Columbine victim speaks out about weapons permit
Auraria Board set to vote on accepting new state law
by Elena Brown
The Metropolitan

by Chris Stark - The metropolitan Richard Castaldo describes how he was paralyzed in April 20, 1999 Columbine shootings. The Metro sophomore is currently pursuing a business degree.

He’ll be 22 this week. Celebrating a birthday — according to the medical odds — that should not have been. With eight gunshot wounds, he made it through alive.

But something is missing. There’s a void.

“They keep saying this all happened for a purpose,” he said tapping on the legs he can’t feel anymore, “but I’m still waiting for that purpose.”

Wounds meant to kill are now plainly visible on Richard Castaldo.

The Metro sophomore is paralyzed from the chest down, and as he wheels around the Auraria campus, he ponders on the vote scheduled for Sept. 17, a day before his birthday.

The Auraria Board will vote on whether to allow concealed weapons — including the 9mm pistol, they type of gun he was shot with — on campus. The new Colorado gun law allows people with a certified handgun or concealed weapons permit to carry their registered weapon anywhere in the state, including school campuses.

The basic qualifications for the permit include a minimum age requirement of 21, a $152.50 processing fee and a background check. Over 60 percent of Metro’s more than 20,000 student population, including Castaldo, meet the basic qualifications to get the permit.

“I don’t think I need a gun,” he said.

The whole issue makes him a little bit uneasy. He didn’t exactly expect to survive one of the deadliest school shootings in history only to enroll into a college that allows concealed weapons. Richard Castaldo is a Columbine survivor.

“It would be kinda freaky. I don’t know if I’d stop going here; it’s hard to say, but I can’t think of a reason why you would need a gun on campus,” he said.

Castaldo has no qualms about finding an officer and reporting a weapon, even if the Auraria Board upholds the Colorado law. “Not reporting it is just not something worth taking a chance on,” he said.

Chief of Police Heather Coogan agrees. “If someone is on campus with a gun, we want to know about it. Do not approach the person; call us.”

There has already been an arrest on campus of a CCD student who had an outstanding warrant and was carrying a weapon.

Castaldo remembers the incident at Columbine and that there was no time to react. There was a gun, and in an instant he was on the ground with 9mm bullet holes in his arm, chest, back and abdomen. He was one of the first people shot and the last Columbine survivor to leave the hospital.

“(After all of that) I still don’t think I need my own gun,” Castaldo said.

Castaldo took a semester off after the April 1999 shooting, but later went on to graduate from Columbine High School. Castaldo was only a junior when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold held an entire school under siege and had the attention of the world as they began shooting people. Ultimately, they would kill 12 students and one teacher before turning the guns on themselves.

Castaldo says most people ask the usual things: Did he know them? Where were you? Why did they do it?

“And this gets kinda old,” he says, “Answering that stuff is not fun to do.”

But, he answers them anyway: Castaldo vaguely knew Harris and Klebold. He was just beginning lunch with Rachael Scott when they were shot. She died. And he has no idea why they did what they did.

“I guess they were pissed off, but I don’t know. I didn’t have any beef with them. I just got in their way, I guess,” he said.

Castaldo became a favorite of the Denver press in the months after Columbine. Being in the hospital for four months, undergoing seven surgeries and physical therapy allowed him and his family to be under a constant bombardment of interview requests from local and national media, including filmmaker Michael Moore.

Castaldo and Mark Taylor, another Columbine student, were enlisted by Moore for his Oscar-winning documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.”

It had been reported that Harris and Klebold bought some of their bullets from a local K-Mart.

At the time, K-Mart did not restrict the amount of ammunition a person could buy.

The only restriction was the age requirement of 18. Moore, the students and the media went to K-Mart’s headquarters to ask the retailer to stop selling handgun ammunition.

K-Mart buckled under the pressure and discontinued the sale of handgun ammunition in all of its stores.

“That was pretty surprising; we didn’t expect that,” said Castaldo, “What you see in the movie is a genuine reaction of surprise.”

“Bowling for Columbine” has recently been released on VHS and DVD and ranks in the top 20 in video rental. People are noticing Castaldo aging, he said with a flash of a smile for this victory, yet as quickly as the smile appears, it fades. “I’m proud of all that, it’s just lonely sometimes.”

The notoriety comes in a dull lull for him. Mostly, people refer to him as “That Columbine Kid,” but since the movie, “I’ve been called by my actual name.” And he’s quite drained from the pity-party people regularly throw when seeing him or hearing his story. “I just don’t know what to say when people tell me they’re sorry for me. So I just say, ‘Thanks.’ ”

But he is appreciative. And he’s thankful to the two members of Denver’s S.W.A.T team for his rescue. It was over 45 minutes from the time he was shot to the time he was rescued. “I remember laying there, wondering if anyone was coming to help,” he said. “It’s kinda weird now, but the most pain came from my back. There was a sharp rock just piercing my back and I didn’t have the strength to move.”

“Getting shot hurts,” he said. He still has one bullet left inside by the doctors. “It was too dangerous to move.”

The five-year anniversary of the Columbine tragedy is April 20, 2004, but Castaldo says he has no plans, “I don’t even have plans for my birthday (Sept. 18), let alone something seven months from now,” he said while running his hands trough his long and thick curly black hair.

Castaldo’s hands are the busiest part of him these days. He continues his love of music and plays the saxophone and keyboards, and is helping with the music for a friend’s documentary. He drives a wheelchair-ready van and lives alone near Denver University. He even got his nose pierced a few months ago, and is thinking about getting a tattoo.

Castaldo is trying to get on with his life, but the memories of Columbine do not stray too far from his mind.

He tends to drift off and return to that day when something sparks a flash of memory, like the “Bowling for Columbine” movie or another school shooting in the news. And sometimes the U.S. and Iraq conflict adds to a growing dismal view of the world. “The war is in the same pool of fucked-upness.”

Still, he’s not ready to wash his hands of humanity. He admits his view of the world is bleak, which is why he got involved with the PeaceJam origination. Long before the Columbine attacks, Castaldo was reaching out to others about the evils of violence. He recently lent his wisdom of living and surviving in such a violent world to the PeaceJam documentary by recounting how violence has affected his life. The Denver-based organization is aimed at high school students to inspire global peaceful awareness and community activity. They offer workshops on suicide prevention, non-violent tactics and communication skills with the help of Nobel Prize winners.

Castaldo once met the Dalai Lama at a PeaceJam conference.

Castaldo isn’t mad at his life; he is coming to terms with it. The life of the slight teenage boy eating lunch was forever changed. And now the wheelchair-bound boy is becoming a man. “It’s funny,” he said with a pause. ”I used to really like to bowl. Now, I’m just confused about God’s plan.”

Headlines

Arab Student Association recalls 9/11
Misconceptions of the Islamic world grow and flourish in an environment of fear
by Oludare O Daramola
The Metropolitan

Who can forget the horror that came upon this nation on Sept.11, 2001? How can we forget the reality of terror that visited without any notice two years ago? The Arab Student Association of Auraria campus cannot forget either. The plague that befell the nation extends the ugly hand of discrimination against Arabs.

The association held a program to voice their concern about the racial profiling that is vivid against Arab-Americans. The program titled “After 9/11: the rise of racism against Arabs” featured a lecture delivered by Dr. Amin Kazak, professor of political science at the University of Colorado at Denver and a documentary about the internationally acclaimed book by Edward Said, “Orientalism.”

“This nation is a nation of immigrants,” Kazak said as he placed both hands on the podium. “9/11 has not influenced only one type of people or certain religion. The incident hit every one of us.”

The professor said that discrimination against Arabs started long before Sept.11. He accused the mainstream media of demonizing the Middle East as extreme, violent and dangerous and dragging the Arab world into the mess.

“We are the Arab world not the Middle East,” said Salem Belal, president of the Arab Student Association in his opening speech. “Arabs should speak for themselves to combat this negative image.”

Are all Arabs Middle Eastern? And better still are all Middle Easterners Muslims? Puzzled? The answers were shouted loud and clear during the program that lasted 85 minutes and had over 50 students in attendance.

Not all Arabs are Muslims; there are Jews and Christians who are from the Middle East. Dr. Kazak stated that 45% of Arab-Americans are from Egypt. To prove his point, Dr. Kazak said he is a member of Arab-Anti Discrimination Committee whose current president, Mary Rose Oakar, is a Christian Arab-American.

ADC has its headquarters in Washington and was formed years before Sept. 11 and they are mobilizing all Arab-Americans to participate in the system to defend against discrimination of Arab-Americans.

“As a member of faculty at UCD, I felt it is my right to address the issue of human right and civil liberty,” Kazak said as he strolled back and forth. “Liberty and freedom makes this country unique, this government seeks to hijack that liberty. We need to raise our voice not only as students, but also as citizens.” The roots of the demonizing of Arabs could be traced back to the colonial era, when the Middle Easterners were seen as different. The colonial masters (then Britain and France) saw the Arabs as people who could only understand the language of violence because of their different religion, culture and language. When the United States rose to power after the fall of the English and the French, the understanding they had of the Middle East was and is still abstract according to Belal.

That is one of the many themes of the book of “Orientalism,” by Edward Said that the East is depicted to be everything that the West is not.

“Don’t make judgment about anyone before you know them,” Kazak said in a tone that seemed like he was choosing his words carefully. “Every culture, language and religion have bad and good people.”

Dr. Kazak journeyed down memory lane to April of 1995, when the Oklahoma bombing happened. He said that it was barely 11 minutes after the incident that the U.S. media tied the bombing to Middle East without proper investigation, not knowing that it was Christian fundamentalist, Tim McVeigh, who was the perpetrator.

A lot of blame was placed on Hollywood and the media in portraying the Arabs as extreme, violent and dangerous. Edward Said said in the video documentary that there is no realistic image of Middle East in works of literature, art or painting. He also said that British and French had long standing in the Orient, but the U.S. experience in the Middle East was and is not direct, it is based on politicalized abstraction.

“It is time to portray ourselves as ourselves, “Belal said.

“We don’t want to be call Middle East but Arabs. Not all Arabs are terrorists, not all terrorists are Arabs,” said Wafa Dahabreh, vice president and Treasurer of the Arab Student Association. “The purpose of this program is to get the message across.”

During the lecture Dr. Kazak stressed that educating people will eliminate the monster image of the Arab world people have. He said that education will help people to know that there are 22 Arab nations and not all of them are in the Middle East.

He suggested that people should get resources that tell the truth and not mainstream media that loves repetition and stereotyping.

“We are not ignorant guys,” Kazak said. “We lack the right resources to get information about issues.”

Headlines

9/11/01
a time to remember
Photos and Text by William C. Moore

Although two years have passed, a solemn state still hung heavily over those who attended ceremonies held downtown Sept. 11 to honor and commemorate those killed in the terrorist attacks on the same day in 2001. People slowly gathered in Denver’s Civic Center Park to hear speeches from, among others, Gov. Bill Owens and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.
The sound of trumpets from the National Guard band permeated the air. No one said much. The governor made his obligatory rounds before the start of the ceremonies, shaking people’s hands and holding their children. Cameramen set up their equipment, training their lenses on the podium, and aligning the flags behind it so they would be visible in the shot.

The ceremonies lasted twenty minutes. The national anthem was played, and one by one, the speakers gave their speeches. Silence swept through the audience, only to be interrupted by the occasional snapping of camera shutters. Following each speaker, the audience responded with steady, solemn clapping.

After the ceremony, people flocked around the Governor and Mayor, shaking hands and occasionally giving them hugs. The band played patriotic songs, and people discussed what they were doing at 8:44 Eastern Standard Time on that quiet September morning, approximately a minute before the world they live in changed forever.

Headlines

Spirit Peddler: the Whiskey Kid

This series of articles is based on the dialogue that I have with a friend of mine who is currently serving in the military. It is our attempt to illustrate a unique perspective about ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. He has agreed to relate this story, as it unfolds, for the readers of The Metropolitan.

At times I have known him to be drunk with patriotism for our country, having served in two branches of the military — but because the nature of his predicament, he wishes to remain nameless until he returns in October.

These stories are not an embedded reporter’s account of the war in Iraq. Nor is it likely that you’ll find a Rambo’s Self Help Guide for Weekend Warriors here, there’s plenty of that out there already. This is just one person’s account.

This is the eleventh dispatch in the series.

— Ian Neligh

So we got these guys from a guard unit out here, who are attached to us, like so many other activated guard and reserve units. (Pretty sad that you have to use your “reserve” forces to sustain military operations in other countries; says something of the state of the downsized military don’t you think? Or maybe it hints at the fact that we don’t belong in other countries, but should instead concentrate on defending our own . . .)

So these guys are the ones who do most of the security details for the convoys that go to such places as Balad and Baghdad, and you know, on the road you can work up a powerful thirst — and meet plenty of Iraqis.

Consequently, they met up with plenty of them, mostly young men or children, who wanted to sell them all sorts of things, like tobacco, alcohol, porn, pirated American movies and music (hey, an oppressed Iraqi’s gotta make a livin’ don’t he?), etc.

So, after some weeks on the dusty trails that pass for roads around here (and a few close calls with some hot, hateful lead projectiles) a couple of these red blooded American fighting men did what any of us would have done in this situation.

Constantly bombarded by temptation, some of them bought alcohol, and porn, and pirated DVDs, and tobacco . . . but no music.

(I’ll have you know that most soldiers are adamantly against music piracy because it is a slap in the face to all good, honest, hard-rocking Americans everywhere. And by God, we’re all American!!!)

So, anyway, the booze was the big score, and though I didn’t drink any of it myself, I can tell you that it was of low quality and didn’t mix well with Coke.

After a while, one of the guys established a working relationship with this one kid in particular who would cut him a deal; and it is the story of the kid’s discretion that I will tell now, for it truly impressed me.

On a particularly long, hot convoy back from God knows where, the guys were momentarily stopped for some reason or another, and it was in this place that they met up with their supplier, the Whiskey Kid.

He walked up and started asking about how much hootch they wanted and generally blending in with the other kids, and one of the guys had to remind him (discreetly) of who they were by showing him a cool handshake and some other things they’d shared when last they met.

Once he recognized them, he knew what they were about and said, “you wait, I get,” and split off down the street.

Normally, this would have been no problem though on this particular day they had in their company the NCOIC of my shop (I’ve mentioned his mental prowess before) and they weren’t sure how cool the outsider would be to their less than reputable dealings.

So, as they’re leaving, the kid’s dad comes tearing down the two-lane Iraqi street in his beat up car, screeching to a sideways halt as close as possible to the convoy. And before the car can even come to a complete stop, the Kid is out and pounding the ground with bare, thickly calloused feet.

The guys see him coming and start trying to signal him not to make the drop obvious, hoping against hope that the NOCIC doesn’t see the kid running full speed toward the HMMWV with an arm load of 80-proof and the intent to distribute.

Well, either luck or the fact that this guy is incredibly unobservant (just one of his MANY admirable traits) came to the rescue, coupled with the Kid’s keen street smarts and bootlegger intuition.

With a quickness that would make an NFL wide-receiver green with envy, the kid goes from full-tilt to casual stroll — though he continues to move toward the vehicle — easing the booze unseen into the floor-board of the rear passenger’s seat (we drive without doors) without batting an eye, and positions himself for payment and the HMMWV rolls out, returning the secret handshake with practiced ease and pulling the whole thing off like a well oiled machine; a tribute to true professionalism and a credit to his countrymen.

He’s been a major supplier ever since.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that all opinions and views expressed herin are my own and in no way reflect the views or opinion of the U.S. Army or any of their representatives.

Drink responsibly.

This is an on-going account and will be continued in the next edition of The Metropolitan

Headlines

Racism creates unity; unity creates hope; hope creates changes. These elements were the ingredients of the Chicano Movement during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Yet, in higher education these elements are still inspiring Chicanos to create change within the academic curriculum at universities as well as in K-12.

by Luke T.Ray - The Metropolitan Luis Torres help found the Chicano Studies department in 1995 and has been acting chairman since its formation.

“Chicano Studies was the academic branch of the Chicano Movement,” said Professor Luis Torres, department chair of Chicano studies at Metro. “Metro was one of the first institutions to integrate the Chicano culture into their degree program.”

The academic movement was born at the University of Colorado in 1968.

Torres was a student activist involved in the organization of Chicano studies as part of CU’s education core.

In 1968, Torres and his fellow Chicano students worked in various student groups including the United Mexican American Students (UMAS) and Educational Opportunity Program (EOP).

Many Chicano students became involved with the movement.

They grew up with oppression and saw that the only survival for a Chicano was to work in manual labor positions, struggling to provide for their families.

Education was the only way to break the cycle of oppression and poverty.

Chicano students at CU recognized the opportunity Chicanos could have if they were educated, Torres said.

They made proposals to incorporate the Chicano culture into the current curriculum. Their goal was to reflect the Chicano culture in courses taken at CU.

The first attempt combined Chicano literature with English composition.

Chicano literature was rare for this time. Torres had to find Chicano literature to present in these classes. Poetry read during Chicano protests at the Colorado State Capital provided some of the poems for the English composition classes at CU.

Torres said as more Chicano literature became available, the need for a separate Chicano literature class became evident.

Chicano studies grew from integrated English composition, sociology and history courses into more specific classes pertaining to the Chicano culture.

Chicano studies classes eventually became part of the Ethnic Studies program. In 1995, Metro established Chicano studies department, which was chaired by Torres. This program offered major and minor degrees in Chicano studies.

“We deal with Chicanos, and Chicano studies reflect the situation in the community. If (Chicanos) were wealthy and arrogant, nobody would ever question the program.”

The fight continues. On Jan. 22, 2000, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) released a report that restricted Hispanic studies, African American studies and Women studies departments from proposing a teacher licensure degree program.

After gaining the support of minority members of Congress, the restriction against these programs was lifted, Torres said.

In spring 2002, Metro graduated 12 students with a Chicano Studies bachelor’s degree.

This marked an important accomplishment for the Chicano Studies department.

Departments at Metro are not considered strong enough to survive until they have graduated 10 students in a year or 20 in a 3-year period.

On March 5, 2003, the department finally reached the established benchmark, and was removed from the list of departments that had been closely monitored.

Reaching this benchmark meant that the Chicano Studies department was no longer in danger of being cut.

Last spring, eight students graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Chicano studies. This fall, 600 students are in the Chicano Studies program, according to Torres.

“The number of Chicano students at Metro increased 8.4 percent this fall, which is 2,556 Chicano students,” Torres said. The total number of students enrolled at Metro increased 4.3 percent.

“The outlook for the program looks good,” Torres said. “When a race is oppressed, it binds itself together to survive. This binding leads to a vision of hope and that hope leads to change.”

Torres said that the benefit of having a Chicano Studies degree is that a student can then go out into the community or business world to help improve the social status for Chicanos and other Latino cultures.

The idea is to go back into the community and not exploit and deligitimize the Chicano culture. Chicanos should question how their lives have been shaped, asking if it can be better, Torres said.

He also said the future of Chicano studies lies in public schools in K-12.

The Chicano population in Denver Public Schools (DPS) makes up 55 percent of the total student population.

Metro’s Chicano Studies department is working with DPS to change curriculum to reflect the Chicano culture.

More than 50 courses were implemented in high school classes throughout public school systems in Denver.

However, according to Torres, this is only a start.

“We have to apply Chicano studies in the K-12 curriculum or (the Chicano Studies department) doesn’t deserve to exist,” Torres said. “Nothing is going to change for our kids until these programs are developed. This is the best we can do; the most significant.”

Headlines