(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that the Department of Justice has filed charges against four former and current Louisville police officers in connection with the death of Breonna Taylor. The charges include civil rights offenses, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction offenses.
The Justice Department has had a pattern or practice investigation ongoing into the Louisville Police Department since April 2021.
The federal charges allege that police officers falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Taylor’s home and that this act violated federal civil rights laws, resulting in her death. Former Louisville detective Kelly Goodlett and officer Joshua Jaynes have been charged with conspiracy for allegedly falsifying the affidavit for a search warrant, according to the justice department.
Charges have also been filed against Brett Hankison a former Louisville Metro Police officer who was involved in the death of Breonna Taylor. Hankison has been charged in a two-count indictment for deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses.
“We share, but we cannot fully imagine, the grief felt by Breanna Taylor’s loved ones and all of those affected by the events of March 13, 2020. Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland said during a press conference.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Jack Date contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday that the Department of Justice has filed charges against four former and current Louisville police officers in connection with the death of Breonna Taylor. The charges include civil rights offenses, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction offenses.
“The federal charges announced today allege that members of a Police Investigations Unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home and that this act violated federal civil rights laws, and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death,” Garland said in a news conference.
The federal charges against detective Joshua Jaynes, former Louisville detective Kelly Goodlett and sergeant Kyle Meany allege they violated Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights when they sought a warrant to search Taylor’s home while knowing they lacked probable cause, and that they knew their affidavit supporting the warrant contained false and misleading information and omitted other material information, resulting in her death.
“Among other things, the affidavit falsely claimed that officers had verified that the target of the alleged drug trafficking operation had received packages at Ms. Taylor’s address. In fact, defendants Jaynes and Goodlett knew that was not true,” Garland said during a press conference.
Garland also alleged that Jaynes and Goodlett knew armed officers will be carrying out the raid at Taylor’s home, and that conducting the search could create “a dangerous situation for anyone who happened to be in Ms. Taylor’s home.”
Prosecutors allege that Jaynes and Goodlett met in a garage after Taylor’s death “where they agreed to tell investigators” looking into the botched raid “a false story.”
Charges have also been filed against Brett Hankison a former Louisville Metro Police officer who was involved in the death of Breonna Taylor. Hankison has been charged in a two-count indictment for deprivation of rights under color of law, both of which are civil rights offenses.
Hankison allegedly used unconstitutional excessive force during the raid when he fired 10 shots through a window and sliding glass door in Taylor’s home that was covered in blinds and curtains after there was no longer a “lawful objective justifying the use of deadly force.”
Hankison went to trial on state charges relating to the raid on Taylor’s apartment and was found not guilty on all counts. He was charged with recklessly shooting into a neighboring apartment during the course of the raid that ended with the death of Breonna Taylor, not guilty on all three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree.
Taylor’s death sparked protests nationwide, and outrage was further inflamed after no officers were charged in relation to her fatal shooting.
“The lack of accountability showcased in every aspect of Breonna’s killing speaks to how much more work there is to be done before we can say our justice system is fair and our system of policing is protective of people of color,” Taylor’s attorney, Ben Crump said after Hankison’s trial in March.
The Justice Department has had a pattern or practice investigation ongoing into the Louisville Police Department since April 2021. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division told reporters the separate investigation remains ongoing and that DOJ has a team on the ground still conducting interviews with stakeholders and are conducting ride-alongs with police there.
Louisville officers conducted a raid of Taylor’s apartment on March 13, 2020, at around 12:45 a.m. When officers broke down the door to the apartment, a guest in Taylor’s home, thinking it was an intruder, fired a single gunshot using a legally purchased firearm, hitting the first officer at the door. Two Louisville officers then fired a total of 22 shots into the apartment, one of which hit Taylor in the chest, according to an information filed by the Justice Department.
A third officer moved from the doorway to the side of the apartment and fired ten more shots through a window and a sliding glass door, both of which were covered with blinds and curtains, according to an information filed by the Justice Department.
Garland also alleged that officers who carried out the raid were not involved in drafting the warrant and were unaware of the false and misleading statements it contained when they carried out the raid.
Garland said he spoke with Taylor’s family earlier Thursday and informed them of the charges.
“We share, but we cannot fully imagine, the grief felt by Breonna Taylor’s loved ones and all of those affected by the events of March 13, 2020. Breonna Taylor should be alive today,” Garland said.
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Jack Date contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Intense heat has returned to the Northeast, with 70 million Americans facing heat advisories on Thursday that will likely extend into the weekend.
Boston is projected to reach 99 degrees on Thursday, breaking a 96-degree high from 1928, according to the National Weather Service. The mayor of Boston declared a heat emergency on Wednesday through Sunday, opening 16 cooling centers across the city.
“I urge everyone to stay cool and safe, and check on your neighbors during the week,” Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement.
Hartford, Connecticut, is forecast to hit 101 degrees on Thursday, breaking a 1944 record of 96 degrees, the NWS said.
Newark, New Jersey, could tie a 1993 record of 100 degrees. The city of Newark issued a Code Red on Wednesday, urging residents to take precautions against the dangerous heat.
New York City is forecast to break a 2006 record, reaching 94 degrees on Thursday, according to the NWS.
Con Edison, the city’s energy supplier, issued an advisory on Wednesday, asking residents to conserve energy due to the anticipated heat and humidity creating increased demand for electricity.
Philadelphia is expected to tie a 1995 heat record by reaching 95 degrees, according to the NWS.
Two heat deaths have been reported in the Northeast over the last two weeks, one in New York City and one in Philadelphia, officials said. Authorities have warned residents of the danger for more fatalities.
The heat will peak on Thursday, will highs forecast to decrease slightly on Friday before rising again on Sunday. The NWS predicts thunderstorms across the Northeast over the weekend, as heat and humidity come to a head.
The dangerous heat has persisted throughout the summer, with records broken across the Northeast just two weeks ago being threatened once again.
Last week, a heat wave settled over the Northwest, where over a dozen deaths have now been linked to the extreme temperatures.
(NEW YORK) — Coler Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center on Roosevelt Island in New York City is the foundation of where the Open Doors NYC project came to be. It was founded by Jennilie Brewester, a former volunteer at the hospital, who saw a need for more creativity among black and brown people in wheelchairs at the facility.
Vincent Pierce, the Director of Open Doors NYC, said what started as a writing workshop, turned into writing their own poetry, which would eventually turn into the Reality Poets, “being that most of us that was involved with injured due to gun violence. We told her that we wanted to go to schools and talk to kids about gun violence and the consequences of it. She’s got us doing that. Then we started doing these slam poetry workshops. And we started writing poetry and realized we was writing about our lives. One of the members came up with the name Reality Poets.”
Pierce, now 36, became paralyzed a decade ago, after being shot in the neck, saying he initially felt like his life was over after being confined to a wheelchair. But Pierce saw the bigger picture, “Thank god I had a four-year-old daughter at the time. That’s what really steered me straight and gave me a reason to know why I’m still alive… being blessed to be placed in a place where I had. People dealing with the same thing as me. People around my age, and people younger.”
Open Doors NYC hosts Freestyle Fridays, a virtual session where they invite artists as guest speakers, and all are encouraged to join and learn more about the project as well. Guns Down Mic Up! Is held bi-weekly, and is an open mic and discussion for those looking to share their stories about systemic and personal violence, including gun violence.
ZING! Is another one of the many programs under the Open Doors NYC umbrella. Pierce launched the program as a way to try and keep kids off the street and give them access they may have been initially denied, to showcase their talent and creative ability.
“Who knows? I could be saving lives by having here at that point in time, and actually paying them to come learn. I got a grant to start the program… It was just important to just keep kids off the street and give them something positive to do. Something I never had.
In March of 2022, New York State comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, released an audit showing that Health Department officials underreported nursing home deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic, by nearly half for almost a year. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August 2021 over allegations of sexual harassment, and his administration also could not account for about 4,000 nursing home deaths during the 10-month period.
Pierce launched the #NursingHomelivesMatter campaign in July 2020, in response to how they felt the pandemic was handled when it came to residents in long-term care facilities. Pierce in a message on the site saying, “We were fighting for our lives—COVID patients were brought into our home, no safety precautions were followed, and bodies piled up in two refrigerated trucks parked outside. Then as the lockdown dragged on for more than a year, we were fighting to see our families or just to get beyond the iron gate and yellow tape that corralled us in like convicts or animals at the zoo.”
The movement contains a Bill of Rights which includes being treated as an individual, families never being locked out, safe staffing ratios, decent wages for staff, and more.
When asked what he hopes the future of Open Doors NYC holds, Pierce said “I want to see us grow. Especially that this pandemic is dying down for us to get more out there again… doing poetry shows and basically growing in the social justice field. Disability justice and being more known.”
(LOS ANGELES) — A fire burning out of control in a Northern California national forest and threatening a town of nearly 8,000 people has quickly become the largest wildfire in the state this year, officials said.
The McKinney Fire in the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County, near the Oregon border, had burned 57,519 acres and was 10% contained as of Wednesday night, according to Cal Fire.
Rain in the area on Tuesday presented firefighters with opportunities to properly combat the fire, officials said. However, the fire is expected to grow in the next few days due to drier and hotter weather. The forecast was for temperatures to reach 96 on Wednesday.
Red flag warnings were in effect as well.
The blaze grew by nearly 3,000 acres overnight on Monday as gusty winds helped fan its spread through a drought-dry tinderbox of high grass, brush and timber, according to Cal Fire.
Two people were found dead in their car in a driveway in the town of Klamath River, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue told ABC News. Firefighters said they suspected that the two were caught in the fast-moving fire as they tried to flee, according to the sheriff. More rescue teams were expected to search the area on Monday.
The fire started around 2:15 p.m. Friday and has caused the closure of Highway 96 in the area and the evacuation of several communities, including the partial evacuation of Yreka, California, officials said.
There was concern that lightning storms over the fire area could have sparked additional fires, officials said. But that same storm system also carried a significant amount of moisture, slowing the fire’s spread significantly over the past 24 hours, the sheriff said on Monday.
“We’re feeling pretty good” about protecting Yreka, whose western fringes were threatened by the fire, he told ABC News.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office told ABC News Sunday afternoon that more than 100 structures have been destroyed, including the homes of several deputies who are continuing to work despite personally being under evacuation orders.
Many of the lost structures are along the Klamath River, which runs parallel to Highway 96, according to a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. The Klamath River Community Hall in Klamath River was also among the structures destroyed, officials said.
The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said search crews rescued about 60 hikers from a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, a popular backpacking trail that runs from Canada to Mexico.
Sgt. Shawn Richards of Jackson County Search and Rescue told reporters the hikers were not in immediate danger. He said that because of the rapidly spreading fire, unpredictable winds and smoke reducing visibility to roughly 20 feet, the decision was made to rescue the hikers before conditions worsened.
More than 1,300 firefighters are battling the blaze on the ground and from the air with 10 helicopters and 16 air tankers, Cal Fire said Monday.
“Really erratic winds from the start of the incident all the way up until now,” Kelsey Lofdah, a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, told San Francisco ABC station KGO of challenging firefighting conditions. “Pretty extreme fire behavior throughout the entire shift.”
The Yreka Police Department issued evacuation orders for a neighborhood in the western part of the town “due to its proximity to the fire” about 12 miles away.
“Please leave IMMEDIATELY,” the police department wrote in the evacuation order.
The police department also issued evacuation warnings to residents in all areas of the community west of Interstate 5.
The cause of the fire is under investigation and emergency management officials are assessing the damage.
Californian Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency on Saturday for Siskiyou County due to the effects of the McKinney Fire. A state of emergency frees up more state resources to be used in battling the blaze, including dispatching more firefighters and equipment to the scene.
The McKinney Fire surpassed the Oak Fire in Mariposa County near Yosemite as the largest wildfire in the state this year, according to Cal Fire. The Oak Fire, which started on July 22, was 72% contained on Monday after burning 19,244 acres and destroying 182 structures, including more than 100 homes, officials said.
(ARLINGTON, Texas) — A 16-year-old boy is speaking out after he was held at gunpoint and detained by police in what authorities said appears to have been a misunderstanding.
The incident occurred Monday afternoon at an apartment complex in Arlington, Texas, located between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Arlington police say they responded to a report of an armed man standing outside the door of one of the apartments.
A 911 caller told the dispatcher that he looked through his door’s peephole and saw a “male at his door wearing a hoodie and holding a firearm that was partially covered by a towel,” the Arlington Police Department said in a statement.
“The 911 caller advised that he’d been receiving threats from a person over social media, and the 911 caller believed the person at his door with a firearm was the same person who was making the threat,” the department said.
Apartment complex resident Rykeem Johnson, 16, says he was returning home from the pool that afternoon and was on the third floor of the building when two officers responded to the call. He matched the description of the suspect, wearing a hoodie and holding a towel, police said.
“They told me to put some weapon down. I didn’t know what they were talking about at first,” Johnson told ABC Dallas affiliate WFAA.
The teen said he froze, as officers pointed their firearms up at him from their position on the ground.
“I was very terrified. I was so terrified, I couldn’t move my body,” he told the station.
When the teen didn’t respond to verbal commands to drop the towel and show his hands, the officers called for backup and the police department’s tactical unit responded to the scene, police said.
“He goes gets his rifle and he’s pointing it directly at me, I get more scared,” Johnson recounted to WFAA. “My body starts to shake, I can’t move. My body feels stiff. In my mind, I was like, what should I do?”
The SWAT team was ultimately able to get the teen to show his hands and come down the stairs, and officers detained him, handcuffing him and placing him in a patrol car, police said.
Officers determined the teen was unarmed and was not the person making social media threats to the 911 caller and he was not arrested, police said.
“The only thing they said to me was ‘sorry for the misunderstanding. We apologize.’ That wasn’t enough for me,” Johnson told WFAA. “They had me at gunpoint, scared for my life.”
The teen was released to his older brother and guardian, Relius Johnson, who had rushed home from work after he received a call from an officer advising residents to shelter in place.
Relius Johnson told ABC News he didn’t realize at first that his brother was the one being detained by police. He said he spoke to his brother after getting the shelter-in-place call, and that he sounded “panicked.” When he got ahold of him again on the phone, his brother “started screaming, ‘Save me, they’re trying to shoot me,'” Relius Johnson said.
Relius Johnson said he told several officers at the scene that they had the wrong person. Eventually he was able to get a detective to connect with the SWAT commander, he said.
“That’s when he got on my phone with my little brother and got him to come down the stairs,” he said.
The incident lasted nearly three hours, police said.
Relius Johnson believes the situation could have been over a lot sooner if they had listened to him and his brother, whom he said officers kept calling by a different name.
“He was trying to tell them, try to talk to them,” Relius Johnson said. “If they would have listened from the very beginning, that would have been a whole different situation, as well as if they would have listened to me, for about 30, 40 minutes, when I’m trying to tell them that’s my little brother.”
“If I wouldn’t have gotten that call, or if I wouldn’t have been there, I think it would have been a totally different outcome,” he said. “I would be burying my brother instead of him being here.”
Arlington Police Department spokesperson Tim Ciesco told ABC News police are investigating whether the 911 caller mistook the teen for the person threatening him online.
“We don’t have any evidence to show that anybody that was trying to harm him was actually there,” Ciesco said.
Throughout the response, police also determined there were “consistency issues” with the original 911 caller and “slowed down its actions so that we could be sure that we were proceeding appropriately given the circumstances,” the department said. Ciesco could not elaborate on the consistency concerns due to the ongoing investigation.
Members of the police department’s command staff have been in direct contact with the family following the incident, Ciesco said.
Relius Johnson said he reached out to the chief and deputy chief to understand “how did this get to where it did.” They arranged a call on Wednesday and a sit-down meeting next week during which he hopes to get some questions about the incident answered, including why his brother was considered a suspect.
(ROCKVILLE, M.D.) — An Amtrak train departing from Washington, D.C., collided with a semi-truck in Maryland Wednesday evening, officials said.
The incident occurred around 5:20 p.m. in Rockville, Maryland, when the vehicle “obstructed the track” and “came into contact with the train,” Amtrak said in a statement.
None of the 142 passengers and crew aboard Amtrak Capitol Limited train 29 were injured, Amtrak said. The train was en route to Chicago.
Amtrak said it’s working with local law enforcement to investigate the incident.
The railroad service has had other high-profile, sometimes fatal, incidents, in the last year.
In June, an Amtrak train crashed into a dump truck in Mendon, Missouri, killing four people and injuring 150.
Also, in June, another train, this time in Brentwood, California, slammed into a car, killing three people and seriously injuring two others, including a child.
An Amtrak train derailed in northern Montana, killing three people and injuring dozens of people in September 2021. Multiple passengers filed federal lawsuits against Amtrak and the operator of the railroad tracks for negligence.
ABC News’ Amanda Maile, Bill Hutchinson, Mark Osborne, Melissa Gaffney, Teddy Grant, Emily Shapiro and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
(BALTIMORE) — Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic Church leaders rallied in front of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office, calling for the release of preliminary findings of an investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Teresa Lancaster said she was interviewed four years ago upon the launch of the investigation. She told investigators she was abused at Archbishop Keough High School, but she has yet to be given any answers.
“It’s hard not to see any action,” she said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “I would like to hear something, please.”
Jean Wehner, who says she was also abused while a student at Archbishop Keough High School, said that without any updates over the past four years, survivors who spoke with investigators are finding themselves “in an old familiar place where the silence turns to fear.”
“The fear is that we told the secret and that the disclosure will bring harm to us and our loved ones, or that we are not believed, or that we’ve been duped,” she told the Baltimore Sun.
The school, which merged with Seton High School and was renamed Seton Keough in 1988, closed its doors in June 2017.
Lancaster and Wehner were both featured in “The Keepers,” a popular Netflix docuseries released in 2017 that explored the 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and its suspected link to her knowledge of sexual abuse of minors within the church.
Frosh, who is not running for re-election, is set to leave office in January 2023 and survivors are urging him to share the findings before his term comes to a close.
A spokesperson for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday that while the AG’s office cannot comment on ongoing investigations, they can confirm that they have conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed thousands of documents.
“We have made significant progress in the investigation and expect to make an announcement in the coming months,” the spokesperson said.
The investigation into the abuse of children in Baltimore became public in 2018 after Archbishop William E. Lori informed priests and deacons that the archdiocese has been cooperating with the AG’s office in an “investigation of records related to the sexual abuse of children,” according to a statement released by Lori in September of that year.
Lori added, “Based on my conversations with people throughout the Archdiocese…it is clear that we are a Church in crisis and that crisis is one of trust. It is my hope and prayer that this independent review and other acts of transparency by the Archdiocese will bring about greater trust in the Church among those who are understandably skeptical about the Church’s handling of allegations of abuse.”
The Maryland investigation became public after a two-year probe in Pennsylvania ended with a bombshell grand jury report released in August 2018, accusing hundreds of Roman Catholic priests of assaulting children.
So far, no indictments have been announced in Maryland.
Members of “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests” (SNAP), who joined Lancaster and Wehner at the rally on Tuesday, called on the AG to hold abusers accountable, while Maryland SNAP director David Lorenz questioned why the Maryland investigation has taken so long.
“We have perpetrators walking the streets of Maryland, preying on children in Maryland, and the [Office of the Attorney General] is sitting on this information. Why is that?” said Lorenz, according to ABC affiliate station in Baltimore, WMAR.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said water and electricity systems across the state remain heavily damaged Wednesday from intense flooding, an issue raising concerns as scorching heat replaces rainfall.
National, state and local authorities are working to bring food, water and electricity to those in the affected areas, he said.
“These are proud, hardworking folks that have just lost it all, and I think the least we can do as human beings, as people of values, is to give and do what we can to get them back on their feet,” Beshear said.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Beshear also said 1,300 people have been rescued from flooded areas and 3 have been confirmed as missing, although that number is likely higher than what has been reported.
The death toll hasn’t risen since Monday, with 37 people reported to have died due to the floods, according to the governor.
Beshear said that a total of 219 people have been temporarily housed in Kentucky’s state parks and another 221 in shelters, to account for 440 displaced individuals. However, there are many more displaced persons that are staying with friends and family that are not included in that total, he said.
Cooling centers have been established across eight counties region braces for severe heat on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Beshear. The governor encouraged residents, especially elderly, high risk and displaced individuals without electricity to use the cooling centers in order to stay safe in the heat.
Restoring the damaged water systems will require “significant time and significant dollars,” Beshear said.
Beshear added that power outages were cut almost in half on Tuesday, with a remaining 5,058 hookups without power. Water outages remain at just over 1,800 service connections and 45,600 are under boiled water advisories, he said.
The most essential relief right now, Beshear said, is to get people water.
The National Guard has distributed over 2,400 cases of water as of Wednesday morning. Crews continue to deliver supplies and conduct welfare checks, officials said.
Jeremey Lowe, a Kentucky National Guard detachment sergeant and critical care flight paramedic, said the role of his crew has changed from emergency rescues to health and welfare checks over the last couple of days.
At the height of the flooding, Lowe’s crews worked to hoist people off roofs and out of trees using aircraft to take them to a safe area. The paramedics are now working to help elderly and medication dependent residents, he said.
Lowe told ABC News the majority of their welfare checks require no further assistance from the team, as “the people affected are self-sufficient and independent.”
While many people have been evacuated throughout the flooding, some are now sheltering in isolated areas, relying on food and water deliveries from authorities, Kentucky National Guard crew chief Shaun Morris told ABC News.
Morris said flooding conditions seem to be improving, but that debris and damages have left many roads and bridges impassable, making his airborne crews essential to the relief effort.
Beshear said many roads and bridges have been “just eaten away.”
There is a Team Kentucky Flood Relief Fund that has raised over $3 million in donations for affected families, Beshear said.
The first funds will go toward funerals for those who were killed in the floods, Beshear said.
“A lot of the grief that we’ve suppressed these last seven days trying to get the mud out and take care of each other…it’s going to come to the surface,” Beshear said. “Remember it’s okay not to be okay. I don’t think our brains or our hearts are designed to deal with trauma and loss at this level.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — Uvalde, Texas, shooting victim Makenna Lee Elrod loved butterflies so much that they were released at her funeral in June.
Several landed on her siblings and her mother, April Elrod, who said it felt like the 10-year-old was sending them a sign.
“One landed on my shoulder, one landed on her sister’s shoe, which is silly because Makenna is three years younger than her sister but they were the same size shoe and they always fought over shoes,” said Elrod, who spoke with ABC News for her first interview since the tragedy on May 24.
“One landed on her daddy’s tie,” she added.
Elrod recently got a tattoo in Makenna’s honor, she said. Flowers grace her forearm, representing each of her children, and a butterfly sits above Makenna’s flower.
She asked Georgia woodworker Sean Peacock to make her two benches shaped like butterflies in Makenna’s honor, but she didn’t expect he’d make them for free, let alone honor all 21 victims with butterfly benches of their own using donations from GoFundMe.
Elrod has called meeting Peacock “a blessing.” He said the donation is a “love story.”
“He and I’ve been talking since and when I’m having a bad day, he just seems to be the one that messages and says you know, we’re praying for you,” Elrod said. “Her story has brought people closer together. And I mean, what more can you ask for?”
A prayer vigil was held Monday in Uvalde Town Square as the benches were unveiled. The benches were laid alongside crosses that had been put up around the square’s fountain to honor each victim, with many adorned with rosaries, teddy bears, photos and flowers.
Families of several victims joined the Elrod family at the vigil, admiring the benches as the sun went down.
Elrod said Makenna was loved by many, making friends everywhere she went. She said people continue to come up to her and tell her stories about Makenna that she hadn’t heard before.
“When she played softball, she would take an extra 30 minutes to say goodbye at the softball fields before we can leave,” Elrod said.
She was also loved by her teachers, one of whom was a close friend to the Elrods. Irma Garcia, who also died in the shooting, was shielding Makenna during the attack. Elrod herself is a teacher in Uvalde, at Dalton Elementary.
“I knew her and knew what an amazing teacher she was. And so I requested for her to be Makenna’s teacher that year, or this year, and Makenna had a wonderful year. And she was growing. And I mean, she really was having a great year and, and Miss Garcia was an amazing teacher. Amazing,” Elrod said. “And I know that she, that when she left this Earth, that she was being held by Miss Garcia, and she was trying to protect her.”
When people remember Makenna, Elrod wants them to remember her daughter’s bright smile and welcoming demeanor, as well as her faith.
They hope her spirit lives on through a butterfly garden near their home, as well as the memorials of her scattered throughout the city.
“I feel like we’re gonna keep Makenna’s memory alive because we’re gonna love big, like Makenna did,” Elrod said.
