CNN The father of a student who was killed Tuesday when he rushed a shooter at STEM School Highlands Ranch said his son saved others because he was selfless. “Be selfless, that's what my son was, and it got him killed, but he saved others,” John Castillo said of his son, 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo. John told CNN shortly after the shooting, he and his wife Maria were frantically tying to reach Kendrick on his cell phone, and they were getting more concerned when he wasn’t responding. “I was a little bit guilty, because as I was trying to call him I thought well maybe this is the wrong thing? Maybe I am putting his life in jeopardy by having the phone ring," John said. "My anxiety and the lump in my chest was growing.” At the reunification center, John said buses were coming in with children and they were watching the parents reunite with their kids "and we didn’t have that." John, who is the robotics coach for the school’s team which his son was on, said students kept coming up to them and saying Kendrick saved lives. "One of the kids told me ‘like a flash, he jumped up.’ She said, ‘You know he’s a hero he saved me, he jumped up and he ran. You couldn’t even see how fast he was running, out the door and after this person to tackle him,’” John said. His parents were not surprised to hear their son ran into a dangerous situation. “We raised him to be good,” John said. “Because of what he did, others are alive, and I thank God for that. I love him. And he is a hero and always will be. But there’s another part of you that wishes he just turned and ran, retreated, hid. Did something to put himself our of harms way, if that was possible. But we know Kendrick,” John said. “It’s no surprise that if danger was facing him he would approach it and take it on.” Watch more:<doc-sep>Ms. Giasolli said the seniors stayed close to one another on Tuesday afternoon as SWAT teams cleared their school and then took them to a recreation center, where thousands of anxious parents waited to reunite with them. They hugged one another and broke down sobbing in groups as they learned that Mr. Castillo, also a senior, had died. Ms. Giasolli said the tight-knit class was now bonded by grief and shock. “We’re all shaken,” she said. “It happened right before our eyes. It happened right in our classroom. We’re all hurting. We all did know these kids. We did know the shooter. We did know the people who got hurt. We’re all hurting in our own ways.” The suspects carried at least two handguns, and at least one of them had been restrained by a school security officer by the time law enforcement arrived, Sheriff Tony Spurlock of Douglas County said. Sheriff Spurlock said deputies had to force their way into the school because it was locked down. Law enforcement happened to choose a door that was near the shooting scene and quickly apprehended one of the suspects, who was identified as Devon Erickson, 18. The contrast between the tributes to Mr. Castillo, who was hailed as a hero by his friends, his community and Colorado’s governor, and the first court appearance of the two suspects could hardly have been starker. Mr. Erickson entered court on Wednesday wearing a red jumpsuit draped over his thin frame. His hair, dyed pink and blue, hung over his face. He sat between his lawyers with his head hanging, and he was shackled at both the wrists and the ankles. At times his body shook ever so slightly.<doc-sep>Kendrick Castillo – only days from graduation – acted fast inside of his British literature class at a suburban Denver school Tuesday afternoon. And he paid with his life. When a gunman burst through the door at STEM School Highlands Ranch, barking at students to stay in place and not move, Castillo, 18, rushed the shooter. It was a quick-thinking move that fellow students said gave them a chance to bolt for safety or take cover under desks. "Kendrick lunged at (the gunman), and he shot Kendrick, giving all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe, and to run across the room to escape,” senior Nui Giasolli told NBC's Today on Wednesday morning. Other students helped Castillo tackle the shooter, classmates said. Colorado shooting:Teen who plans to become Marine tackled suspected shooter, father says Douglas County Coroner Jill Roman confirmed Wednesday that the student killed was Castillo, the sheriff's department said in a tweet. An emotional John Castillo lauded his kind-hearted son as a hero. “I want people to know about him,” he told ABC News. He also told NBC that he talked with Kendrick about what to do in a school shooting, advising him "you don't have to be the hero." But his son, who wanted to study electrical engineering in college, insisted he would act. "You raised me this way. You raised me to be a good person. That’s what I’m doing,'" Castillo recalled. Castillo said the coroner told him his son, an only child, took gunfire that would have harmed other students, according to the Denver Post. “He cared enough about people that he would do something like that, even though it’s against my better judgment,'' Castillo told the newspaper. “I wish he had gone and hid, but that’s not his character. His character is about protecting people, helping people.” Castillo, a member of a Highlands Ranch robotics club called FRC 4418 Impulse, was set to graduate Friday, according to media reports, and was described as someone who was funny, smart and captivated by robotics. "We're heartbroken by the death of Kendrick Castillo, a victim of the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting," tweeted FIRST, a youth non-profit that advances STEM education. "Kendrick was a member of @Frc4418, of which his father is Lead Mentor. Our hearts go out to Kendrick's family, friends, & all affected by the shooting." FIRST created a fund for Castillo's family and local FRC team 4418 in response to the outpouring of support in the community. More than $20,000 was raised in less than 24 hours, FIRST's Aaron Pickering said Thursday, and all proceeds will be distributed to the team. More:Second suspect in Colorado school shooting is a girl, sheriff says Castillo had been a four-year member of the school's robotics team and had several technology internships, according to his LinkedIn page, Buzzfeed reported. Rachel Short of Bacara USA, a manufacturing business where Castillo began an internship last year, said he performed so well the company gave him a part-time job. Short said Castillo loved engineering and was eager to help people. “To find he went down as a hero, I’m not surprised,'' said Short, the company's CEO. "That’s exactly who Kendrick was.” Cecilia Bedard, 19, knew Castillo since elementary school and said he was always friendly and modest, frequently joining his father at Knights of Columbus fund-raisers and bingo nights. “He was amazing,” Bedard said. “He was honestly the sweetest kid I ever met. Never said a mean joke.” Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said investigators had not yet determined a motive for the attack that erupted shortly before 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Two people were taken into custody, an 18-year-old male and a juvenile girl, the sheriff's department said. The shooters were armed with at least two handguns and entered through a middle-school entrance at the K-12 school specializing in math and science, Spurlock said. Eight others were injured. Contributing: Jorge L. Ortiz; The Associated Press<doc-sep>Another student, Brendan Bialy, who is 18 and a member of the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program, helped subdue one of the shooters, the U.S. Marine Corps confirmed. Leadership and “a bias to action” were things Bialy, who is expected to ship out to boot camp this summer, had been talking about with his recruiter since he joined the program in July and began training and preparing for the Corps, said Capt. Michael Maggitti.<doc-sep>
The 18-year-old student killed in a Colorado school shooting died a hero days before he was to graduate high school, his father and classmates said. Kendrick Castillo, 18, was the sole person killed in the shooting on Tuesday at Stem School Highlands Ranch, a K-12 school outside Denver. Castillo lunged at a fellow student who pulled a gun, survivor Nui Giasolli told NBC’s Today Show. “Kendrick lunged at him, and he shot Kendrick,” Giasolli said, “giving all of us enough time to get underneath our desks, to get ourselves safe and to run across the room to escape.” Other students helped Castillo tackle the gunman, Giasolli said, adding they “were brave enough to bring him down so that all of us could escape and all of us could be reunited with our families”. “I can’t thank them enough,” she said. Suspects appear in court One of the shooting suspects, Devon Erickson, made his first court appearance on Wednesday, bowing his head during much of the proceedings as his hair covered his eyes. The 18-year-old was shackled at the waist with his hands cuffed as he sat in a courtroom flanked by two defense lawyers. Erickson nodded frequently in answering the judge’s questions but at one point the judge requested a verbal answer to whether he had any questions about the proceedings. Erickson simply replied: “No.” He is scheduled to return to court on Friday, when charges are expected to be filed. Erickson is one of the two suspects accused of opening fire at the school. The other suspect, a juvenile, was appeared before the judge afterwards. Prosecutors identified the second suspect as 16-year-old Maya McKinney. McKinney uses male pronouns and the name Alec, an attorney said. McKinney made eye contact with the judge and answered questions in a clear but quiet voice, saying “Yes, your honor” and “No, your honor”. The district attorney George Brauchler said he had not decided whether to file adult charges but added that McKinney was old enough to be charged as an adult without a judge’s review. ‘The best kid in the world’ The victim was described as an avid member of his school’s robotics team who liked fishing, hunting and cars. He had just three days of school left before graduation. “He was the best kid in the world,” John Castillo told the Denver Post, speaking through tears. “It doesn’t surprise me,” Castillo told the paper about reports of his son’s heroism. “He cared enough about people that he would do something like that, even though it’s against my better judgment. “I wish he had gone and hid,” Castillo said, “but that’s not his character. His character is about protecting people, helping people.” Kendrick, his parents’ only child, was due to enroll in Arapahoe Community College in the fall and hoped to study engineering, his father said. “My wife and I are in a haze,” Castillo said. “He was everything to us.”