March 23, 2026 — Every child deserves to grow up in an environment that prioritizes their safety. Unfortunately, in the United States, the prevalence of gun violence means this is far from reality.
Our staff at Children’s Defense Fund–Minnesota is heartbroken by the tragic events that unfolded Wednesday on the grounds of Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.
On an extraordinary day when an estimated five million people came together at rallies and protests across the country to share their political views nonviolently, political violence still struck our nation.
The day after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for President, appeared at a Cleveland event and said instead of talking about politics he had to speak about the “mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.”
Eleven-year-old Aiden Clark was killed in a traffic accident in August 2023 in Springfield, Ohio, when the school bus he was riding in on the first day of school was hit by a minivan. The van’s driver was a Haitian immigrant, and Aiden’s death has become part of a larger hate- and conspiracy-filled campaign targeting his community’s immigrant residents.
This year, the first week of September was disrupted by a terrible tragedy that has become its own all-too-familiar routine in our nation: headlines about another school shooting.
In the midst of this season’s joyful graduation celebrations, one commencement ceremony stood out in a heartbreaking way because of the friends who were missing.