Hundreds of parents, teachers, students and St. Louis officials gathered at Tower Grove Park for a candlelight vigil Monday to remember a teacher and student
Crowds gathered at the park鈥檚 Roman Pavilion to honor and , a 15-year-old student, who were both fatally wounded by a former student. Seven others were injured.
鈥淵ou see this stuff on the news all the time and you never think it鈥檚 going to happen in your city or in your school,鈥� said Alex Macias, a 16-year-old sophomore at the performing arts school. 鈥淚 just don鈥檛 think that it鈥檚 fair for the families and all that that this had to happen.鈥�
Kuczka was a health and physical education teacher at the school. Macias was in Kuczka's class when the gunman entered her third-floor classroom.
鈥淓veryone but me and my friend jumped out the window or escaped somehow,鈥� Macias said. 鈥淲e were both too scared to jump, and we hid underneath her desk.鈥�
Officials have not identified the 16-year-old who was killed.
Police said the 19-year-old gunman, who graduated from the school in 2021, was shot and killed in an exchange of gunfire with officers.
Students enrolled at Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, which shares a campus with the performing arts school, also were shaken by the tragedy. Dylan Fritz, a senior at Collegiate, said the shooting left him numb.
鈥淭his morning I hid in a corner terrified listening to screams down the hallway. This morning I had to run past a body in the hallway with my hands up,鈥� Fritz said. 鈥淚鈥檓 a student, I wanted to go to school today and learn, I was there to learn, I was not there to hide in a corner. Guns do not belong in schools.鈥�
Eli Carty, a 15-year-old Collegiate student, attended the vigil with her mother. She said Kuczka was her cross-country coach.
鈥淚 didn't even know that she was injured until I came home and I had my friends on the cross-country team text me Coach [Kuczka] died, Coach [Kuczka鈥檚] on the news,鈥� Carty said. 鈥淚 saw her just last week at a meet, it鈥檚 surreal, and it shouldn't have happened. That girl woke up this morning, she didn't expect to be shot and Coach [Kuczka] woke up this morning. She didn't expect to have that happen to her.鈥�
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, U.S. Rep Cori Bush, Alderwoman Annie Rice and state Reps. Rasheen Aldridge and LaKeySha Bosley urged teachers, students and loved ones to call Behavioral Health Response, 314-469-6644, or school district counselors for support.
Bosley, who had Kuczka as a teacher, said it鈥檚 time to organize and stop the wave of gun violence at schools.
鈥淚 know that there is a bigger purpose for all of this, there has to be,鈥� Bosley said. 鈥淲e will fight, we will win, we will not give up.鈥�
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