The Michael Knowles Show - Craig Scott | Surviving The Columbine Massacre & The Media's Agenda

Episode Date: April 17, 2021

Craig Scott is a survivor of the columbine high school shooting. He was in the most intense scene - the library - where 10 students were killed. Craig joins the show to talk about the anniversary and the media's role in distracting the public from the real issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up on Tuesday is the 22nd anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting. It is unthinkable that it has been that long. I remember it vividly. I was pretty little at the time, but I remember that it totally changed the culture, changed the way news was covered. I mean, really changed the way we thought about our schools. And obviously, a lot of it still on the news, a lot of school shootings, a lot of proposals from politicians to stop the school shootings by getting rid of all the guns.

I guess right now we don't even really have a lot of schools open, a lot of pushes by the teacher unions to keep schools completely closed. We are joined now by someone who saw those horrible events firsthand. Craig Scott, who was present, it was a student at Columbine during the shooting, whose sister was the first victim of the shooters and who has been, speaking out on not just the shooting, but on solutions to these kinds of problems for more than 20 years since then. Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show. Absolutely. Love your show. Thanks for having me on. That's very kind. Thank you. So for those who don't remember, you know,

there's a lot of youths who watch this show and who listen, who maybe actually don't remember that shooting. I hate to bring you back to a terrible time, but I know you've recounted this a number of times over the years. Can you just bring us back to what that moment means for you today, 22 years later? Yeah, well, it's a day in history, in American history, and if viewers are watching that weren't born when the shooting happened, it was a day that kind of time stood still in our country. And anyone that is of age remembers exactly where they were, what they were doing, when it happened, much like September 11th. So it was the center of a lot of media attention

because we were wondering why is this, why could this, how could this happen? And how was it in our culture that we got to a place where something like this would happen? And so that day I went to school with my sister. We were, got into a little argument in the car on our way to school because I was making us late.

I spent too much time on my hair. And we got into an argument in a fight. and I started to call her names and we pull up to the school. And I got out of the car and I slammed the car door shut, not knowing that it'd be the last time I'd see her. I went to my classes and then to the library during my lunch period to study for a test. I heard some popping noises coming from outside of the school. It was near the end of the school year.

So I thought maybe some seniors were pulling a prank and had brought some firecrackers to school. And just hearing these poppy noises for a couple of minutes. And then this teacher ran into the room. She was completely frantic. She ran over to the phone and called the police and started yelling at all of us students to hide and get underneath tables. And so I got underneath the table with two of my friends, Matt and Isaiah. And underneath the table, hearing the poppy noises becoming louder and louder and then the shooters coming into the school. And I started to realize this wasn't a prank.

This was serious. And my two friends just started to freak out, very scared and frantic. and I felt like I heard a voice within just tell me to be still. And so I became very quiet and very still while my friends were kind of freaking out. And the poppy noise is getting louder and louder. And the shooters were throwing bombs as they were pipe bombs as they were coming towards a library. And the library was the first room that they came into immediately shooting off their guns. They were taunting or making fun of students before they shot or killed them.

They'd peek underneath the table and say peek-a-boo and shoot a girl. They came over to where I was and they saw my friend Isaiah. Isaiah was one of the very few black students at our school. And the shooters dwelt on a lot of negative media on a daily basis. And also one of their role models was Hitler. And so when one of the shooters saw Isaiah, he said, hey, we have an N-word over here, a racial slur. And then the other shooter came over and they drug them out from underneath the table,

calling him racial slurs. And then they shot, he tried to. to back up. And the last thing that he said was, I want to see my mom. And they shot and killed Isaiah, and they shot and killed Matt right next to me. And the whole time, I just laid down being very still and trying not to draw any attention to myself. And they left me underneath that table. And shortly after they left the library with 10 students dead or dying and over a dozen wounded. And I thought I was going to die. My ears are ringing so loud from the shock and black. I thought they were bleeding and I wasn't sure if they were still in the room.

But my heart was pounding so much. I literally felt like I was going to have a heart attack. And so I prayed and asked that my fear be taken away. It was just too much for me to handle. And in that moment, I felt relieved from my fear and it felt like I heard God speak to me and tell me to get out of there. And so I was the first student to stand up. I listened to that voice and I was the first one to stand up, looked around,

and I saw the shooters were gone. I yelled at everyone, come on, let's get out of here. And at first, no one moved. Everyone was too scared. And again, kind of rallied, let's get out of here. And I heard someone asking for help. And I turned around behind me was a girl. Rocking back and forth underneath the computer desk, she had had her shoulder blown off from a shotgun blast.

And she was asking for help over and over. And I helped to pick her up. And a group of us ran out of an emergency exit. And there was a police car outside. And we all ran for our lives to get back. behind that police car. And I can't really describe the amount of joy, the amount of just exhilaration that when I got behind that car

just to be alive. I was just so happy to be alive, but at the same time, I felt bad for leaving my friends underneath that table. And other police cars began to come by and pick up students. And right before I left, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, I think there's a girl that's been shot over there, points over towards the library exit door that we ran out of.

And it was my sister. My sister had been the first one killed right outside the school library. And so for the next couple of years, I had a real hard journey and dealt with a lot of different things, a lot of different emotions, and was just pretty broken and dysfunctional. and my mind was kind of fragmented and with a lot of grief, a lot of anger. And so that was the worst day of my life, but it also has led to the most purpose in my life. And now, 22 years later, looking back, I'm thankful for everything that I went through

because it's made me who I am. It's also helped me to really help a lot of people, a lot of teenagers across the country, So I do a lot of speaking in schools and share lessons learned behind the Columbine shooting. And I also share my sister's story. She had a pretty incredible story. We made it into a movie. He was in theaters a couple years ago. And actually, one of your producers, Ben Davies, is in the movie.

And he plays one of my sister's best friends. He's an actor. I was going to try to work in some kind of insult about him there. But he does a great job. He does a great job in the movie. So I can't do it. Well, maybe we could. We still have time in the interview.

He's a great guy, and he's the reason I'm on the show. And so we've been telling her story now for the last over 20 years, and millions and millions of students now look to her as a role model. She wrote something really cool a month before she was killed in class. In an essay, she wrote, she titled it, My Ethics, My Codes of Life. And in the essay, she talked about her values and her beliefs, And she talked about being a leader. She talked about showing forgiveness, mercy to people,

not being quick to judge anybody, not being quick to judge just by an impression or by someone's appearance, but to look deeper, look into their soul, look into their heart. And so in this essay, she said, I have this theory that if one person will go out of their way to show compassion,

then it will start a chain reaction of the same. And people will never know how far just a little bit of kindness can go. And she ended her essay by saying, you just may start a chain reaction. And at the same time, she wrote this paper a month before the shooting, the two shooters made a videotape in their parents' basement

without their parents knowing. And they're called the basement tapes. They were never released in public, but victims' families got to see them. At the very end of the video, one of them picked up a sod-off shotgun that he used to kill Isaiah and pointed it at the camera and said, we need to kickstart a revolution.

we need to get a effing chain reaction going here. And he was talking about starting a chain reaction of school shootings. That was actually something that they wanted to kickstart. And they have. There's been some copycat shootings, have been some people that have idolized them and studied what they did and looked up to them. But my sister's chain reaction is far outreach there.

So I, you know, I talk to kids a lot about if you allow it, the worst things that happen to you in your life can become a source of your biggest strength and can become a part of your purpose and lead you to being a deeper person. And so, yeah, it's been 22 years and I'm still going. I'm still sharing her story, still sharing my story. So I want to get in a moment to this ideological aspect that you've alluded to, these shooters were admirers of Hitler. They wanted to start a sort of chain reaction,

a kind of political revolution. Very often in the media, these guys and similar criminals are depicted as having been bullied or, you know, it was really, they were just reacting to mean old society. I think the reality of this is far different. They were looking at other targets, that sort of thing.

So I want to get to that in one second. But I would like to go back for a moment to something you said, which is you're there, you're underneath the table. Somehow you survive. Your friends are dying around you. Somehow you survive. You hear this voice. You sense a kind of divine voice or providence. You get out of there. And then you have this relief and this joy that you're behind the cop car and you survived. You have this horrible realization that your sister is there, has been killed for his death. And you go through this very difficult period. Sounds like you're quite great.

Christian, I know that to be true. So can you just take us through that, how you can believe in God experience basically the most horrific thing you can possibly experience, go through a very difficult period of your life, and then still believe that there is some providence, that God would permit this to happen, how you could make sense of that problem? Well, I was taught by my father, who's a really great teacher. He taught me a verse out of scripture that basically, in essence, talks about being a see-througher. And there's a verse that says, if your eyes single, it is full of light, and if it is dual, it is full of darkness. And so I have this principle in my life that I was taught earlier on to be able to see through both the good and the bad that happens in my life and that there is a purpose and everything that happens in my life.

And if I can discover what that is, if I can be in touch with it, then things that happen happen for a reason. And I don't have to escape my problems. I don't have to see things in a dual way. But I can know that there's – I do believe in God and believe in a source that's ultimately in control. And having that faith, really, Michael, that's the biggest – I have a number of keys of healing. for me over the years but really having that was was the biggest thing for my healing and how I tap into that is I just practice stillness and that was that's something that I do and I even talk to kids about it and you don't have to be a religious person and and I don't go and push religion when I

speak but I do talk about faith I do talk about believing in something bigger than yourself and believing in your own value, in your own purpose, that you have great potential within you just by being a person. But the stillness was huge for me. Just spending time, because on the outside, you know, Michael, it looked like nothing but a bloody tragedy, nothing good. But if I could practice stillness,

then God or spirit or whatever you went conscious could speak to me and tell me how I, could get through this, tell me what I needed to do, tell me how this was ultimately going to lead to me becoming a better person and being able to help more people. And so that was the biggest key factor, was just having that faith in my life. You know, it's a beautiful, beautiful explanation that you're giving. And it's a traditional Christian explanation of why, why do bad things happen to good people, and it's because in the Garden of Eden, man sinned and falls out of paradise, and sin and death pervade the world, and this causes all sorts of terrible things,

but that there is, as you say, a purpose to it, a T-loss. And so we sing on Easter, we just sang it recently on Easter, oh, happy fault that won for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer, that somehow amid all the horrific things, hard to get much worse than what you went through, there is a broader providence whereby God even can turn evil things to good. And so if you see that sort of purpose, it makes sense. And it makes total sense to me intellectually until something really bad happens. And then in that moment, you just started to think, wait a second, hold on, wait a minute here. C.S. Lewis went through this. He wrote that book, Problem of Pain on this problem of the Odyssey. And then his wife is dying. And he said it's a totally different experience

when you've actually got to live it than when, you know, you're just thinking about it more rationally. Now that we are so far removed from it, 22 years after the incident, what is, I suppose it isn't amazing to me, but it still seems distasteful, is people continue to politicize the tragedy. And what I mean by politicizes, they continue to try to read that event as a justification for some, in some cases, very distantly related partisan desires. And it might be on guns, it might be on school reform, it might be on this, that, or the other thing. Do you have any thoughts on any of those movements, rather, and do you have any suggestions as someone who experienced it firsthand going forward? Yeah, there's definitely things that are taking,

tragedies, events that the media picks up on, that they want to politicize it, they want to use it for whatever cause that they think is important or needs to happen. And, you know, I've been involved and interviewed and questioned over news media. I've been over a thousand interviews throughout my life. And that's an issue that comes up a lot. But I know that that is a surface level issue. I know that when somebody has real darkness, real hatred in their heart, that if they want to take the time to plan and kill people, they can find a way to do it. There was actually a propane tank that was set at Columbine. That was right underneath me. I was on the second floor in the library. Directly below me in the cafeteria was a propane tank.

If it had gone off, it would have killed 500 kids and we would have been, you know, banning propane tanks. But those, I'm not against things that make legislation rules that make things safer, but rules don't change people. Laws don't change people's hearts. And so the real issue is dealing with on a cultural, you can call it, I like to think of it as a spiritual, but sometimes it gets labeled as a mental health thing. But dealing with people's hearts. my program has helped to stop documented school shootings and thousands of suicides. I have a book of emails from kids over the years just that had contemplated suicide over a thousand of them and that heard this story and had a change of heart.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, people that use these events for their own agenda, I think that a lot of them really believe that this is the problem. You know, they think that the guns are the problem. But it really wasn't the main problem. If you really want to look at, I know of every school shooting that's happened since Columbine, I get questioned by the media after everyone. I research it. I learn about it.

And if I were to tell you the biggest thing, the biggest commonality between all of these school shooters, it's pretty simple. it's that they focus on everything that was negative in this world. They focused on everything that was negative in themselves, and they didn't see the good in themselves or in other people. And they have this perspective of seeing the world. They could have been in the most beautiful place. They could have been in the Sistine Chapel in Italy

with Michelangelo's beautiful paintings and found dirt in the corner and focused on that. And when you have a view where everything is dark and jaded, and you see nothing good, then in you it creates a darkness. It creates an anger and a hatred. And what I've learned also about all these shooters, school shootings, is that they all dwelled on a lot of very negative media, almost on a daily basis.

And if you can just imagine, and, you know, of course, there's nothing negative in the media, right? When I ask that question to students in schools, I say, you know, how many of you guys would agree there's a lot of negative, like, in the media, like every hand goes up. Negative media, it's sort of a redundant phrase. You don't need to say both, right?

You know, it doesn't mean you can't address the negative or talk about it, but where is your focus? Because whatever we place attention on, we give power to, whatever it is, whatever the media chooses to focus on, the media told this narrative after Columbine that really wasn't true. And Columbine was such a covered, thing after the shooting. It was on the news for months. And we had a news camp of reporters near the school for months. And the narrative that basically came out was this. Two guys are

pushed to the edge because of bullying and they get revenge at their school. The problem is that's really not the true story. That's really not the main issue. And even the psychologists that have looked into it, that have looked at everything that happened, don't believe bullying was a factor. They were bullied to a degree at school. I know of a couple stories. I also know kids at my school that were bullied a lot worse. And I also know that they themselves were bullies at times and became the ultimate bullies that day.

If I were to tell when I talk to kids, I say the biggest reason they did what they did is that they focused on everything that was negative in this world. And that's the bigger reason. It's not bullying. The bigger reason is what they focused on. And so I have a program called Value Up. And I named it that after reading the book from Sue Klebold. Her son was Dylan, one of the shooters at Columbine.

Dylan wasn't going to go through with the shooting. He thought Eric, his friend, who was very psychopathic, was crazy, and he only decided to go along with it in the last couple months of his planning. He planned it for a year. But he was more suicidal. And what his mom said was, we valued Dylan, but he didn't value. himself. And it struck me because I realized I had already spoken to over million teens across the country in person. And I realized that's such a core issue. When somebody doesn't believe in

their own value, they're not going to treat other people with value. But if they can realize the truth and whether you want to come out this from a Christian perspective or other religion that, you know, Christian, you're fearfully wonderfully made, other perspective that we just have the capacity within us to do great good. We have so much potential, especially young people. And so if they can realize it doesn't matter what they look like, it doesn't matter

what other people say about them, it doesn't matter where they come from, who their family is, that they have a great potential in them to, and the capacity to do great things and be a positive influence in this world, like my sister was. She did small things,

stepped out of her way for a girl that sat a little, all along during lunch who just lost her mom in a car accident. A friend told me how he has a slight disability and he was made fun of and ignored, usually ignored a lot at school. His name was Adam. And the first time she met him, she stood up, a couple guys were making fun of him. She stood up for him.

And he told me that the time that she reached out to him, he was having thoughts of taking his life. And after she met him every day in the hallway, she would just say hi to him. And he said he literally started waking up in the morning looking forward to this day that this pretty girl would say hi to him in the hallway. In a small act of kindness, human connection, what is going to really change our culture? How are we going to get to the root of the problem? Well, the root of the problem is in our hearts. The root of the problem is, it really is.

Those are where the problems are. It's also where the solutions are. So, you know, again, you know, if there's a legislation that comes up that seems smart, that makes it harder for criminals or people that are insane or, you know, to get firearms, great, I'm all for it. But if they want to tell me that this is the answer to the problems, it's, then I say, no, you're really looking at it from a shallow point of view. and those people that commit these atrocities break all those rules anyway. You could create

a hundred more laws. They're going to, they get them illegally anyway. So, you know, it is that argument that it really, it really affects the law abiding people than it, you know, than it does the criminal. I love your, I love your point here on if you hate yourself. I'm not saying you have to be prideful and you have to think, you know, you're the bees and ease and everything. But if you really, truly hate yourself and you just focus in on all the worst aspects of yourself and of the world, you're going to lash out, you're going to have a dim view of the world. When Christ says, love your neighbor is yourself, well, if you hate yourself and you treat yourself poorly, then you're obviously going to do the same thing to your neighbor by that principle. So I think

that's so smart. And your point on politics, you know, that at the legislative level, that's a little bit of the surface level because, you know, we, we see. say that politics is downstream of culture. We've all heard that phrase a lot. And culture is downstream of religion. Cult and culture come from the same root word. What a culture worships is going to define that culture. And so these things are not so easily separated. You do have to take it down. And when you're thinking of political public matters, you know how we all get along together, well, that is going to begin not just by focusing on everybody else's problems. It's going to begin with, to quote Michael Jackson, the man in the mirror. You're going to have to focus on yourself too. If you have a country

of vicious people, vicious, self-involved, miserable sort of people, then it doesn't matter how many laws you're going to pass. You're going to have a vicious, miserable nation. And so a little personal self-help can work too. You know, Michael, my dad gave, he gave a, he read a poem to the House Judiciary of Congress three months after the Columbine shooting. And it was widely sent along forwarded email. Internet Explorer told us it was the most forwarded email. in 1999, but he went there. Actually, the NRA had called him. My dad's not a member of the NRA. He doesn't even own a gun. And they said, would you come and share? And he opened up and saying, I'm, you know, I'm not here to defend them. I'm not here to support them. I just don't think

that this is where the real issue lies. And he read this poem, this beautiful poem, that he actually wrote before knowing he was going to speak there and he said your laws ignore our deepest needs your words are empty air you've stripped away our heritage you've outlawed simple prayer gunshots fill our classrooms and precious children die you seek for answers everywhere and ask the question why you regulate restrictive law through legislative creed and yet you fail to understand that god is what we need and he gave this beautiful speech talking about how as a country, we used to recognize that we're a three-part being. We're body, soul, which is our mind, our will, intellect, and our emotions, and a spirit,

which is an intuitive thing. It's our conscious, and it's also a communion with the divine. And we used to recognize that as a three-part being. For nearly 200 years, the United States was number one in the world in education as a first world nation. We were number one. And when we were number one, my father's a scholar in American history specialized in American education. And he showed me that every educator knew a motto. It's in teacher training manuals, and it was the three H's. It was before the three R's, reading, writing, arithmetic. And the three Hs were heart, head, and hands. They believed it

was their job as a teacher to first teach the hearts of young people. Today, the focus of our educational system, the philosophy is knowledge or academic achievement. And even though that's a great goal, that was secondary when we were number one. Today, the United States is nowhere being near number one as a first world nation in education. And yet, you know, that's the goal is to be at the top. when our focus was first teaching principles of the heart of character. And of course, a lot of this happened removal of it in 1963 when we removed prayer and Ten Commandments from school. But what also happened, and I'm not suggesting putting religion back in school.

I am, but you're a little nicer to the other guys than I am. But I am saying that we have to look at education that touches the hearts of young people and teaches them real-life principles. because you know what the two shooters at columbine were very smart the problem wasn't the education of their mind it wasn't their knowledge it's the education their heart and life principles and what would have stopped them or any other of these shooters from doing what they were planning to do it would have taken another person stepping out in compassion with some love and some truth and reaching their heart seeing past their exterior seeing past their negative attitude

their words, their demeanor, and seeing that this was a person that was hurting, that needed some help, that would have had an impact. I'll show one quick story. One week before the shooting happened, Eric, who was really the leader of the two shooters, he actually went to a youth group meeting. And I've met with a youth pastor. He said that he was given his message, and all of a sudden it hit him. He said he was not planning this. It hit him out of the blue. He's in the middle of his little message, and his spirit speaks to him and says, say this.

And he stops his message, and he says, I just feel to say this. He says, there's somebody here that is going to do something terrible sin. They're going to hurt themselves and other people. And I want you to know that this is that you do not have to go through it, that this is your chance to change, to repent, turn away from that if you want. And Eric Harris was sitting there in that audience. And of course, he was given a chance to change right then and there, and he didn't. And so, you know, if we practice stillness, if we practice and, you know, all great philosophers from every religion talk about the power of meditation and prayer and being still, quieting your mind

and listening deep within. And if we get in touch with that, then there's an intuitive voice that will speak to us. It's the same voice that talked to me that day that said be still, that said get out of there. It's the same voice that spoke to my sister when she was writing in her journals. And in her journals, she had this feeling that she was going to live to be very old, but that God was going to use her to impact millions. She told the number of her friends about it and some of my family. She actually said that she didn't think she was going to live old enough to get married.

And one of the last things that she did was drew in her journal in class. half hour before she was killed she drew this picture of her eyes crying and 13 tears are falling from her eyes watering a rose with drops of blood coming off from it she took her this drawing up to her teacher before class ended and showed her at mrs crothers was later my teacher mrs crothers told me that rachel said she showed her and she said wow rachel it's beautiful what is it she said oh it's my tears she's i'm crying and then she's looked at her teacher and said mrs crothers i'm going to have an impact on the world. And her teacher said, Rachel, I have no doubt of that. She walked out of class

and not even a half an hour later she was killed. And that day there were 13 people that were killed matching the number of tears that she drew. And the rose that she drew that had drops of blood, well, rose is the U.S. national flower. Every state has a state flower. And the rose is the American flowers, the national flower. And she drew the same rose other times in her journal growing out of a Columbine flower. And when my dad first got this journal and he got it from the sheriff's department, it had bullets that had a bullet that had a bullet that had got lodged into it after passing through her body. He went to go pick up her backpack and he flipped open to the last page and he sees this picture that his daughter drew of her eyes crying, 13 tears. And we found in her journals four other times

she drew the same rows growing up out of a Columbine flower. Columbine is the Colorado State flower. And he felt that that voice speak to him and said that rose represents the young generation. And it's going to grow spiritually from what happened at Columbine. But it's Rachel's tears. It's a small sacrifices that she made for others. It's her story and her death that's going to allow that growth to happen. So we have to get back to being a country where we recognize that we're more than just body and mind, that we have a spirit. We have something.

And if we can do that, we can tap into an immense power. You know, hearing that story, which I had not heard before, it reminds me of a line that might sum it all up, which is all nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance direction, which thou canst not see. And of course, the rose, the symbolism of the rose even beyond the country, goes down to the heart of our faith. Craig, we have to leave it there.

Craig, Scott, the organization is ValueUp. Craig, where can people find you? ValueUp.org. I'm really hoping that I can get back out there and get this message out to a lot of teens. I do too. Absolutely brilliant, really, really inspiring stuff. Such a pleasure. Wish we could have gone on about seven more hours. But I'm sure, hopefully there will be more time in the future. You'll like it. We'll get Ben to give me a call. That sounds good. Yeah, not Shapiro. We can have Shapiro give you a call too.

But Ben Davies are producer as well. And you can go check out the movie that coincidentally, My producer happens to be in. And he died. I hate to admit it, he does a very good job. Craig, thank you so much for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for having you on.