21 years ago at 11:14AM my HS had just finished an all school assembly about 25 minutes before. The speaker spoke of the school shooting in Oregon. I was ditching class with a friend after, and we saw parents starting to take their kids out en masse. Rumors of a shooting sparked

At first, none of us kids had a clue as to what was going on. Teachers didn't know and then were suddenly delayed by traffic because they had gone out for lunch by #Columbine as there are many eateries for students and teachers to roam off campus, off hours.

It was supposed to be a silly day of ditching and getting high (4/20 CO's fave), but, then we got confirmation from our gt teacher that it was in fact real and happening. I instantly thought of a few friends, especially a childhood friend that went to elementary school with me.

#Columbine is about 15 minutes or so from my Heritage HS & from most of the Littleton Public Schools. Chatfield HS is closest. I remember finally getting home and watching the news. Phone calls started pouring in, as the initial reporting said a HS in Littleton no name.

The phone lines into Littleton that night were so hard to get through. I had Aunts and Uncles saying that they'd been trying to call for hours to no avail, but the busy signal. The news said that they had plans to bomb all of the HS's and do the same they did to #Columbine

So all of the high schools were swept afterwards in the days following for bombs. Movie theaters offered free movies to our #Columbine victims and families but, the movie they played had shooting in it, so many students couldn't bear to stay.

The shooters used to climb at my brother's rock gym. He taught them how to climb and the whole gym was devastated that they personally knew the shooters. No one understood why.

The aftermath that ravaged our community was like a bombing. There were definitely physical scars from the #Columbine High School, but the scars to the entire psyche of our town was something that no one could quite articulate.

Every 4.20 I instantly stop at 11:14 because my body still remembers exactly where I was and began picking up signals, something awful was happening. It is an anxiety filled day for Coloradoans that grew up in Littleton.

Last year a disturbed woman came who worshipped the shooting and then killed herself. #Columbine is still claiming victims 21 years later.

And yesterday to hear of the shooting in #NovaScotia on the eve of #Columbine, I'm sure added to everyone's, who grew up that year of 1999, anxieties. I was sad but, yesterday's shooting made me anxious enough that my first thought was what will happen to CO tomorrow?

All I know is that we all need it to stop. However, now we're not just facing a one off accident. We're facing a mixture of disturbed people and those with true agendas to sow fear, doubt, and hate into us with mass shootings.

#Newtown marked the beginning of a new era. Since 12/I4/2012 the stats tripled from the US averaging about 7 mass shootings from 1982-2012. #Newtown was different, as the Manaforts bulldozed the shooter's home for "free".

There is significant meaning to 12/14/12 in terms of world history. It was the day that @BarackObama signed the #MagnitskyAct . It was the day that Putin's Kremlin shut down adoptions out of RU to USA. It was the day that protests happened where RU citizens cried #Думаестдетей

Then we were engaged in a war no one could fathom starting in 2013. A war that not only cost real lives but, it cost our friends, family to lose their hearts, minds too. It made people lose trust in the US Govt as our news was sprayed with shootings.

The enemy has and continues to use #Columbine to recruit and kill. This is an enemy that took #Columbine and made it worse in every possible way, very deliberately. They continue to use it to re -traumatize CO and the USA alike.

And now here we are 21 years after #Columbine and it is just relevant, if not more so, today. I hate today. No one in Littleton that I grew up with, thought that shootings would become the norm. We thought our town was a true tragedy, not the beginning of a trend.