Oh but when a teenage girl in middle America has a gun at her head and is killed...she is what?
Rachel Joy Scott (August 5, 1981 – April 20, 1999) was the first victim of the Columbine High School massacre. She has since been the subject of several books. Some Christians in the United States consider her a martyr.
Scott lived near Littleton, Colorado, where she attended Columbine High School (which is actually located in an unincorporated area in Jefferson County) along with her younger brother, Craig.
She played the lead in a student-written school play. She was also active in Celebration Christian Fellowship church. She was "made for the camera," according to her father, and was an aspiring writer and actress. "There's nothing I can add or take away from what she gave us," her mom said. "In those short 17 years, it was complete." She had just performed in Columbine's Smoke in the Room and was writing a play for her senior year.
Rachel was shot in front of the school cafeteria while she was eating lunch on the grass with friend Richard Castaldo. She died from gunshot wounds to the head, chest, arm and leg. Her car was turned into a memorial in the parking lot of the school.
In the aftermath of the massacre, it has been claimed that the gunmen, after having shot her in the leg while she was eating lunch, just outside the school, but before killing her with a point-blank shot to the temple, asked Scott if she believed in God, and that she had answered "You know I do." This question was also famously attributed to deceased victim Cassie Bernall, although there is only substantiation in the case of Valeen Schnurr.
An official investigation into the shootings, published eight months after the event, substantiated the claim that another student, Valeen Schnurr, had been asked that question and responded 'no' then 'yes', looking for the "right" answer. She who had also been shot previously in the library, was not shot again and survived her injuries. It is possible that Rachel and other students were faced with the same question or, as often happens, one conversation was attributed to someone else or multiple people. In the meantime, Scott's parents authored a book entitled Rachel's Tears: The Spiritual Journey of Columbine Martyr Rachel Scott (ISBN 0785268480). The martyr sobriquet has stuck, especially amongst devout Christians in the Bible Belt, and the reports remain in wide circulation. The same story attributed to Cassie Bernall was also the subject a similar book She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall (ISBN 0743400526).
Rachel's Tears is presented as a Christian meditation on the life, death, and faith of Rachel as seen through the eyes of her parents and through writings and drawings from her journals. The book also attempts a spiritual point of view on the Columbine tragedy and a vision for preventing youth violence.
Following her death, Scott's father Darrell, a devout Christian and son of a pastor, co-authored three books about her spirituality. He also resigned his job as a salesman and set up the Columbine Redemption, a non-profit organization whose mission is to "motivate, educate and bring positive change to many young people." As part of this work he tours the United States speaking at churches, high schools and youth centers. Scott's mother participates in similar programs.
During her life, Scott produced a number of drawings and writings which some believe to have predicted the Columbine Massacre and her death. On May 2, 1998, she wrote in her diary; "This will be my last year Lord. I have gotten what I can. Thank you", and in a poem she referred to the "Halls of Tragedy", perhaps referring to the halls of Columbine Highschool. [1]
A drawing produced two hours before her death portrays a pair of eyes and tears dropping onto a rose and turning into blood. The thirteen tears shown are said to correspond to the thirteen fatalities of the Columbine Massacre.
great point!!!! Why is being true to faith and country (with out murdering innocent victims)sooo politically incorrect? What credibility that one statement gave to a people who's main purpose is to wipe us from the face of the earth. Yet lets not offend no matter what the cost!!!
She wasn't asked to convert