TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The city of Tampa is renaming a playground after Harrison Boonstoppel.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
A Tampa playground has been renamed to Harrison Boonstoppel All Abilities Playground\u00a0
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Harrison’s mother, his former teacher, and several others spoke during the renaming ceremony\u00a0
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Harrison was one of two people who killed during a 2023 shooting in Ybor City\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was one of two people killed, and 16 others were injured in an October 2023 shooting in Ybor City.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dozens of people came to the newly renamed playground on Saturday, including family and friends.<\/p>\n
Harrison’s mother, Brucie Boonstoppel, said this support means everything.<\/p>\n
“The fact that guns took his life is the tragedy behind it,” she said. “But he was a victory story, and that’s what this park is celebrating.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
His former teacher, Patrick Morton, is one of the people who spoke at the ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Harrison is someone he will never forget.<\/p>\n
“I want him to be remembered for just how he made others feel and how he approached life,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morton\u00a0said it’s the memories that keep Harrison with him, especially thoughts of him on the golf course, and his nickname, “Boonie.”<\/p>\n
“Getting up on the driving range and being a tiny \u2014 at the time \u2014 high schooler just hitting absolute bombs,” he said. “We call them ‘Boonie Bombs.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brucie said she sees signs of Harrison everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From his pictures to the butterflies lingering during the ceremony, Brucie said she knows Harrison is looking down on them.<\/p>\n
“They’re stories and memories, they read differently,” she said. “I see it more now, I understand Harrison.”<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of Harrison’s death, the Harrison Boonstoppel Foundation was created.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The foundation is dedicated to creating a safer future for kids through community action, education, and connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The city of Tampa is renaming a playground after Harrison Boonstoppel. What You Need To Know…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[767,274,770,276,2200,4628,115,277,135,137,136,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-201651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-community","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-matt-lackritz","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}