[This is an an interview I did for my online newspaper, IntraDenver.net, a unique creation at the time. One of our interns’ sister was a student during the tragic events April 20th, 1999. Their father, Randy, had just been elected to the state school board not long before the event. We got an exclusive interview with him.
On a side note, we took part of the coverage of the shooting, a first for an “internet only” newspaper. We have interviews, photos, etc. online before many other networks, papers, and so forth even had a solid web presence. Due to that, we won an award for excellence from the Colorado Press Association. As a whole, IntraDenver failed, but during the three years I ran the news department as Editor-in-chief, I had some of my greatest accomplishments, including meeting my ex-wife (she was my copy editor) and having our son. Deborah was pregnant with Dylan at the time and the events shook us both to the core. Was this the world we were bringing our son into? Unfortunately, the answer was yes. School shootings, and workplace, and house of worship, and concert shootings are all too common now. Only by the grace of God and fortune did our son not have to experience one. I think of this article every time the news reports the next shooting, and I know we could’ve done more at the point of this article being written to have stopped more tragedies like the one we discuss here.]
An Interview with Randy DeHoff:
Columbine Father and Policy Maker
By David Boop
Originally Published May 7th, 1999
The first thing you have to realize when talking to Randy DeHoff is that you are talking to two people:
Mr. DeHoff- State Board of Education Member for the 6th Congressional District
Randy Dehoff- Father of a Columbine Student.
“She was one of the last to get out,” says DeHoff of his daughter Erin, known to her friends as Krysti. “She started using ‘Krysti’ this year. When they mentioned her name in the news reports, people were asking me if I had another daughter.”
He has three: Grace, who attends one of the elementary schools near Columbine, Jenny who is thirteen, Krysti and Liz, who attends CU with plans to spend a year studying in England.
“It was Liz that called me. I was down in Colorado Springs. While she was trying to tell me what happened, my wife called on the other line.”
DeHoff got to the school as quickly as possible, going back and forth from Leewood Elementary and home, hoping to hear from Krysti. It would be hours.
“She had just turned the corner to go to the library when it started. She says she froze and a minute later was dragged into the science room,” recounts DeHoff, “The teacher locked her and several students into the storeroom. They were there for the full three hours.”
He says Krysti has been left traumatized by the shots and screams she could hear outside the room. The DeHoffs were not reunited until 4:30 PM. By then several of her classmates and their assailants lay dead. While Krysti was not close to any of those slain, the family was particularly close to the Tomlin family. They had just returned from John’s memorial when we talked.
As a member of the Board of education, DeHoff is in the unique position of seeing where this tragedy may take the Colorado school system. “[The board] had a teleconference about the shootings. We haven’t formalized anything yet, but the gist of the talk was, ‘We don’t have any answers. We don’t have any solutions. This is a society issue.’”
As he continues, the father that had a daughter in danger slips out and the man who lists himself among the Christian community also gets angry. “As long as we glorify violence in the media, these events will keep happening. [The media] creates a sense of detachment. ‘Is this real?’ ‘If it is, who cares?’”
DeHoff feels if there is no sense of eternity, there is nothing to be held accountable for. He also feels the government is not the answer. That brings in censorship issues. “It is up to the community to decide what they will allow into it. It is up to the community to picket the theaters, boycott the sponsors. When you boycott Nike for using child labor, nobody complains.”
The Future of Education in Wake of Columbine
Talking with Mr. DeHoff of the State Board of Education, 6th Congressional District, the talk strayed from his role as guardian of the education system to parent of a student at Columbine. “You have to realize a lot of what I tell you is personal feelings. The board is still finalizing its stance on Columbine. It will go through several revisions before it is sent to the press.”
Dress Codes- “A dress code is fine. Schools are not the place for individual expression. As parents we say to our children, ‘That is not appropriate attire for school.’ As soon as a student gets home, they can change and go hang out at the mall.”
Metal Detectors- “All that will happen with metal detectors is to get the person who is standing there shot first.”
Random Locker Searches- “Lockers have been determined to be school property, so more searches are fine.”
Body Searches- “Not acceptable.”
Drug Screenings- “I had enough of that in the Navy. I believe it to be an invasion of a person’s privacy.”
Armed Forces- “In most cases, there is no difference between an armed officer walking the street or at a school. When I was campaigning, the officers I talked to said it was the best part of their job. It builds a rapport. They become friends with the students.”
Teachers With Guns- “If there had been a teacher carrying a gun, the events at Columbine could have been stopped early. Criminals do not go where they know they will be shot at.”
Lockdown- “Without letting students in through a gate and doing a body check, these events can happen. But what do you do when you have to let them out to a soccer field?”
DeHoff says he likes a Benjamin Franklin quote. “He said, ‘If we give up our freedom for safety, we have neither.”
He also had this to say as a final thought, “You know at the end of the Magnificent Seven when Yul Brynner is riding off and he turns to the guy who is staying on as a farmer and says ‘Only the farmers won, we always lose.’ It’s like that. We may have to fight violence with violence, but someone always loses.”