PROVO — Andy McDonald doesn't think the answer to halting school violence can be found in security cameras, metal detectors and police standing guard in hallways.
It's found in words.
"Making fun of people may seem like fun," says McDonald, a graduate of Columbine High School. "But words do hurt. They do make a difference."
McDonald, who spoke at Brigham Young University Monday, said that years of being teased and tormented drove outcasts Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to shoot and kill 12 classmates and one teacher before turning shotguns on themselves.
"In my own opinion, (the teasing) created a sense of hate that grew and grew and it exploded in them," he said. "I'll live the rest of my life knowing that I could've made a difference and I didn't."
It could have been so easy, he said, just to wave, say hello or smile. "Standing up for what you know is right makes the biggest difference."
McDonald's world turned inside out while he was taking a math test on April 20, 1999. Classroom walls started to shake, he says, like when neighbors play Metallica too loud.
"We kind of passed it off as one of the chemistry teachers blowing something up," McDonald said, recalling the events of the day that rocked America. "They liked to do that."
McDonald saw classmates running through the hallways. Then, the fire alarm at Columbine High School started to ring.
After leaving the building, he met with classmates at a parking lot, horrified at the fragmented stories rolling through the crowds of students. An explosion inside the school sent students scurrying to the safety of nearby houses.
McDonald eventually arrived at a friend's home. He called his parents — "I'll never forget the sound of my mom's voice. It was pure terror; it was so shaky" — and dialed a girlfriend, Rachel Scott, his date to the homecoming dance.
"I got their machine," he says. "And that was the last time I heard Rachel's voice." Seventeen-year-old Scott, he soon learned, had been fatally shot in the library.
"That night everyone was at the church," McDonald said. "I looked for faces that weren't there, and I lost it. I couldn't stop crying."
McDonald's life was then consumed with the "healing process." He attended funerals, memorial services and found solace in his Christian faith.
Administrators and police opted to vacate the school for the rest of the academic year. In the fall, though, at the outset of his senior year, students and teachers returned to Columbine.
"To me, Columbine represents taking something terrible and turning it into something good," said McDonald, who admits to suffering some emotional difficulties when he hears reports of other school shootings.
McDonald says security measures were taken after the shootings. But the most effective was a mentoring program that paired freshmen with seniors, and other attempts to make sure no one felt excluded, he said.
"Communication is huge," he said. "I think it starts in the home, with the family. Keep those communication lines open."
E-MAIL: jeffh@desnews.com