Shots fired.
It was the night of Friday, Oct. 10, and The Leland Cubs had just finished their homecoming football game. There were celebrations. Families there to support their kids. It was a moment of innocence.
That innocence, however, was fleeting for the school. These kids have now gone through one of the most dreaded and feared events: a shooting.
At Leland High School, after homecoming, six were left dead from a shooter with ten people still injured. Four people died at the scene (on the main street of the town) and two others died later in the hospital from their injuries.
“It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” Camish Hopkins said as he described the chaos and destruction that had been left, from the people lying dead on the ground to the people struggling with injuries (Associated Press).
By the next morning, the blood soaked shoes of the four people who died on the scene had stained the street with blood.
“People were just congregating and having a good time in the downtown of Leland,” Simmons, the state senator for Mississippi, said (NBC).
This isn’t the only tragedy in Mississippi this week.
At another high school homecoming football game at Heidelberg High School, two more people died with one injured. One of those who died was a pregnant woman.
“Our state is praying for the victims and their families, as well as the entire Heidelberg and Leland communities,” Reeves, the governor of Mississippi, said in a social media post (NBC). “Those responsible will be brought to justice.”
On Oct. 11, just 150 miles away, one person was left dead and two injured at Alcorn State University’s homecoming game.
On Friday, Oct. 10, shots rang out at South Delta High School in Rolling Rock Mississippi and Quindale Wise laid on the ground with two gunshot wounds. He is in the hospital and is doing better. After a car chase, two suspects are now being held in prison.
And finally, on Saturday, Oct. 11, at Jackson University in Mississippi, a child was shot and is currently in the hospital.
Too often, when we have several shootings like this, it is easier to focus on the number, but every person who died had family members who are now deeply impacted. There are several consequences of these shootings that we will never even know or understand. But the one thing the government is doing is fighting and working hard to get justice for those who have suffered.
