Students gather to remember Luis Garcia at memorial outside East High School
East High School students gathered around a memorial outside the school on Thursday morning as they remembered Luis Garcia who died more than two weeks after a shooting near the school. The memorial included flowers and keepsakes that students brought to remember their classmate who was described as caring and loving.
Garcia, 16, was taken off life support on Wednesday. He was shot on Feb. 13.
The shooting forced the lockdown of students at East High School in Denver and the closure of the intersection of City Park Esplanade and 17th Avenue.
Police say someone shot from a car and into the car Garcia was in. The car has at least two bullet holes in the windshield.
Officers say they found the alleged suspects and their car, a white KIA Sportage about two hours after the shooting in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood. Two suspects were taken into custody and questioned.
At the time, police believed the KIA was stolen.
The shooting has sparked a movement among students at the school to initiate a conversation with community leaders, school administration and police about safety and gun violence.
The family has set up a fundraising page to help with funeral expenses.
Anyone with information on the murder should contact police or Denver Metro Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.
East Students Demand Action is hosting an event Friday in light of all of this violence happening in the community. For more information on that visit: https://bit.ly/3SDxUKV
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock issued this statement on Thursday: We need to work together as a community to come up with solutions, and more importantly, a message and actions that demonstrate we will never normalize this. While our schools are generally safe, with young people bringing guns to school, students have a perception that schools are unsafe. I was never in favor of removing officers from our schools. Instead of removing officers, it should have been a conversation about how we train our officers better, how they can approach situations differently and give them the tools to approach situations differently, rather than giving citations to students.
