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JD Vance speaks to Annunciation Church families
Amid protests for gun violence reform, Vice President JD Vance met with Annunciation Church families when he visited the memorial in Minneapolis. FOX 9's Corin Hoggard has the latest report.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Vice President JD Vance came to Minneapolis Wednesday and met with families that’ll never be the same after the Annunciation Church and School shooting.
The Vice President was at the church on Diamond Lake near Lyndale Avenue for about 90 minutes, but it sounds like he got a lot out of it, including a walkthrough of the chapel with Fletcher Merkel’s dad, Jesse, who hadn’t seen it since Fletcher and Harper Moyski were killed.
Special visit
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VP Vance visits Annunciation memorial
Vice President JD Vance came to Minneapolis Wednesday and met with families that’ll never be the same after the Annunciation Church and School shooting.
Annunciation arrival:
Vice President Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance walked up to Annunciation Church just after noon, delivering flowers to the public memorial and pausing to pay their respects.
Inside the church, the vice president met with the parents of victims, their principal, and their priest.
And he left with a message of remembrance.
"I wish we talked a lot more about Harper, who was a beautiful young girl," he said. "She had a beautiful smile, the kind of smile that would turn a bad day into a good one. I also wish we talked a little bit more about Fletcher, who was a very rambunctious and energetic kid, was a beautiful kid, had an incredible head of hair."
Gun control sermon
Can he hear?:
Protesters tried to deliver messages about gun control to the vice president at blockades.
But if he heard any voices, it was those coming from homes across the street from the church, where the mother of Fletcher Merkel’s close friend and classmate worried her concerns fell on deaf ears.
"It feels very hopeless," said Kacie Sharpe, who said Fletcher was her son Trip’s best friend. "It's just time after time after time, and it feels nothing is ever done. How are we supposed to send our kids back to school now?"
Sharpe says her son is physically okay, but he’ll never be the same.
And she doesn’t believe Vice President Vance will help implement the gun control measures she thinks could prevent the next mass shooting targeting kids.
"I don't, but I'm hoping that I'm wrong," she said. "I'm praying that I am wrong."
From the Vatican
The pope's blessing:
Vance is a converted Catholic, though, and Sharpe said she hopes he heard Pope Leo’s message over the weekend.
"Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school mass in the American state of Minnesota," said the first American pope during his noon blessing on Sunday at The Vatican. "We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world."