NEW ORLEANS — The halls at Martin Luther King Jr. High School felt empty on Tuesday.
“It feels different,” MyAngel Thomas said.
Twelfth-grade MyAngel Thomas and eleventh-grade LaDaisy say losing their friend, fifteen-year-old Jvoine Elow is still setting in.
“I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was real,” Thomas said.
On Monday night, Elow was shot and killed near the West Lake Forest Neighborhood in New Orleans East.
Elow is one of three children killed in the metro area in less than a week.
On Friday, an eleven-year-old girl was shot and killed in St. John Parish while filling up balloons for her brother’s birthday party when a gunman targeted the wrong house.
Two days later, a thirteen-year-old in St. Bernard Parish died after the sheriff’s office says he accidentally shot himself.
“My heart is broken,” Kaenisha Martin said. “He was more than just a student. This was my baby.”
This wasn’t a first for Elow’s teacher Kaenisha Martin, who lost her own daughter to gun violence at just sixteen years old.
“I’ve been in this situation many times. When it’s you it’s a different hurt. I’ve stood with many parents who have lost their children to violence here in the City of New Orleans,” Martin said.
According to Silence is Violence Executive Director Tamara Jackson, gun violence is spreading in youth like cancer.
“It’s too often that families are mourning the loss of children,” Executive Director of Silence is Violence Tamara Jackson said.
She said her organization’s goal is to cure it, but says ending gun violence altogether will take time.
“We need to use a more holistic lens and have a person-centric approach,” Jackson said.
For Elow’s loved ones, the time for change has passed.
“I don’t think you could meet him without falling in love. He has a heart of gold,” Jackson said.
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