Five St. Teresa’s Academy students met at a Kansas City coffee shop just two days after a 16-year-old was shot in the Northland for ringing the wrong doorbell — each intent on staging a school-wide rally against gun violence.
The 18-year-olds — AJ Ward, Ava Martinez, Riyan Jones, Stella Hughes and Annamarie Hotze — barely knew each other. They had only a week and a half left before graduating from the school, where they’d rarely spoken. But between a school career laden with shooting drills and the news of fellow Kansas City teen Ralph Yarl being shot in the head, the group said, they were tired of pretending to feel safe.
“There’s this fear that it can happen anywhere. Like you go to the grocery store or you go to church and you have that constant fear in the back of your mind that you could be killed at any moment,” said Riyan Jones.
They continued throwing out ideas for their student-led rally back and forth over selfies in a Snapchat group. Within days, the teenagers had organized a rally, unity walk and had written letters to their legislators seeking justice for Yarl.
At least 100 students and a few teachers attended the rally. In front of the school’s Music and Arts Building, each of the five seniors made speeches recounting their hopes for a solution to the rampant gun violence in Kansas City and across the nation.
“There’s no better time than now to act,” said Stella Hughes from behind a podium.
“For Ralph. For the students and faculty in Nashville, Uvalde, Parkland, Sandy Hook, and the countless others. We gather together and promise to act.”
‘Constant paranoia’
The event started with speeches from school officials and a spokeswoman for Moms Against Violence, encouraging students to demand change.
St. Teresa’s Academy teacher Robert Flynn spoke about his experience with gun violence, holding up printed images of former colleagues and students who had been killed in shootings around the Kansas City area.
“People want to talk about the victims killed from gun violence. But there are living victims too,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
A three minute moment of silence honored Yarl, showing solidarity.
“Us five are reading speeches that we organized in a Snapchat group chat. We’re probably repeating ourselves but we wanted to do this… so that you feel compelled to show each other that none of us stand alone in facing the hardships thrown at us,” Ava Martinez said to the group.
Despite the fact that many of her Brookside secondary school peers hail from wealthier backgrounds, Martinez noted the city’s gun violence will affect them all sooner or later.
“Our entire generation is living with the constant paranoia of when the next shooting will occur.”
As the speeches drew to a close, the crowd broke into a march around the lawn, mimicking the walk held by Staley High School students one day earlier in honor of Yarl.
“I won’t pretend that I knew Ralph personally, but he was just another kid like me and many of you,” said Martinez.
“No one should fear that they won’t be protected by their community.”
Riyan Jones agreed, following the event she told that Yarl’s shooting weighed heavy on her mind.
“Being another young Black kid, I have an older sister and I’ve been thinking about if she was going to pick me up from a friend’s house and was shot ringing on the wrong doorbell,” said Jones.
She explained her parents were always “training her” to act a certain way to stay safe, especially around those who may see her skin tone as a threat. In the past few days, she’s felt more on edge: opting not to walk in certain areas and questioning her safety.
“But it seems like no matter what you do, no matter how you prepare your child, you can’t keep them safe,” she said.
“That’s the scary part about it. I feel like there’s nothing you can do.”
“It’s just, you have that constant fear of gun violence on top of race… And you wonder, when will it be enough?”