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The Minneapolis community gathered at multiple vigils Wednesday evening to mourn the young lives lost in the latest act of gun violence in the US to target school children, showing support for each other as they navigate a path forward and press for change.
“You don’t think it’s going to happen in your community,” said Kaliee Poling, who, as a child, attended the tight-knit Annunciation Catholic School, where the tragedy unfolded. “And now, being a parent, I just can’t imagine what those kids went through this morning,” she added, her voice breaking.
Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed when an 23-year-old shooter opened fire through the windows at the Church of the Annunciation as students from the school gathered in the pews for a Mass to celebrate the new school year, police said. Fourteen other children and 3 parishioners in their 80s were injured.
The shooting is the latest in a series of distinctly American tragedies, becoming the 44th school shooting in the US this year, according to a CNN analysis. It is also among at least 286 mass shootings in the country this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and at least the fourth deadly shooting in Minneapolis in a 24-hour period.
Poling, who attended a vigil in nearby Richfield with her husband and daughter, said the air was thick with grief.
“The heaviness – it’s something I’ve never really experienced before,” she said.
“Annunciation is such a tight-knit community,” she said. “When I heard the news, I was really impacted, knowing that it’s so close to home. It’s a community I was a part of for so long and still am. I just wanted to come out and support.”
Laura Pueringer, 31, an alumna of Blessed Trinity, a sister school to Annunciation, said seeing the students in their uniforms as she followed news of the shooting hit home.
“Seeing those kids in those green tops and the blue navy pants … That was me as a kid,” she said.
“I guess I want to show up and start asking for change, and the only way you can demand change is by showing up … I want to make sure I’m here. We’re demanding change – because enough’s enough at this point,” Pueringer said, standing in the crowd with her parents.
Vincent Francoual said the community support will be key to helping his daughter recover from the trauma she experienced during the shooting.
“She told a counselor she thought she was going to die,” Francoual told CNN’s Laura Coates Wednesday.
“The mental weight of what happened today, the trauma, we are in new territory. We are taking it one day at a time. But Annunciation School is a great community.”
“We’re all here together and we’re just going to have to go through it because there’s no other way,” Francoual said.
At a vigil in Lynnhurt Park, parents and children, many wearing red shirts emblazoned with “Protect Minnesota”– a coalition dedicated to preventing gun violence – stood shoulder to shoulder on Wednesday night, holding flickering candles close to their chests.
“These children were literally praying at this moment,” Mayor Jacob Frey said, addressing the crowd at the park. “I’m so grateful to the teachers and the faculty at Annunciation that threw their bodies on top of children. They did the right thing to protect what could have been so many more children dead.”
“We are a city united in grief. Let us take the next step to be a city united in action. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not about the guns because it is,” Frey said.
Minneapolis Councilmember Emily Koski spoke for many parents in the crowd, saying she knows “what it feels like to walk your child to school and think, ‘This is the place where they’re going to be safe.’”
“Today, when those students sat in church praying and hoping for the most amazing year ahead, that was wiped away from them,” she added.
A Democratic National Committee abruptly adjourned the final day of its summer meeting in Minneapolis as news of the shooting, unfolding just minutes away, broke.
The DNC Chair Ken Martin, a Minnesota native, reminded attendees that Wednesday’s shooting followed “a tragic year where we already lost our dear friends Melissa and Mark Hortman,” referring to the former Minnesota House speaker and her husband, who were killed in a politically motivated shooting at their Minnesota home in June.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz praised law enforcement for their “heroic work” and said he spoke with President Donald Trump, who joined at least two governors in ordering flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset Sunday to honor the victims.
“There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents, because they should not happen, and there’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today,” Walz said at a news conference.
“Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, but also keep us in the thoughts for action. Keep us in the ideas that we can work together,” the governor said.
The Vatican, in a statement Wednesday, said Pope Leo XIV was “profoundly saddened” by the deaths and injuries from the mass shooting.