The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - Steven Garza - School Shooting

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

My HoneyDew this week is Steven Garza! Steven Highlights the Lowlights of surviving a 2001 high school shooting at Santana High in Santee, California! SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://www.youtube.com/rsickler  SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON, The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! You now get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! Sign up for a year and get a month free! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew  SPONSORS: Athletic Greens -Get a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase when you visit https://www.athleticgreens.com/honeydew  Imperfect Foods -Get 20% off your first 4 orders when you go to https://www.ImperfectFoods.com and used promo code HONEYDEW Ritual -Get key nutrients–without the B.S. Visit https://www.ritual.com/HONEYDEW to get 10% off your first 3 months Purple -Go to https://www.Purple.com/HONEYDEW and use code honeydew to get 10% off any order of $200 or more Talk Space -Visit https://www.TalkSpace.com and use promo code HONEYDEW at sign-up to get $100 off your first month

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over here we bring a little light to the darkness and these are the stories behind the storytellers all right ladies and gentlemen for the first time here on the honeydew please welcome steven garza welcome to the honeydew what's up everybody hey thank you so much for having me i really appreciate it man i know a long time listen this is a i want to say this now this is a this is an important episode we've never you're gonna you got to sit up on that mic or you're gonna get yelled at especially with what we're gonna talk about okay there we go um we're gonna talk about a school shooting you're a school shooting survivor yeah i've never looked at it that way i guess so yeah yeah you are you're a school shooting survivor. Yeah, I've never looked at it that way. I guess so. Yeah.

Yeah, you are. You're a survivor of a school shooting. And we've never done an episode, not a Patreon episode, not a regular honeydew of anyone that's been involved in a school shooting. So I know it's going to be a difficult thing to talk about, I'm sure. So please, before we do, though, promote, plug, everything you want, and then we're going to get into it. Yeah. So I just want to plug my Instagram and YouTube channel. So it's Steven Garza, S-T-E-V-E-N-G-A-R-Z-A joke.

That's my Instagram handle and Steven Garza comedy for YouTube. That's it, man. All right. So you're a doorman at the comedy store. That's how I met you in comedy. Yeah. And I know we talked about this a while ago. You approached me and told me that, and I was like, holy shit, I definitely want to do this.

And I appreciate your patience. We've undergone a lot of changes here at the studio since you said it, including the pandemic and everything. Yeah, absolutely. It's just a story that i think people need to hear and you know what's it's it's interesting because everybody knew about it at the time this it happened in 2001 nobody remembers it now you know that's very sad and it's sad because there are so many of them you literally start saying and you know i don't even mean to be insensitive time which one was that exactly you know and you're like well that was the one where this and you're like oh my god that one yeah yeah so before we get there can you briefly tell me

about where you're from originally grew up and all that and and how we get into this school story so i'm from a city called santee california it's san diego county so east county area san diego about a 20 minute drive from downtown. Very, I would say, I don't know, suburbs, you know, getting more rural, the further you get out. A nice neighborhood. I think we got a bad rap in the late nineties. MTV did a story on white supremacy on the specific city and that gave us a bad rap, but a lot of it was untrue. So people hear Santee, they may think of that if they've heard that at all, but it was a nice, it was a nice town and still is. With some assholes, like everything.

Sure. Right. They gave it a bad name, I guess. And then, you know, the media picked up on that and ran with it. So this was late nineties. Okay. And are you only child? So I have, I have two younger brothers and the older sister. One of my brothers, both brothers in San Diego now. Sister just moved to Iowa. What's your age difference? Were any of you in the same school at the same time? So I was four years ahead of my second brother.

He started the year I graduated. Got it. And then after that, he was there four years. My brother was a freshman while he was a senior. And sister was already graduated by this time. And were your parents together, separated? Parents are not together anymore. They've been married.

Were they at the time? At the time, they were. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a strange marriage. They were together, but never any love in that marriage. Kind of a sad situation. A business proposal. Sure.

So what did your father do for a living? He worked for commercial refrigeration. Sure. So what did your father do for a living? He worked for commercial refrigeration. Okay. So fixing ice machines and giant warehouses. And what about your mom? Mom was a legal secretary for the state. Your mom was a legal secretary. All right.

Okay. So this is 2001 we're getting to now. You're in high school. You're a junior, senior? school. You're a junior, senior, junior. You're a junior at what's the high school. High school is Santana.

All right. Santana high. And I mean, look, it's yes, this is crazy. There have already been so many school shootings prior to this. So the questions I sort of want to know are,

did you did, were there rumors of this coming? Were there anything anyone sort of knew and didn't take seriously that they should have? You know, that sort of thing. Because, you know, all these things happen. Yeah. So many of them. There was actually, well, you got to remember 2001.

This is the first major school shooting coming after Columbine. So I don't remember hearing much about school shootings until up to Columbumbine oh then i'm wrong okay i'm sorry because 2001 was the so the second one then in my opinion before the monday shooter and a few that you had in the 70s and 80s but but to me it was columbine and then things kind of snowballed from there from what i've been from what i'm sorry then i didn't i thought this was later no so it was just this was maybe i mean man see that's what i'm saying there's so many of them. I can't, I don't even remember when or anything. The Sandy Hook, all like, good Lord. Yeah, right.

But so, and it was also interesting because, so there was Columbine and then we were about a year later, Santana school shooting. And then a couple of miles down the road, kind of a rival high school, there was another school shooting two weeks later. So it all happened in this little town. And just as I said to you, there were some white supremacy rumors and they just exploded. But, you know, the media on that,

knowing that, oh, two school shootings within a month. Plus white supremacy. Plus white supremacy, yeah. And so left over to today, Santee gets a real bad rap, especially in the San Diego area. People know or assume it's bad from, it's still stemming from, you know,

what took place back then. And this, yeah, so this was, I would say the first major school shooting after Columbine. So what, were there any rumors or anything that was floating around? Yeah, it's funny because the rumors always start to come afterwards, right? People are like, oh, well, so-and-so said this was going to happen. Nobody reported it. And so, yeah, there were definitely rumors. And I can remember a specific entrance where there was a lot of fights happening at the school at that time. Kids, I don't know,

they're just angry. And to me, that was just happened at every high school. But apparently, for whatever reason, everybody was fighting at this particular month, a couple months leading up to the school shooting. And I remember my dad saying, he's like, man, was there going to be a school shooting or something? He said that? Yeah, just joking around. A couple months later, you know, it happened. I'll never forget that. Can you walk us through that day? The moment you get up in the morning, walk me through the whole fucking day. Well, just like they say, I remember it was sunny. It was a morning just like any other morning. Just like they always say. I don't remember. I couldn't tell you. Yeah. I just know it was 2001. I remember I had a counselor's appointment earlier that day.

So I had to go into the counselor's office and my grades were always awful. So it was like, hey, the type of meeting where you're like, hey, pick it up or, you know, you're going to be out of here. Does that day more detailed in your life than maybe anything else? Like, do you remember what you ate for breakfast? Do you remember how you got to school that morning? And you say you got there earlier because you had this appointment. Other than that, no. I just remember kind of like, I guess, highlights. I don't know what you would call them. Bits and pieces that come back to me. Yeah, I guess. And now,

so one thing I wanted to say before we get too far is that there were rumors that this was going to happen. Apparently this kid told people he was going to do it the day before. And the friends and even a grownup at the time, he told it to his friends and to the grownup, never reported it. So they got driven out of town after that. Really? They were, yeah, lynch mobbed out of there because people were pissed. What do you mean this kid told you he was going to do it? And you being an adult, you just sat on it. And one of those kids that he told, I think there was a group of like four or five that he was

hanging and he told I was going to do this, went to the high school we were talking about, it was called Granite Hills, a rival high school. So he, and that's when the school shooting took place. So that kid was in two school shootings within a month. No. Yeah. I got driven out of Santee, pushed over to this school. It's like, bro, I want nothing to do with you. Holy shit. You talk about born under a bad sign. Holy fuck. Two school shootings in two weeks. Right, dude.

He holds the record. There's no way. That's terrible. Holy fuck, yeah. You're not even processed. The first fucking trauma. You're not even like what it's happening but you had to think like he had to have known when they started hearing that pop pop pop he's

like oh i know where this is going you know what i mean by then he was a veteran yeah you know how to take it knew how to handle it but from what i heard he got a bunch and and this was all speculative but i heard he got a bunch of crap pushed over to the high school and you know people were teasing hey don't bring your hate crimes over here to our school and uh and i guess in a way it followed him fuck all right so tell me what happened that day so this was i remember we had for we had like a block system and you would have your first class and after that class you would have a break in between your next class it was like a not lunch but a 20 minute break before that. Where would you go?

The cafeteria outside? There was, our campus was outside. Yeah, so we had two big quads, which were grass areas, giant grass areas. And the big quad is where most people hung out. And I would say, I guess the jocks, you know, more of the more popular kids were in that area. And then you'd go to the small quad,

had two hallways that would lead into the small grass quad. And that was more of your artsy area, punks, rockers, stuff like that. And I was in the main quad. And like I said, there's two hallways that lead in and out of the quads. The only two ways you can get from one way. And the classroom was lying all of that. And what happened was I was at the very south side of the north Quad and the bell rings. So the break time's over. We just, everybody was hanging out. What time of day is this?

This would have been probably 9.30. I think that's what it took about. I think it's about 9.30. The bell rings. We have a three bell system. First bell means you get to class, breaks over. Second bell means you've got a minute left. If you don't make it within that minute, then you got to go to something called lockout, which is where you don't get attendance for the

day and you've got to sit in a room by yourself. Which was looking back on it, what was that doing to anybody, to the kids? I wanted that. The first bell rang and for whatever reason that day, I said, you know, I thought, I remember thinking to myself, I don't, I just don't want to go. I don't want to go to class today. And the shooting actually took place at the end of the hallway that I had to walk through to get to my class, right? There was a bathroom. It emptied out into a bathroom. And that's where the shooting took place.

The shooter was standing in front of the bathroom because he was using his coverage. So he'd go in there, reload, come back out. Reload. Right. He reloaded. He had a revolver,.22 revolver. I was going to say, I watched your hand motion do this. So he had a revolver. He had a revolver, 22. I was going to say, I watched your hand motion do this. So he had a revolver. He had a revolver. Yeah. And remember,

I'm right here. I mean, I was right there for everything. Second bell rings means you've got like a minute or two minutes to get to class. And it's still, I'm going, ah, I just, I don't want to go. Meanwhile, I normally would have left after that second bell would have put me right in front of the bathroom with a school. Cause I had to go white pass there to get to my class. It would have put me face to face with the shooter had I gone when I normally did, but for whatever reason, not today, I'm just not feeling it. And I'd say a couple seconds after that second bell rang, I slowly started to make my way down the hallway where the shoot, because the shooting took place in the hallway with a friend, my childhood friend, John, that I grew up with. We were kind of slacking off that day

and we started making our way down the hall slowly. Can you describe the hall? Is it locker lined? It's a locker lined hallway. And it was like herding cattle in between classes. And how wide would you say, like 20 feet? This is 10 by 10. Yeah, probably about, not much bigger than this.

So maybe 15, 20 feet. And you're shoving, how many kids pouring through this? Especially those last minute loser kids that don't want to go to class. We're all scrambling because we, you know, you don't get attendance for the day. So it was really like herding cattle. And this kid knew that that's the problem. That's what was scary is that he picked that place because he knew he was going to pick people off. It'd be super easy. We'd have to aim. As, as the second bell rings, I wait a couple minutes. I start to make my way to the hallway with my friend, John.

All of a sudden, I see everybody running out of the hallway, opposite direction of which I want to go in, right? And they all had that look. And normally when that happens, it means there's a fight. So as a 17-year-old boy, we wanted to go watch. We ran to the crowd. Oh, shit. Opposite direction.

But it didn't make sense to me at the time. They're not screaming? No. I remember this one tall blonde chick. For some reason, I'll never forget she had this look on her face i can't describe other than just absolute terror and no one yelled run or anything nobody knew what was going on they just mob mentality everyone's going this way we go this way no we went the opposite no i mean them all of them are going and you guys are going to go

fucking upstream because we thought everybody right but it didn't make sense why is everybody walking away from a fight? Normally everybody gravitates towards it. So it wasn't processing. And I didn't hear that the first few rounds. So I didn't know what was going on until I came in the hallway. Then I looked down at the end of the hallway. There's a kid holding his stomach laying on the ground, right?

So this was right in front of the bathroom where the guy was shooting. Everybody was exiting the hallway. I was coming into the hallway to see what was going on, thinking it was a fight. I thought, wow, this guy got stabbed. That's insane. It was just a fist fight. This guy got stabbed.

The shooter comes back out of the bathroom. I guess he had gone in to reload. And that's when he shot into the hallway that I was standing in. And there was a soda machine at the end of the hallway where I was standing. Me and my friend were right there. The first shot when he came back after reloaded was so loud in that hallway.

Because gunshots are loud. Listen, that's what I say this all the time. People with the, I woulda, I woulda, I woulda. Listen, if you're in a small-ass fucking hallway in your home and you got to defend yourself, fuck yeah. If you've got a gun, take that motherfucker out but just know that there's gunpowder that burns your eyes the gun kicks it's loud as fuck your your ears are gonna ring your eyes might burn like you got a shot literally hopefully to get one if you're in a space like that and i don't think a lot of people think that they think they can just come in and fuck a guy, guy, guy, guy, guy,

and it's not, this does not work that way. No. Can I ask you this real quick? Yeah, yeah. Did you know the shooter? Did you know who he was? We hung in,

not really. No classes with this kid or anything? No, but I knew kids that hung out with him, this burnout group that he was hanging out with. Was he a senior?

No, he was a freshman. Whoa, he's a freshman. Yeah, this little punk freshman man that was trying to be cool. I'll get into that in a second. Trying to impress his friends is what it turned out to be it wasn't a bully situation it was him trying to be cool to fit in with the older burnouts so let me ask you this do you when a bullet goes by you like that do you hear it i didn't hear it what you hit i mean is do you get that you know so what I hung out to the soda machine.

The first bullet, I went to my knees for whatever reason. You got to remember, the shooter was like 300 feet away. There's no charging him to stop it. You know, the only thing I could do was run away from the bullet. So I just want to make that clear. I dropped to my knee for some reason. I guess it was that loud. I don't know if I turned to run and I tripped or something, but my hand was against the soda machine. And as I put my hand on the soda machine,

the shooter, I don't think he was aiming for me, but sometimes I think he was. He shot the soda machine that I was holding my hand against. And I know it, not only did I hear it, but the soda machine was never replaced. It was there when we came back onto campus. So you go back and you go back. Hey, E6 is not available, all right? Are you serious? Months later. Somebody couldn't donate a soda machine. That's a horrible reminder every day.

God damn. It's so insensitive. The best they did was a couple months later, they did a sloppy paint over job of where the bullet hit. So the mark and the indent was right there. And what I'm saying is I know it hit the soda machine. Not only did I hear it, but you could see the indent that it hit where it went through the metal and bent the cage. Sorry, the soda machine had a cage around it.

And it busted that all up. Got it. That was not fixed. So how close to your hand would you say that bullet? I mean, within a foot and a half. God. But he shot again, and that hit the stucco that the soda machine was butted up against, the stucco wall. When you hit that stucco wall, that stucco blows back into your face.

So that blinded me for a second because the blowback was so intense. And at this point where you are, how many people would you say, I know, I know, you probably don't know the answer to my questions, but a handful of people back there trying to get out? So the first wave of people are already out now? Yeah, first wave are out. And remember, I came in after that first wave

because I didn't hear it, and we thought there was a fight. I forgot to mention, the kid laying on the ground with his stomach, I thought he had gotten stabbed. The shooter went in there reloaded comes back out

and that's when I make my entrance into the hall as soon as he comes back out he shoots again I see the guy who fell on the ground holding his stomach he got up and ran

he got away yeah and at that point I knew I knew something was up I still hadn't processed that it was a gun still hadn't processed

that I'm being shot at or people around me being shot at so that's when yeah he reloaded came out he shot at or people around me shot at uh so that's when yeah he reloaded came out he shot the soda machine then he shot the wall against me and my buddy I was telling you I was with his hands were all cut up and bleeding from the stucco on the wall at that time I remember turning turning around after seeing this guy uh come out of the hallway

he was just and not aiming, by the way, just picking people off. I don't think he was aiming for anybody specifically or targeting anybody. At that time, I just turned around and ran. And I'll never forget, there was a special needs guy next to me. And I remember thinking, you know, should I carry him?

But he was running just as fast as I was. So I was like, oh, he's good. He's like, fuck off. I'll never forget, man. The coolest kid, his name was Robert. We had PE together. But the thing that... He's like, you don't need to help me at all, man.

I gave him that look because, you know, you're like, what's the right... That's nice of you to even consider wanting to help someone else in that situation. Yeah, I didn't, but, you know, I thought about it. You didn't need to. Yeah, sure, I didn't. He was like, you get out of my way, situation. Yeah, I didn't, but I thought about it. Yeah, sure, I didn't. He was hauling ass, man. You get out of my way, my boy. I forgot about that part, actually.

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We ran. So from the hallway, we ran through the big quad into the parking lot. Now, at that point that you're running out, are you still hearing the pops? Yeah, at that point you're hearing screams at that point or people realize it now? I didn't hear any screams. One thing I do remember is thinking I'm going to get shot in the back because we didn't know. I was thinking there was somebody on the roof along with him.

Right. So I know. You're right. It back. Because we didn't know. I was thinking there was somebody on the roof along with him. Right. You don't know if it was just one shooter. Good point. So the whole time I'm thinking, man, I'm going to get shot in the back running into the parking lot. That's what I thought was going to happen. God, it's crazy. Even to think that maybe he's flushing you all out that way and there's other people that way. Right.

That goes through your mind at the time. Sure. Fuck. For some reason I remember thinking there was a guy. Is this an ambush? That's what I thought. Yeah. I thought, okay, there's a guy up on the roof and he's going to snipe me now.

And that's kind of what was going through my head. One thing I'll never forget, when they talk about heroes in a situation like that, we had these guys called NARCs, which were just police on campus, right? They weren't cops, but they were there to break up fights and make sure everything went smoothly. Did they carry weapons? They were called the NARCs. No.

No. They were always normally big dudes. They knew how to handle themselves. I think they were going to be police officers eventually when they started there. This one guy, I'll never forget, he had these rad tattoos all the way down his arm, like a spiral. He was running towards the shooting. Everybody running away, but this guy running towards it, man. And you, I mean, you got to remember at this time, what a hero really is. Everybody wants out of there, not him, man. He's going towards the face of danger. I'll never forget that, how brave you'd have to be to do something like that.

Another one of the narcs. I didn't happen to see. It's funny because you guys went to thinking it was a fight, which is dumb. Yeah. This guy now is running because he knows what it is, which is brave. Yeah, exactly. Yes. There's a fine line between dumb and brave.

Oh, shit. Okay. All right. So I have to ask, how many people died? Did that guy that got shot in the stomach, do you know if he died later? I don't think that was the kid that died. I don't think so. I never found out who it was.

Two. Two died. Fifteen were shot altogether. God, fifteen. You got to remember he was just picking people off in the hallway. There's no strategy behind it other than just fire and hit what you can. And the guy, this was when video cameras were still kind of new as far as portable cameras go. Some techie kid had a camera on him.

No way. Hit in a classroom, which was overlooking the bathroom the guy was shooting at. Filmed it. We never got the footage, by the way. guy was shooting at filmed it we never got the footage by the way the cops still have it they never released it film the shooting the shooter was smiling laughing as he was pulling the trigger killing kids in the hallway smiling imagine that level of insanity and well i guess we'll get to this later but this dude 14 too he's 14 yeah he's trying to get out of jail right now. Wait, let's...

We'll get into that in a second. All right, so you guys run out of this school. And you're in the... Where did you say? The quad? You're back at the quad or the parking lot? So I ran back into the large quad. Shooting took place in the small quad at the end of the hallway.

I was on the opposite end of the hallway in the large quad. And are you worried that he's walking your way? So the whole time you're running, I think he's behind me or somebody's on the roof ready to shoot. So as fast as you're running, you can't get far enough away fast enough. You have no idea what's around you.

God, yeah, a bullet can go, yeah, so far. And then you think someone's gonna come up in front of me and they're gonna block me off here. Luckily, I was able to make it to the parking lot where most everybody. But you got to remember, man, we're kids at this time. Nobody knows what's going on. Right.

And I'm sure the police, maybe if they've been called it, they just got called. So they're not there. Yeah. You're just a group of kids and teachers, probably, faculty in a parking lot. I got into my car in the parking lot and actually asked myself, do I need to go back to class? You're not processing what's going on. Like, I guess I'll just wait for a second. Then I'll go back to class. That's how I just didn't process at that moment. Eventually everybody started, we got in our car and we just left. And I'll never remember driving home on the main street that the high school was on, a cop just flying past me in the opposite direction. That's when

I knew, oh man, this is real. And what happened, the way the kid got caught, there was an off-duty officer on campus that day, just happened to be there. I guess after he had reloaded once or twice, the cop heard the commotion, 911 calls were already made. He went in there to kind of figure out what was going on and then call for backup. So if it wasn't for him, who knows how many more kids would have been shot or would have died. Did they kill him? Oh, no, you said he's trying to get out of jail. All right, we'll come back to that.

So, all right, you leave and then what? You go home? Where do you go? I went home. I'll never forget the message I left my mom at her work. I go, hey, mom, something happened at school, but I'm okay. And then I hung up. It didn't go in detail. And she later told me, she's like, what were you thinking, man? And she, because she, you know, it was all, it was world news at the time. news is because not only was it on every station every night, but people from other countries were calling family members of mine, knowing that they lived in the area, that they had a nephew or a grandson or someone that lived in that area and from England or, you know, in Europe. And so they

were getting all this as well. That's how, I mean, it was huge. That's why it blows my mind that nobody remembers it even, even now. So, you know, like I said, I thought this was down the line of these school shootings. And interesting, it's pretty much the second one in the US. I would say it was probably the second one in the US. Yeah, yeah. Heavily profiled. Yeah, and that's why I wonder,

out of all the school shootings we have now, how many people are going to remember these 20 years from now? Because this was just as big. We didn't have social media at the time, but it was on every channel for weeks. CNN, that's all they covered every night. So who's the first person you actually get to talk to about it, like to unload on? You calling other friends at school? Are you checking

on people? Like what's happening with that? That's right. What happened was after I had driven away, I went home, which wasn't very far. What happened, there's a strip mall across the street from the high school. I had a grocery store, like a Del Taco, Jack in the Box, things like that. It was pretty big, and everybody gathered there. So I got home, and it was already on the news by the time I had gotten home. And I was with one of my other friends had made his way. John, that was in the hallway with, made his way to my house. And we went back to the gathering place thinking that's where we needed to be

because it was on the news. Like, hey, all the kids are here finding out if everybody's okay everybody's accounted for so we went into that and that's when everybody the room was started going around hey did you hear who it was did you hear it was this it was turned out it was this burner i don't even want to say his name some burnout kid i have no i cannot stand this kid the interesting part is that most school shooters killed themselves or before the shooting's over, from what I've seen, at least, right? This was one of the first ones where you could see the steps being taken to him going to prison. So he was arrested, he was detained, then he had his

trial, then he has, you know, whatever, retrial, whatever, his appeal, and you get to kind of follow all the way along, which also kind of sucks because it still comes back up. I got to hear about this guy wanting to get out of the prison. Another thing, he wants to be a cop, last I heard. What? You don't, you can't be. No. You can't be.

You don't commit a double homicide. Of children. Of children, right. And then get to be a cop. Doesn't he understand he doesn't even if he gets out he's never allowed to have a weapon or anything no he's got felonies exactly it's over but also keep that motherfucker in prison yeah i mean a school shooting should be life in prison if not death man you know do us a favor and shoot yourself motherfucker yeah please

i would love save one Save one for yourself. Yeah, please. That's why I still to this day, you know, like, why don't you take yourself out, man? Yeah. I'm not going to shed a tear for you. You almost shot me in the face. I mean, he came a foot and a half from shooting me in the face. And, you know, the older I get, the harder that is to deal with.

When I was a kid, I just blew it off. But the more I think about it. I don't know. I bet you. I mean, look, I see shit that freaks me out. And I don't know if it's true. I know there's a lot of scare stuff out there, too. But there was an article that said something about don't send your kids to school in shoes that flash.

Because when they run, they could see that flash. And I'm like, oh, my God. This is what it's come to you got to think about that so i um i mean man my heart goes out to the families and the victims and you know that's the other thing they say well how many dead well there's two dead but how many shot 15 altogether okay so 15 people get this is what they say oh 15 shot okay but what you don't realize is that person might have lost their fucking hand. Yeah.

Or the use of their leg for the rest of their life. I'm shot and I'm alive, but also I lost a leg or I don't have, I have to wear a colostomy bag. I've got to breathe through with it. Who knows what just, you know, shot counts, man. Not to mention the psychological damage that you're going to have for the rest. I had a buddy who was actually in the bathroom that the kid, the kid started the shooting in the bathroom and then brought it out into the hallway. Not the reload bathroom.

Yeah. He was in there? That's where the first kid died was going to the bathroom, walked up behind him, shot him, killed him. That's where the shooting took place. Nothing racially motivated, bullying, none of that. Just mental illness, clearly. He's laughing and shit you said smiling trying to fit in with the with the wrong crowd is from what i've gathered that's

it and that was the way and i'll get to that in a second about why i think it was that my friend was using the urinal happened to know the shooter you knew the guy that got shot yeah we were good friends we played basketball together baseball we were were on sports. Came up behind him going to the bathroom, using a urinal, shot him in the neck, and left him there to die. He goes out in the hallway to start shooting. That's when I come around the corner, I guess. Or this might have been just before I come around the corner. The kid's crying or moaning on the floor.

He turns around, tells him to shut up, goes back to shooting kids in the hallway. That's how brutal this kid was. Your friend? He told my friend to shut up, who was moaning on the ground. And he died, he bled out? No, he lived, actually. He did? Yes, he lived.

After being shot in the neck? In the neck, yeah. Holy fuck. Out for months after that, came back with a giant brace on his head, and you could see the bullet hole in his neck or the entrance that it took. They should have put him next to the Coke machine.

What's up, man? What's up, man? A little selfie? Who wore it better? I'm going to this Coke machine for Halloween, motherfucker. If I could have... Oh, man. Oh, my God. But goodness for... I haven't heard from him in, you know, 20 years, oh my god but goodness

for that he's I haven't heard from him in you know 20 years but last I heard he had a kid on the way

and he was married so he's doing fine and did you know any other people close I knew another kid got shot in in the lip

I remember we grew up together it was somehow it entered the side yeah it went across his lip fuck so he came back with just this giant lip. Yeah, just swollen lip.

Did it blow teeth out or anything? I don't remember it blowing teeth out. No. It was just, it got lucky. Yeah. Just lucky. Across your face. Yeah, somehow in through here and out through here.

That could have blew his jaw. Exactly. I mean, inches. Holy fuck. And he hit Buddy. And that was just from running. Like, just these are straight bullets flying through yeah that's the other thing you don't think about this guy's just spraying you

don't think about ricochet like this should bounce here and shoot over that way yeah someone made it home now this is a rumor but it was a lot of people had had told me about this someone made it home didn't realize they were shot in the leg until they got home adrenaline right the adrenaline and so i do you do know a couple other kids that got shot. I didn't know the kids that died. So how did he get them? One kid was in the bathroom with my friend and he just shot him in the head.

That kid died instantly in the bathroom. The other kid was in the hallway. Imagine you're just going to the bathroom and then your lights go out. That's it. That's it. I think about those kids. You don't even know what's going on.

Uh-uh. I think about them all the time. the time and and i do have some ptsd from it like i don't like to be for a long time i couldn't go into schools that were indoors i just couldn't do it i gotta have so many questions how do you feel when the store's packed every room in there very back's always to a wall that shooting happened happened on the, were you there that night? No, I wasn't there that night. Yeah. But I heard that guy that was in the two school shootings was there that night. The legend continues.

He just happened to have tickets. I think we just. man i appreciate you help me find humor in this because this is crazy i mean there's funny parts that are looking back on you know it's a sad situation but you gotta laugh at it dude you know it's funny seeing people at that class get older and older and seeing them develop families and yeah i mean reunions all right wait let's go, let's go back. Let's go back. All right, so someone in the lip. Can I just apologize? I know I'm going very fast.

You don't owe any apologies. But it's coming back to me, and I'm trying to get everything out. So if you're having a hard time following. I'm not. I'm not. We can go wherever you want to go. I'll reset us, and we can go again. It's all good.

Be yourself, please. I want you to be. I hope there's not a lot of people out there that can, you know, understand exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. But unfortunately, there probably are. So, I do have a friend, well, Dan Van Kirk's friend was involved in the Vegas shooting. And a friend of mine, her daughter was in there and she had just left. So, I've talked to some people about this crazy shit,

but I've never sat with someone and talked about a school shooting. I mean, that's the other thing. I'll never forget hearing this Columbine parent say, you know, someone said to them, wrong place, wrong time. And she said, bullshit. My kid was in school. They were exactly where they were supposed to be that fucking day. Don't me wrong place wrong time and i thought you know what fuck yeah yeah that's bullshit wrong place wrong time that's where they were supposed to be that day so um going back to someone getting the the people who died you said the one boy and who was the other person the other one i believe was shot, I believe, was shot in the hall. He was shot, but he was able to run around the corner. So as I mentioned earlier, I was at the end of the hall.

I was on the left side of the hall. He ran around the right side of the hall, and apparently he collapsed right there. A teacher came out, performed CPR, and he died in the teacher's arms. The teacher had been there. He was like 20-some-odd years. Later on, I learned he had like six shrinks after this.

He just couldn't get over it. The kid died in his arms, and I don't think he ever recovered. I don't know how you could. Uh-uh. So that's where the second kid, that was Randy Gordon, who was a senior, and I believe Brian Zucker, he was a freshman who wanted to be a stunt double, which was funny because I remember hearing rumors about this freshman. If you gave him a dollar, he would run into a pole headfirst.

And so we would bring dollars and try and have him run into poles. Holy shit. So just great. Two of the most innocent kids at that school you know everyone's innocent oh yeah they're all innocent they're in school yeah let me ask you um do you know who the worst the person who that survived but worse damage anyone in a wheelchair anyone i don't remember anybody being in a wheelchair i think my buddy who got shot in the neck was the worst one that i can remember but he's recovered now?

He recovered. Yeah. Everybody I know had a full recovery. I knew another guy shot in the butt. He, yeah, he recovered. That's probably the best place you could get shot, right? I don't know. I would say it's the fleshiest muscle. Somebody else got, the kid who got shot through the lip, he had a friend who got shot. And I don't remember where where but i know he got uh honorably discharged after going to the army when he graduated due to complications to his gunshot so wow there was that okay and i mean as far as things that follow you from that like i can't if i go to a busy restaurant you better believe my back's against the wall i want to see everybody that comes in that's that old mafia shit yeah I still, if I go to the bathroom and somebody walks in behind me, I'm like, oh, you know, I got to kind of keep an eye.

I just, you just never know. You never know. I did a gig. Have you ever done, have you ever been to Chicago? No. I did a gig in Chicago and then they took me over to the Al Capone's old place called the Green Mill. And it's just, it's vintage. It's as if it's untouched, like 50s, 60s.

It's just gorgeous and i was like you guys should do a show here they go we do every sunday afternoon and it's been sold out forever and i was like fuck yeah it's gorgeous and they go that's capone's seat over there so we go sit in the booth and then as soon as you sit in the booth you can see why it's his booth okay he's got an exit right behind him but he can can see everything. It's not even facing front. It's facing. It's in the middle. So he's got his right and his left, but nothing behind him but a door.

And it's this beautiful booth. And you're like, oh, that's the fuck. Yeah, that's we're out. Exactly. Always know where the exits are just in case, you know. So can we talk? Let's go to this. I want to try to stay chronologically now.

So you meet with this group of people at the school. Sure, rumors are flying. Everyone's, you hear who it is. We talk about the people, I'm sure, who die. What's next? How long is school closed? Like, when do you actually go back? And what are you doing in that time?

One thing I want to point out in the parking lot that was a trip, man, was the whole school was pretty much there in the parking lot. Parents are showing up because they're being reunited. And you can Google all this. It's just 10 o'clock in the morning too. Yeah. And it's all, it's all documented. It's on that. You can find it on Google. If you look it up, there's news footage and everything. You can see them gathering in that area. Parents were coming to reunite with their kids. Unfortunately, some of the parents came, found out that their kids were no longer alive. That's really sad. And do you see that? I didn't see that. No. kids were no longer alive. That's really sad. And do you see that? I didn't see that. No.

The shooter's dad comes looking for his son. Hey, is he okay? I don't want to say his name. Is he okay? Asking his friends. We saw like, oh no, I think he did it. Imagine the dad goes there thinking that his son was, you know, a victim. He's the one that caused all this. So that happened in the parking lot. That was part of where everybody was reunited after that it was just i don't remember too much in that day it didn't hit me what happened until later that night a radio station a real popular radio station down there was talking about it and i was thinking wow this station's playing it you know and that's when geraldo rivera had you know come down by, all the big names were there, and you realized how massive it actually was. Yeah, I mean, my God. What point do you all as a community find out that this parent and these kids knew?

I remember it being almost immediately. Yeah. Almost immediately, man. So I know that there were some burnouts he was hanging out with and he said he was going to shoot the school up. And this one kid specifically I remember because I went to elementary school with him, huge loser, right? I think he was already dropped out of high school by this time. And he told the kid who did the shooting, you're not going to do it, you're a pussy. Egging him on.

Next day he does it. No repercussions for him, by the way. I don't know what happened to him. I'm sure he's in prison for something else. but just you know escalated unnecessarily so how long is school closed before you get to go back one day that's it yeah get the fuck out of here one day one day how's it not closed for like two weeks a month that's what we thought we thought oh we're gonna be out of school for a long time that was the rumor because you know we didn't want to go back to school anyway would you who would want to i'd be scared to go back the next day yeah i don't think it was

i was gonna say i'm sure the absentee rate that day was up they i know that i walked on campus the first day back you haven't even processed this no you really haven't man it's not it's 24 hours later you're back in the building where you just almost got killed yourself where people, you know, have been maimed and some have been murdered. Yes. And you're walking that same hallway and seeing these same bullets. Yeah. Everybody's retracing their steps from that day. I remember walking on the campus. It was the quietest I've ever heard it. You know, everybody was there, but very few people talking. It was just really eerie. And then, you know, we had counselors in every class.

So counselors came in and it was that way for a while. I forget how long, but they were there every day taking over the class. So when we weren't learning, we were talking about what happened. And then they put in like a makeshift building for campuses, for counselors that were there the rest of the time i was in high school i don't know how long they stayed but i'm sure the teachers everyone the faculty everyone needed to talk to somebody after some shit like that yeah yeah fuck the bathroom never reopened as long as i was there they always kept it shut you guys know there are all these

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for yourself today. Now let's get back to the do. Did they flags half-masked? What sort of any scholarships in these kids' names? What did they do to remember these kids? I don't remember that. I do know that they had a bunch of vigils. The community really got behind them. They had churches where we'd have the memorials for them. I remember going to the memorial.

They had like a big, big church. Everybody went there for the memorial. And I live close, so I walked. Walking home, I remember that was the first time I cried. I was going to ask you. Yeah, it was the only that's the first time i cried i was gonna ask yeah it was the only time the first time i cried why what made you cry at that i think just realizing how innocent the two kids were that died i don't think i was so scared about myself i think it was just it was so sad that these you know the parents got up there and spoke about what they wanted to do that one kid wanted to be a uh stunt stunt man yeah and the other kid wanted to go into the army and his grandpa was so proud

of him because he was gonna be a captain or go further than he actually did and just hearing the stories real you know putting because i didn't know him personally putting you know personality to these actual people you know these are actual kids that lived and now that i still think about them to this day thinking you know they all this all this they've missed all this for nothing for nothing absolutely never where they were supposed to be that day. They weren't even fucking off or out doing illegal. They were in school. Doing nothing wrong.

I always say two of the most innocent kids at the school. I mean, they were just, you know, they weren't jerks. Everybody I knew had nothing but kind things to say about these kids. So tell me about two weeks later what happens. How does that happen two weeks later? Is the shooter involved with your shooter or in that circle of people? No, just it was the type of copycat crimes, which were – that was a new term at the time. I remember copycat crime, and that's exactly what it was.

I think it was so close to home, and I don't know. I mean, it was everywhere. You couldn't get away from it. So within the whole San Diego area, I'm guessing he was he had problems too he ended up killing himself in prison so i don't know what happened here yeah how many people died in that i don't think anybody died at granite actually nobody died at granite hills i know he shot some kids but none of them died luckily okay so um can we shift a little bit to well tell me a little more like you had a full year to go after that.

Yeah, you know what? Did it feel normal after that ever again? It got back to normal. Everything went back to normal. Like I said, there was a lot of fighting going on beforehand for a while. I'd say a week or so. You know, everybody was sympathetic towards everybody's needs, and then it just went back to normal.

You know, you forget and move on. Yeah, real fast. Maybe longer in a couple weeks, but at least a couple months. I don't remember being an issue towards the end of the school year. What month was it again? I'm sorry. I think it was February. So pretty much a couple months, and then boom, it's back to normal, and then you get out, and then your summer hits.

Yeah. And then you just go back the next year. Yeah, I don't remember any difference. Not a lot of kids transfer. Shit, where are you going to transfer? The other school is getting shot up too. Yeah, exactly. Where are you going? No one was safe. Yeah. shot up too. Yeah, exactly. Noah was safe.

I'll never forget the yearbook that came out that year. They were selling, eBay was still new. They were selling them on eBay because the shooter, and one of the, the shooter was a freshman, and one of the kids he killed was a freshman, and they were on the same page in the yearbook. He never took his picture out. Yeah, so that, people were bidding for that on eBay. Unbelievable. Who wants that? Unbelievable.

Yeah, I still have that yearbook, man. You do? Yeah. I actually don't think I've looked at it since then, but I know I still have it. Okay. So tell me about, without naming this piece of shit, tell me about this guy now. You say he goes to prison. And why do you guys, do you get updates on this person?

Is that something you can register for? Yeah, because San Diego used to cover it in the Union Tribune, which is the paper out there. So you were always getting updates like, hey, he's appealing his case. Hey, he wants to go up. Hey, here's what he looks like now because he was a freshman. He was small and he grew. I don't know. He's really tall now, a really big guy.

To me, he looks like a monster. He looks like an absolute monster now. Look at him for yourself. Tell me I'm wrong, but I me it looks like a monster looks like an absolute monster now look at look at him for yourself tell me i'm wrong but i think he looks like a monster anyway he was a small kid and they think that's why he was that's what everybody the news was pushing it hey he did it because he's a small kid also guess what you didn't do this for racially motivated or bullying or anything you did it to be with the people you wanted to run with and those people are in prison why do you want to get out stay there you put yourself exactly where you want to be you motherfucker

you're with the buddies now you're with the homies stay there motherfucker all i don't know much about him other than he grew within that first year that was the big stories that look he's so much bigger now and you know here's what it would have been prison roids i'm sure yeah all i know is that he came from somewhere on the east coast from a small town and then came to our city and he had trouble fitting in. That's all I know other than that. His mom was on the East Coast, his dad moved out here and he lived with his dad. There's actually footage that they have where he filmed something on a camera and he was going through his apartment before the school shooting and he pans across the his dad's gun cabinet and he goes oh there's the no no cabinet it keeps going so that's one of the reasons that the dad didn't go to jail because

he has proof that the guns were locked up so it's just weird he educated his son that you don't touch those yeah i guess and then a couple months later because the video was only a few months old you know it surfaces around that's when he did the shooting but you can see the gun he's a minor so yeah so his father could go to prison huh because it was his dad's 22 yeah it was his dad's gun luckily and by the way luckily it was a 22 you're right and not a fucking uh ar or something yeah well you're right i'm thinking about i mean you made such a great point about cattle literally just packed in these hallways. That's all it is, man.

And if there's somebody there, they don't need to aim. You're right. They can just spray into that fucking crowd without even making it personal. And that's all he was doing, man. It's insane. I'll never forget how loud that was in the hall. There's an echo in the hallway. Because if you go to a gun range and you shoot indoors, it's loud.

It is very loud. If you go in a hallway that's just enclosed like that i mean i've never heard anything that loud it was unbelievable and um do honest to god i want to ask you this because firecrackers sound a lot on fourth of july do you ever does it ever trigger you at all no firecrackers don't normally i know that that's what a lot of people thought it was at first i'm'm sure, yeah. It was firecrackers. It does sound similar. Because you don't process it's going to be a shooting. No, fuck no. Yeah, so that's the first thing that comes to your mind, especially at a school.

Especially also back then. Yeah. You know, back then. Nowadays, maybe they're, I know they have new drills and shit. I never had one. So that's what I want to ask you. Were there any new safety precautions put in, new drills, new anything that you had to go through after this? No, not that I remember. No drills. No new drills knew anything that you had to go through after this no not that i remember no drills no new drills other than that it was it was pushed to be you know

security wasn't beefed up yeah they did have some security we did have yeah we'd have more police on campus also had weapons now yeah so they went with police i remember more police presence and then how did you feel about more police presence oh we were all for it okay yeah you know to me i felt safer at that time we all did did the students have a say no no uh-uh it's funny because you get these school shootings now when people are all over the news or all over social media we just had a short window to get our voice out there and then it was gone right you know it's just crazy i think that's why people forget about it we didn't have social media to really keep it going and keep everything alive yeah the internet at that point's what five six years old yeah um so you told me before we started recording

that you um started doing an after school um was it after school program yeah it was that after school program after you graduated yeah after an after school program? After you graduated. Yeah. After I graduated, I was probably 26. So it was interesting to me that you stayed in sort of the school system. Yeah. I never thought about that, but I was in, so this after school program was for the elementary school, elementary, still in the same school district that the high school was in. I worked this after school program and I hear whispers that there's a girl there. I work on this. I was subbing in these different places.

I was just kind of using it for extra money. And I had a long-term sub at a specific school. And I'm hearing rumors that a girl who works there is dating the killer who's in prison right now. She's dating him in prison. From prison. From prison. Like a new relationship since he's been in there, meaning post-murder. Meaning she knew everything about him.

And decided to date the guy. Yeah. And now she's working. How's that, as I'm saying, how's that not a conflict of interest? I don't know. In the same school district. And I was nervous. Yes.

And I was nervous because I was thinking, what is she going to say? I'm going to lose it on her. I'm going to absolutely lose it on her. I'm going to do something stupid. How do you work with her? Lose my job. She never brought it up. And I think that's why I despise looking at her. I didn't, I would never talk to her. I wouldn't, you know, but I, people were telling me before I went there or as I was there that, Hey, you know,

that's his girlfriend. And I've heard her, my brother told me, my brother actually worked there. He was telling me that she would go around saying, I so excited this weekend i get to go see my boyfriend what yeah and that's what bothered me more than anything because i think if i hear that i don't know what i'm going to say back to her and i need this job yeah that was one of the that was one of the worst i would say that's one of the worst going that was one of the worst things going through after this cool shooting because just it just brought up so much so much pain and then knowing that this girl was okay but because to me the guy's dead i could care less i don't know i don't know i don't understand people like that so can you talk to me about some of the traumas you've uh suffered from this and

what you maybe still deal with definitely uh i would say crowds of people bother me like what where are you where are we talking about like like a coachella yeah coachella bother anything concerts bother me anywhere where there's not a clear exit so i know if we're gonna get if we try to escape there's gonna be a bunch of people going that same direction i don't like using public restrooms i direction. I don't like using public restrooms. I do, but I don't like using public restrooms. The urinals, when people, I can hear people behind me, that bothers me. If I'm in a restaurant, my back's against the wall, things like that. So it does stay. And for a while, I didn't like, I couldn't go into an enclosed school. So if we had an indoor school, I had a hard time walking through those hallways.

And a few times I had to, for whatever reason. Yeah. Yeah, because the outdoor schools, they were new to me. We weren't even allowed outside. Oh, okay. You know, we had harsh winters and shit too, Maryland. But you didn't get to go outside. You just went through the hall to your next class and stuff. There was no hanging outside until after school with, like, sports and shit like that. Right.

You didn't get to. But, like, literally, there was was no way to you had to exit a door to get out of the building where i walked my kids campuses and you can just fucking run right over there and be out somewhere else you know i think if i were a parent i would look for that i would want them to be on an outside campus just more ways to get out because i can't imagine what it would have looked like had he been indoors and you know there's only one or two exits luckily there was throughout the campus, you could find ways out. And I think that's, that helped other than, other than there only being one shooter and

him not following, staying in that one area. I guess when he got, I meant to bring this up earlier, but when the cops got there, he threw his gun down and he put his hands out the window and said, oh, it's just me. Out the window of the school? Or sorry, not out the window, out the door. Oh. Out the door of the bathroom. So it's just me, meaning I of the school or sorry not out the window at the door oh out the door of the bathroom so it's just me meaning i'm the only shooter put it meaning i don't know how he meant it you're old just little little me is how i took it okay it's just just just me i don't think he

even thought about what he had done you know what i mean and later there was news footage of him later that night being taken into custody and that's the only time I saw him cry. So I know he wasn't crying when he was arrested. Jesus Christ. Okay, I want to ask you this because you stayed sort of teaching for a little while. Where do you stand on Second Amendment? Are you a gun owner? I am.

Yes, I am a gun owner. I'm for it. Were you and your family prior to the school shooting? No. No, parents never had guns. Do you think without the school shooting you would? I don't know. I don't know.

It's definitely, I know how helpless you can feel in a situation like that. And after that, I knew I wanted something. I just never wanted to feel that helpless again if I could help it. And the only place I could do that was in my own home. And I don't want, you know, I figured I've always wanted something. I just never wanted to feel that helpless again if I could help it. And then the only place I could do that was in my own home. And I don't want, you know, I figured I've always felt safer. Yeah, I don't blame you at all. I mean, I grew up, my father grew up hunting. So we had guns in the house.

But again, we were taught gun safety, you know. Every gun's loaded. The safety's always off. But make sure you put it on. But when you pick it up, don't fucking aim at it. Don't look down at it. You know what I mean? Just like honest to God, simple make sure you put it on. But when you pick it up, don't fucking aim at it. Don't look down at it. You know what I mean? Just like honest to God, simple shit that some idiots don't use.

You're responsible for everything that comes out of that gun. Everything. It's your responsibility. I mean, I get both sides. I understand it because had he not had access to a gun, this never would have happened. Right. But unfortunately, people like that do have it. Yeah.

But unfortunately, people like that do have it. Yeah. First of all, I don't think any of us who have not walked in your literal shoes in a school shooting have any right to tell anybody. I know there's a lot of like – because I said, okay, they went with more guns because that's – some people are like, well, more guns aren't the answer. Maybe in that situation they are and that's why i was curious did you feel better sound like everybody felt way more fucking secure when you had armed police yeah there was no complaints at the time i can tell you that so this is 2001 nobody was complaining with the extra cops on there and not to mention they were all they were all armed you know all of them and they would you know they were spread out through the campus and they broke up you know a lot of there

was a lot of things fights or whatever the little riots or whatever they had there and they were spread out through the campus, and they broke up. There was a lot of things, fights or whatever, little riots or whatever they had there. I saw a lot of that minimized when that presence was there, so it was a good thing for us. Yeah. No, I'm for it too. I do believe we need to get some sensible gun laws, of course's who how can we sit there and tell the the single mom that works three fucking jobs whose kids are home has probably already been assaulted on these goddamn streets of the united states that she can't carry a little something in that purse to protect herself fuck that right you know that too and a school shooting man i mean thank

god you're all right. What, what, all right, let me ask you this. What surprises you the most that still runs through your head about it? Probably, you know what plays through my head a lot is the stucco from the wall hitting me. Yeah, that when he shot and the sound and him hitting the soda machine just above me. For some reason, that plays over and over in my head. I see that. That image and the girl, the blonde girl I told you about who was going the other way with the look on her face.

I'll never forget that look. That look and then the sound of the soda machine above me. I'll never forget that. And you said you think about those young kids' wasted lives a lot. I do. I guess in my mind, it's my way of keeping them, you know, alive. And it's just so, to me, it's so sad. So unfair what happened to them. They just, they didn't get a chance to have a family or.

This kid's going to the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. I can't even believe, can't even. That's why I feel lucky that I, to be able to do comedy. I think about, you know, that could have been all taken from me. All the, all the cool experiences I've had just throughout life not only comedy but throughout life and that could have all just been taken from me that would have been it on that day i did nothing by 17

yeah and and it's not your choice not that you did anything wrong just someone made a dumb decision is there a like a reunion high school where you every time they do the high school wait oh my yeah you did it is 20 years this year. Yeah, we're going on 21. Holy shit. It's the 20th year. Do they honor them and do anything for them during this? They do in the town. I know they had something last year.

I don't follow it too much. I used to get all the information I could get on it. I used to, I wanted to read everything. Now I don't really want, I don't want to hear much about it. I try and remember the kids who were killed, but I don't want to really relive it anymore. There's, there's documentaries of this kid and there's, there are, yeah, there's people talking or he's in documentaries. They have, you know, cause they have school shooting documentaries and someone just told me there's one of him. I don't know how true that is. And, you know,

10 years ago I would have watched it. No i just don't care i don't you know i don't want to i guess i don't want to relieve it anymore because i've noticed that like i said the older i get the more it bothers me i've never had an issue i remember the do you remember the uh what was the school this college school shooting where the guy was walking in 10 12 years ago asian guy forget what virginia i think it was Virginia Tech. Yeah, that one was the next major one I remember that, and I could, I wanted everything. I wanted to get all the information, all these school shootings. And then by the time Sandy Hook and all that stuff came around, I just don't even follow it anymore. I can't, you know? You said it's bothering you

more and more. What is it? What's bothering you more and more specifically? Knowing that I almost died and that everything could have just been taken away. Is that survivor's guilt? Yeah, there definitely is. Have you messed it up on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you gone to therapy for it? No.

No? No, I've never gone to therapy for it. We did have online or on-campus therapy, therapies who came up. That's the only time I ever talked to somebody. But see, now it's changing for you, so. And now I do. I want to.

I just haven't done it. You should. Go talk to somebody about that. And also, I mean, I don't envy you because even talking to a therapist,

they can apply whatever they want and their knowledge and experience, but how many people have survived a school shooting that can sit and talk to you

in a way that you guys all, I mean, I hate to say all, cause there's so many people these days, but all need to be talked to. Do you, there's no, or are there any grief groups? It's gotta be a small select. Is there anything from your school or the other high school or anything like that? I know, you know, I gotta look into that. That's a good question. I don't know. And it's something i probably should participate in to be honest not to mention i think it's great to just raise awareness for something like this because it can happen can happen anywhere anywhere at any school at any time i any mall any movie theater i mean any outdoor

concert we're seeing at every fucking church i mean mean, my God. Yeah, so it was – I really do appreciate you coming on here and even finding a little laughter in this. And it's an episode we've never had and something I've never done. And honestly, I hope I never have to do another episode like this. Sure, I get it. You know. No, thanks for listening. I'm just glad that we can get the story out there. I hope we didn't talk too fast.

Please. When all the memories come in, I start rushing. You were great. Getting through it. So I appreciate you, man. Of course. Now I ask every guest their first time here, and this is going to be interesting. I ask them because this happened when you were 17. So advice you would give to your 16 year old self, knowing what you know now. You know what? I actually thought about this not too long ago. Do you remember going to school

with those kids that were maybe loners, didn't have any friends, maybe something was a little off, the kids that didn't have their hair combed, they just sweatpants, something was going on at home and you didn't realize that as a kid, right? Something was up. Maybe the kid was off, maybe it wasn't, maybe there was something going on at home. If I could go back and talk to my 16-year-old self, 17-year-old self, I would say, go up to those kids who you see alone every day. Make a point to just say hello. Say hi. Ask them how their day is going.

Because I bet you 10, 20 years from now, it's going to mean the world to them. Nobody took the time to talk to those kids. And I don't know. For some reason, I really regret that. It really bothers me. That's great. I tell my daughter all the time I'd rather be a better friend than a student. You know, I just had a parent teacher conference on what the hell was it Thursday or Friday last week. And I right away, it was like,

how is she as a French? Like, awesome. She hugs everybody. So I was like, let's not hug over here. We've got a pandemic, you know what I'm saying? Tell my daughter to fist bump for crazy. I agree. Yeah. I think it's better to be a better friend. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, dude, thank you so much. I know this wasn't easy. I appreciate it.

You were great. You don't apologize for anything. But one more time, please plug and promote everything you'd like. So I'm at Stephen Garza joke for Instagram. And if you could check out my YouTube, Stephen Garza comedy. All right, brother. Well, stay safe out there. And you all stay safe out there as well.

I am Ryan Sickler. Talk to y'all next week. Bye.