BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings, when two teenagers killed 13 people and wounded 24 before turning the gun on themselves.
KARE 11's Karla Hult sat down with Rick Kaufman, the Executive Director of Community Relations and Emergency Management at Bloomington Public Schools. On April 20, 1999, he was only in his eighth month of working as the Executive Director of Public Engagement for the district that includes Columbine. And after the tragedy, he also co-led the Colorado district's crisis response team.
"I saw sights that I've cerainly blocked from my mind, it's hard to describe," Kaufman said on Tuesday.
He later added: "To this day, what I believe is the most important thing -- any organization that deals with a crisis must first and foremost attend to the victims and the victims' families and be there for them."
Hear more of Kaufman's profound perspective in the above video.