KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Monday is a difficult day at one Kansas City, Mo., elementary school as students and staff are mourning the deaths of two boys, ages 8 and 9, who were both shot and killed early Saturday morning.
Below is an image that was posted to Facebook on Sunday following the shooting.
One woman told FOX 4 News the boys both were playing football in her yard hours before the shootings happened.
“To the people who actually live here such as myself, this is our reality it’s not just a story,” Latonya Johnson said. “If you care enough to ride past just to look up the house I just feel you should care enough to, I don’t know, leave a balloon. Something to say I care outside of just riding past because those were two babies.”
Both boys had returned to school just last week at Hogan Prep Elementary, where they each had attended classes for the last four years.
Described as outgoing and popular, their deaths have hit the school hard, and there are counselors and social workers on hand Monday to help classmates and teachers grieve.
“They are a large family with lots of cousins,” Hogan Prep Superintendent, Dr. Danny Tipton, said. “They are in all of our schools, in the high school, in the middle school and in the elementary school. So they are a Hogan family. They are some of the ones who have been here for a long, long time.”
A 16-year-old girl wounded in the shooting, actually returned to school Monday at Hogan Prep Academy. Tipton says it was important for her to get back to her routine, to try to return some sense of normalcy to a life that’s been forever changed.
Police say detectives are continuing to work hard on the case. Neighbors say adult family members are no longer living at the house where the crimes happened. They have returned only to gather clothing and other personal belongings.