Richard Castaldo

Richard Castaldo, (born September 18, 1981) was critically injured during the Columbine High School Massacre. A friend of Rachel Scott, he was eating lunch with her on the day she was killed. Castaldo was shot eight times in the arm, chest, back, and abdomen, becoming permanently paralyzed from the chest down. He witnessed Scott being killed from the corner of his eye during the shooting.
He was 17 years old, and a Columbine High School student, when the shootings occurred. He has appeared in numerous documentaries about the shooting, including Bowling for Columbine about Columbine and its connections to youth gun violence and its influences on gun control laws.
He was born in San Diego, California.
Columbine shooting
Castaldo was the second victim of the shooting, after Rachel Scott. He was in the grassy knoll outside the cafeteria eating lunch with Scott. Minutes into their lunch, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold approached them. Harris threw a pipe-bomb that exploded, attracting the attention of both Scott and Castaldo. Harris then killed Scott and seriously wounded Castaldo with eight shots to the arm, back, chest, and abdomen from a Carbine rifle. He was one of the first evacuated during the massacre, and remained permanently disabled and in a wheel-chair after the shooting, with nerve damages to his left arm. Castaldo was taken to the hospital and remained there for a few months after the shooting.
After Columbine massacre
===Response to Super Columbine Massacre RPG!===
Castaldo did not have an appearance in ' (nor did any real people from the massacre except Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold), but did provide his outlook on the game in a short interview on a website:
:"It probably sounds a bit odd for someone like me to say, but I appreciate the fact at least to some degree that something like this was made. I think that at least it gets people talking about Columbine in a unique perspective, which is probably a good thing. But that being said there are a lot of things that are hard to play or watch. And it seems to partially glamorize what happened. It shows a stark-contrast between fantasy and real life in an interesting way."
::-Richard Castaldo on Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (see external references)
In 2012 was one of the interviewed People for the Documentary film Columbine: Wounded Minds., by former Columbine High School student and Filmmaker Samuel J. Granillo.
Role in Rachel Scott Controversy
In the early days after the massacre, news localists and magazine reporters allegedly reported that Dylan Klebold killed Scott after she responded to his question of "Do you believe in God?", saying that the story was told by Castaldo. This would start a major controversy as the same conversation was attributed to Cassie Bernall. The conversation actually occurred between Dylan Klebold and Valeen Schnurr, a student who survived the massacre (but was also injured). Castaldo denied that the story about Rachel's killing was told by him in a December 1999 issue of Time.

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