(I had not published this earlier but recent events in Minneapolis with the ICE killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti brought these feelings up again. So time to share. Renee and Alex did not go out of their homes on their last day knowing it was going to end that way. They each had final words and thoughts, but their deaths came suddenly and violently. When I saw the photo of Alex face down with a spray can near his face, it made me sick to think that might have been the last thing he saw. Morbid thoughts perhaps, but mine and now yours. We are better than this, or dear God I hope we are.)
On August 27, 2025, an angry young man brought three guns to Annunciation Catholic Church in a Minneapolis suburb and began firing through windows of the church at the school children praying at Mass inside. Praying at Mass…
When Pat Scallen, a neighbor who lived near the church, heard what he thought were gun shots, he ran to the church and encountered children fleeing the building. Inside he found two children, aged 8 and 10, lying on the floor. As he approached Harper Moyski, a little 10-year-old girl who had been shot in her head, she said to him: “Please just hold my hand.” And he did as she asked.
When I read those words of hers, tears came immediately to my eyes. And I’ve been sad and angry ever since.
Her words hit me in the gut. I have been thinking about them all day. What was going through her young mind at that moment? Did she understand what had happened? Did she realize she was about to die? It tormented me to think about it but I had to think about it…and so do all of us. Because she is not just a number…she was a little 8-year-old girl, someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, a friend and playmate.
Do we, as Americans, stop to think about those final moments when a bullet or bullets take the life or lives of our children? Or are they just actors in a news story? It makes me sad that we have become so accustomed to these events that perhaps it doesn’t get into our guts and our hearts. We need to re-connect with the reality that these are real lives with families who love them and friends who love them and communities they are a loving part of.
A GUN killed Harper in cold blood. An angry young man who wrote that he wanted to see children suffer KILLED her. Took her life in cold blood with cold steel bullets fired from his gun. And now she is dead.
God bless Pat Scallen who was there and able to give her some moment of comfort by holding her hand.
Say her name — she was a happy and loving daughter and sister: Harper Moyski.
Please just hold my hand.
PolicyMatters 