‘Ni una vida más’: A week after Durham teens killed, vigil honors gun violence victims
On the heels of multiple shootings that left three Durham high school students dead, a few dozen people gathered for a vigil to remember young victims of gun violence in Durham.
The Tuesday evening vigil, held in English and Spanish, placed emphasis on young Latino victims of shootings. It came a week after the deaths of Angel Canales and Osmar Banegas, two 16-year-old Durham high school students.
Canales and Banegas were found fatally shot last Wednesday near Brogden Middle School. A third student was shot and injured.
An 18-year-old, Jorge Raul Benitez-Mendoza, of Durham, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in the shooting.
Canales was a freshman at Riverside High School and Banegas was a former Riverside student and football player who attended Lakeview School.
READ MORE: Gun violence is a growing cause of death for children in NC, task force study finds
They were the latest students to be shot and killed since Feb. 8, when a 17-year-old Hillside High School student was fatally shot and another student was injured, both near the school property.
“We’re here in support of our families who have suffered because of this recent wave of violence in this city,” the Rev. Edgar Vergara Millán, pastor of La Semilla UMC, said during the vigil at CCB Plaza in Durham.
‘I demand justice’
Vergara Millán and other pastors led bilingual prayers at the vigil, whose attendees included Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead, Durham school board members, City Council member Javiera Caballero and county Commissioner Nida Allam.
Several family members of Emily Argueta Montes de Oca, who was fatally shot by her roommate last April in Durham, were also there.
“I demand justice not just for my daughter, but also for all the children we’re losing,” Nelly Argueta Montes de Oca said in Spanish at the vigil. “My daughter was 22 years old; she had a brilliant future. She loved her job. She was a (nursing) assistant at UNC. She loved to care for the sick, and they took her away from me.”
Montes de Oca was known to the family and friends of the teenage shooting victims’ families.
A family member of Banegas was also at the vigil but declined to speak to reporters.
Denouncing gun violence as child death rates rise
The child death rate in North Carolina has continued to rise mainly due to suicides and homicides, The News & Observer reported recently. Homicides overwhelmingly carried out with guns were the leading cause of death for children between 15 and 17 years old in 2021.
“I love all of my students and I don’t want to hear, ‘One of your students have died,’” said Michelle Esperanza Herrera, who identified herself as a Durham Public Schools teacher. “We have to do something for our communities, we have to work together.”
Laura Durán, who graduated from Riverside High School in 2017, held signs, along with other people, denouncing gun violence.
The signs included “Ni una vida más,” or “Not one more life” in English.
READ MORE: As more NC teens die from gunfire, more parents plunge into nightmares with no escape
“While in school I saw a lot of young people die,” Durán said. “It felt normal, but now that I’m older and more mature, I see it now. That’s not OK and that’s never been normal. It’s astonishing that we’re still in the same place.”
Vigil attendees lit candles and sang songs in English and Spanish led by at-large school board member Alexandra Valladares, who played the guitar.
“Blow your candles out, but don’t blow the hope, don’t blow the love,” Valladares said. “Blow the flame out but make sure that flame goes into your heart.”
How to donate to fund to support families of victims
Magan Gonzales-Smith, executive director of the Durham Public Schools Foundation, said that the DPS Community Crisis Support Fund was launched to support the families of shooting victims in response to the recent shootings.
You can donate to the fund on the foundation’s website at http://bit.ly/3FZtt89.
This story was originally published March 29, 2023 at 1:32 PM.
