Vigil honors victims of Florida school shooting

Students, teachers, parents, and community members gathered at a vigil Thursday evening to remember the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Feb. 14. Participants held candles while members of the faith community offered prayers and speakers called for commonsense solutions to improve school security.

The event was held before a school board meeting where the board passed a resolution proposed by Ryan McElveen (at-large) calling for federal and state legislation to “more effectively regulate firearms.”

The vigil was aimed at offering a message of “safety and solace” to those who learn and work in Fairfax County Public Schools and to ensure FCPS does the best they can to “make sure our schools are safe and secure,” said Kevin Hickerson, president of the Fairfax Education Association, which organized the event.

Real change is going to take collective action, including the voices of students, Hickerson said. He called for conversations about such issues as more school counselors and tougher security measures – which would require more resources – but when asked about arming teachers, said, “I don’t think that is the solution.”

Hickerson called on FCPS to carry out security checks and to protect students’ freedom of speech. We honor the victims “by not being silent,” he said. On Feb. 21, students across the region walked out of class to remember the victims and to protest gun violence.

“School is not supposed to be a place of fear,” school board member Tamara Derenak Kaufax (Lee) told the crowd at the vigil.

Yet, that may well be the climate. “A lot of people are upset and feeling really unsafe” in school, said vigil attendee Ken Kanjirath of James Madison High School.

Annandale resident Francine Ronis, a parent at the vigil and a member of the grassroots group Moms Demand Action, said her daughter, a student at Falls Church High School, is “really angry and fed up and tired of nothing being done.” Ronis called for “commonsense gun control.”

Rev. Bob Malone of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church, told the crowd, “our thoughts and prayers for those grieving are laced with outrage.” While mental health and enforcement of existing laws need to be part of the solution, the nation also needs to address “our destructive, obsessive gun culture.”

Calling for “sane and sensible gun laws,” Malone said, something is wrong when an 18-year-old can’t get a beer but can buy an automatic weapon and when “we put the rights of hunters above the safety of our children.”

Joan Fredericks of Moms Demand Action and a former music teacher at Glen Forest and Annandale Terrace elementary schools, offered a personal story about how gun violence destroys families. Her husband was killed in 1993 by teenage carjackers who bought guns at Walmart, and her son, who struggled with depression, committed suicide at age 20.

She called the idea of arming teachers, a proposal from the National Rifle Association, “totally clueless” and a ploy of the gun manufacturers.

Carmen Lodato, who went to Virginia Tech four years after a gunman killed 32 people on campus, also spoke about a personal tragedy. Her mother, Ruthanne Lodato, was fatally shot after answering her front door in Alexandria in 2014. “Victims deserve more than thoughts and prayers,” Lodato said.