‘It's Maddening': 23 Years After Helping Navigate Columbine, Bloomington's Rick Kaufman Set To Help Uvalde

CBS Minnesota

May 26, 2022

Bloomington Public Schools Emergency Management and Communications Director Rick Kaufman knows the pain of experiencing a school shooting firsthand. In 1999, he was less than a year into a career with Jeffco (Colorado) schools when two students shot and killed more than a dozen classmates and staff members.

More than two decades later, Kaufman is still working to make good on a promise he made that day. Since 2000, he has worked to consult with school districts across the nation on how to both prevent and respond to situations of violence.

“I made a promise to the victim’s families and the survivors that I would commit my life to doing what I could to protect and make school safer and more secure so others wouldn’t have to experience (what they did),” Kaufman said Wednesday. “It never entered my mind that it would be replicated in the size and scope and magnitude of that tragedy.”

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