cami."Where? Can you call me," the terrified mum replied."No," wrote Owen. "We have to stay quiet."She kept asking her teen son what was happening, becoming increasingly hysterical."It's a school shooting," her son replied. He reportedly told her he could not keep texting her because he had to keep his hands free. A terrifying 14 minutes after Owen first texted Cami he was in hiding, relief finally came in another message from her son."We are outside," he texted at 2.23pm local time. She told CNN she was "terrified" of a mass shooting happening at Owen's school and, "thought about it every day".The family is no stranger to the threat of mass shootings.
Cami Brainard was at work at a hair salon when the chilling messages from her 14-year-old son at STEM School Highlands Ranch began streaming in. She witnessed police and fire crews zoom past the salon, a few miles from the school where her son Owen was. He wrote: "There were gunshots. We are about to get escorted to leave," Owen wrote to Cami."Where? Can you call me," the terrified mum replied."No," wrote Owen. "We have to stay quiet."She kept asking her teen son what was happening, becoming increasingly hysterical."It's a school shooting," her son replied. He reportedly told her he could not keep texting her because he had to keep his hands free. A terrifying 14 minutes after Owen first texted Cami he was in hiding, relief finally came in another message from her son."We are outside," he texted at 2.23pm local time. She told CNN she was "terrified" of a mass shooting happening at Owen's school and, "thought about it every day".The family is no stranger to the threat of mass shootings.
Brainard's sister-in-law had been at the Route 1 Harvest music festival in Paradise, Las Vegas in October 2017 where a gunman massacred 58 people. In the wake of decades of mass school shootings, a generation of American schoolchildren has routinely been taught to drill active shooter safety procedures. Later, Owen played his mum a recording he made on his phone while it was in his pocket revealing lock-down procedure alerts blaring over the school's announcement system. She posted it online. "They found him" Owen's voice can be heard whispering, before the sound of gunshots and yelling in the background fill the audio clip. Owen's "legs were shaking and his teeth were chattering he was in such fear," Cami wrote on Facebook. She wrote that she had debated whether to post the disturbing audio online in fears of adding to people's trauma, but decided it was her public duty to share what she and her son and his classmates and their families had gone through."I feel this needs to get out for as many as possible to experience what we just did."I don’t have any answers for what needs to be done but please god I beg can we do something!? Owen said his legs were shaking and his teeth were chattering he was in such fear."In the latest act of violence on an American school grounds, one student was killed and eight more were wounded. Kendrick Ray Castillo, who was killed in the incident at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) School, has been hailed as a hero.
Witnesses told US media he had lunged the moment a classmate arrived late and produced a weapon. He was said to have been shot as he wrestled the gunman in an effort to protect his fellow English class pupils. Students managed to get the gun and pin down the shooter, but Castillo was wounded and died at the school, according to reports.
US media is reporting Devon Erickson, 18, is being held on suspicion in connection with the shooting at the school. Student Alec McKinney, 16, is also being held. The shooting has struck the already-traumatised community hard. They had just marked the 20th anniversary of the notorious Columbine High School shooting. The 1999 shooting left 12 students and a teacher dead at the school in the nearby town of Littleton. The United States has endured countless mass school shootings since, which has placed the bitterly-fought issue of citizens' firearms ownership rights to the forefront of American political discourse for decades.