The conditions couldn’t have been worse for an outdoor event in Southern California: By Friday night, Santa Clarita had been under a day-long downpour, and at 6 p.m. it showed no signs of slowing down. Night had come on an hour before the event.
None of it mattered to the roughly 40 attendees who stood by the remembrance obelisks at the entrance to Central Park Friday evening, including Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, and Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth.
Small spotlights lighting up the obelisks – dedicated to 14-year-old Dominic Blackwell and 15-year-old Gracie Muehlberger, the two students killed during the Saugus High School shooting six years ago to the day – drew the crowd in and together.
The remembrance event was organized, as have other similar events in the past few years, by the Santa Clarita chapter of Moms Demand Action. Tiffany Tretta – a mom whose daughter was wounded during the shooting – had found the organization in the wake of the shooting.
Carolyn Vees, who co-organized the remembrance event with Tretta, said she’d also joined the chapter after the shooting, along with roughly 50 other new members. Many of them were in the crowd Friday.
“We have our regulars. Some are really good friends with the Trettas, but others have joined from their own personal experiences, or just, like me, wanting to use their voice for change and to try to feel like we’re doing something,” Vees said. “To feel like we’re doing something proactive, that we’re not just sitting stagnant waiting for this to happen to our own family members or our own friends.”
Joseph Holguin, 20, was seemingly the youngest person not in a group at the obelisks. He didn’t have an umbrella – just a hood to cover his head.
“I’m here tonight to remember my friend Dominic. I knew him quite a bit, and every year I go to his grave, and every year I go to his grave, visit him,” Holguin said. “And quite a bit I come down here and … kind of reflect on how much I miss him, because it’s been six years now, and I think he should have graduated high school with the rest of his class. And I think it’s pretty amazing how a bunch of people are coming by and remembering him and Gracie.”
The rain did put a bit of a dent in the night’s plans for a walk around Central Park. It was meant to end with attendees putting down one of the provided pink and yellow roses at the foot of the obelisks. Instead, the crowd was encouraged to stay put, talk, and if so inclined, put down a rose.
Whitesides and Schiavo spoke to the crowd about what had happened at Saugus High – and what it meant for them to do something about it. That was namely “common-sense” gun regulations, including safe gun storage and tighter background check procedures.
For many in the crowd, it wasn’t a once-a-year concern, or exclusive to their visits to the obelisks. It’s everywhere, all the time.
“We all say that this will never happen in our community. It can’t. It’s Santa Clarita. It’s safe. You know, it’s filled with families,” Vees said. “It happened in our own backyard, and I had already been feeling very strongly about gun violence.”
Vees has a 9-year-old son, and sending him to school every day – or even, sometimes, just going out in public – can be nerve-wracking. Speaking up about what can be done, together, gives her a sense of control, she said.
“You never know where or when this could happen,” Vees said. “When it happened in our own community, that was my final straw of, ‘I can’t do this anymore. I need to use my voice to try to bring about change, and I need to learn how to do that.’”
