On a street corner in south Minneapolis Aug. 27, Suzanne Garcia stood with her daughter, Clarissa, clearly relieved. Around them, other parents walked home with their children and hugged one another, crying and grief-stricken. Law enforcement officers, equipped with heavy weapons, kept watch.
Clarissa, a fifth grader, wore an Annunciation School uniform. Suzanne held her daughter tight against her hip. Suzanne said she had heard about a shooting at the school and shortly after received a call from her daughter asking to be picked up. Arriving later was Suzanne’s husband, Deacon Ramon Garcia Degollado.
When Suzanne arrived at the school, she had to be dropped off a few blocks south of Annunciation because police cars and yellow tape blocked the roads.
Suzanne got out of the car and started running and screaming, “Clarissa! Where are you?”
She saw a line of students leaving the school. She found her daughter in the crowd of children being evacuated.
“We were talking about her guardian angel,” Suzanne said of the conversation she was having with her daughter on the street corner.
Two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the shooting at Annunciation’s 8:30 a.m. Mass Aug. 27. The suspected shooter also was dead. Seventeen other people were hurt, including 14 children, police said.
Suzanne said she was in a group chat with other mothers of students at Annunciation. They were updating each other on their children’s safety. At the time, Suzanne said, some mothers were still waiting.
“I’d already heard (Clarissa’s) voice (over the phone), but there’s nothing like putting my arms around her,” Suzanne said. “It’s something you see in the news. It’s not something that you live.”
