SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
This week’s news out of Minnesota was heart-wrenching. Students at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis were shot in the pews of their church as they gathered to celebrate the first Mass of the school year. Two children were killed, and 18 people – mostly children – were injured. Now the rest of the student body and the wider community is left to grapple with the aftermath of violence. NPR’s Liz Baker reports from Minneapolis.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHURCH BELL RINGING)
LIZ BAKER, BYLINE: Outside Annunciation Church, it’s a too-familiar scene – flowers, candles, teddy bears and tears from the people gathered there.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: I’m just sad.
UNIDENTIFIED MOTHER: That’s OK.
BAKER: Mommy, I’m so, so sad, says a little girl in a purple dress. That’s OK, says the mom. That’s why we’re here, to feel sad. That’s exactly why Charlie Lyman (ph) says he’s here, too, because it’s better to be together than to be separate.
CHARLIE LYMAN: And to recognize that we’re not alone in this tragic situation.
BAKER: Lyman went to school here as a kid, so did his parents and his own kids. His son, John, came home from college when he heard the news about the shooting.
JOHN LYMAN: It’s one of those things where you have to be here.
BAKER: John Lyman graduated from the school in 2017, the same year as the shooter, whom he doesn’t remember very well.
J LYMAN: I’m shaking, even thinking about that I knew this person and, you know. But I’ve seen other classmates here, and to just have the strong community that, you know, the Annunciation Parish and the Annunciation School has is telling about how strong, really, the community is.
GEORGIA HAZEL: Thank you so much. You’re so strong.
BAKER: Parishioner Georgia Hazel, who was baptized in this church, has been helping to organize the thousands of flowers mourners have been bringing to the expanding memorial.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLOWER WRAPPER CRINKLING)
HAZEL: If you’d like to pray with them, and then we can put them in here.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK. Yeah. I’d love to.
BAKER: The flowers, kept in plastic hardware store buckets, form a rainbow arc spanning the length of the church driveway. Shot-out stained-glass windows are covered with boards, which themselves are covered in colorful chalked messages of support. People sit in the grass and cry or kneel in prayer. Therapy animals – today, a pig – offer companionship to passersby. And for blocks and blocks, in all directions…
(SOUNDBITE OF RIBBONS CRINKLING)
BAKER: …Blue and green ribbons – Annunciation School colors – flap on tree trunks. In the crowded basement of a nearby public library, volunteers slice blue and green tablecloths into strips destined for streets where Annunciation students and teachers live.
(CROSSTALK)
SARAH HENNING: I know they’re in a lot of trauma and chaos right now.
BAKER: Sarah Henning (ph) suggested these ribbons because she’s seen how this small action can help a community come together after tragedy.
HENNING: I think, probably more as the days goes on, they’ll see all these different glimpses of love that people are trying to show them.
BAKER: It’s not her first school shooting.
HENNING: I lived in Nashville. We had the Covenant School shooting there. And, you know, when you don’t know what to do, you’ll do anything to bring a little hope and love to people.
BAKER: Volunteer Alex Waterman (ph) says it’s also just something to do, an action to take, instead of falling into hopelessness and powerlessness.
ALEX WATERMAN: I personally kind of hate when every community is, like, we’re strong. ‘Cause I’m like, I don’t think that’s a great message ’cause we shouldn’t have to deal with this. So I really just want to show everyone support ’cause everyone just wants to do something.
BAKER: Minnesota state representative Emma Greenman says it’s been a tough summer in Minnesota. She’s sitting on the floor bundling blue ribbons. This week’s shooting hit her hard. These are her constituents. But also, it brings back memories of another recent tragedy. Just this past June, two statehouse colleagues and their families were gunned down in their homes.
EMMA GREENMAN: Another vigil, another candlelight, and it is so sacred and beautiful. And also just – this has to stop.
BAKER: I wish I could say that my community is beautiful and unique, she says, but there’s nothing extraordinary about this. It’s yet another community learning how to come together in grief.
Liz Baker, NPR News, Minneapolis. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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