Annunciation, Parkland parents on school safety

Six months after two students were killed and 30 injured by a mass shooter, a community discussion around school shooting prevention focused on paying close attention to children. 

“Listen to our kids. We need to see the world how they see it,” Hennepin County Sheriff Dewanna Witt shared with an audience at Justice Page Middle School on March 5. “We can't be dismissive, and they most certainly can't think that they're alone.”

Before Witt was elected as the county’s sheriff she worked as a school resource officer. 

Witt shared her experience as part of a school safety panel, hosted by Minneapolis Community Education, that included two parents from Annunciation Catholic School, a parent from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and a criminologist and co-founder of The Violence Project that focuses on mass shooting research. 

School staff can feel overwhelmed by the amount of prevention steps to take, James Densley, a criminologist professor at Hamline University explained. 

Taking small steps like checking in about students that teachers are concerned about during already established meetings can make a big difference. 

“Get ahead of the problem before it gets to a point where there's no other intervention except for law enforcement,” Densley said. 

According to Densley’s research, many people are oftentimes aware about a troubled child before they act out. 

“A school resource officer knows something about a kid, a friend knows something about a kid, a guy on the internet chat room knows something about a kid,” Densley explained. “The problem is those individuals are not talking to one another.”

Densley suggested schools refer to this work as “care teams” for students rather than “threat assessment” to help keep students and parents involved in their own help. Densley authored a book with The Violence Project’s co-founder Jillian Peterson in 2022 titled The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic. 

“All of this is preventable, if some of these interventions can put in place much, much, much earlier,” Leah Kaiser, the behavioral health director for Hennepin County, said. Kaiser’s daughter Lydia was shot in the head during the Annunciation mass shooting and survived. 

Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed by a mass shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, has been working on passing gun safety laws with Stand with Parkland and said 80% of the organization’s legislative goals have been met. 

“No one side has the answers, but we all need to start listening to one another,” Montalto said. “After we listen, talk about the thing we agree on, because once we capture the things we agree on in policy or law, you don't have to fight about that next time.” 

A month after Montalto lost his daughter, the Florida legislature raised the minimum age to buy a rifle to 21, established waiting periods and background checks when buying guns, and banned bumped stocks which aid in the rapid firing of guns. 

The Minnesota legislature has not passed any gun violence prevention legislation since the Annunciation shooting but Gov. Tim Walz has proposed a gun violence prevention package for the 2026 legislative session that includes banning military assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, increasing mental health supports, and establishing school safety center resources. 

“Policy has become very divisive and about political sides,” Kristen Neville, an Annunciation parent who opened up her home to the Annunciation community after the mass shooting, shared on March 5. “Versus truly looking at what are the solutions that can get us to a place of being able to protect our kids and being able to prevent these situations from happening.”