Marysville school shooting vigil: ‘Love one another. Weep together.’
The governor showed up, and so did the mayor of this grieving midsized city north of Seattle. The Friday night football game had been canceled -- Marysville-Pilchuck High School versus Oak Harbor -- and the Oak Harbor boys squeezed into the auditorium of the Grove Church to cry and pray along with their rivals.
Hours earlier, Jaylen Fryberg, a freshman football player and Homecoming prince, had opened fire in the Marysville-Pilchuck school cafeteria, killing one female classmate and injuring four other students before fatally shooting himself, authorities said.
Each bullet that Fryberg fired tore apart the region’s safety and calm. As dusk fell and rain threatened, hundreds of students and parents, teachers and neighbors gathered together in search of solace. There were hymns, prayers and a moment of silence punctuated by tears.
There was Scripture: “Come to me all of you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” There was horror. And there was hope.
“I hate this tragedy as much as any of you,” Pastor Nik Baumgart told the mourners who filled the church auditorium and its lobby and flowed out into the parking lot. “I hate what’s going on. I hate what we’ve had to see.
“And I remember all kinds of times when I’ve had the same thoughts that you’ve had about that city, about that situation, about those schools,” he continued. “Now that’s us. Now that’s my alma mater. Here’s what we’re here to do tonight. It’s simple. It’s honestly overly simple. Love one another. Weep together.”
Baumgart noted that among those in the audience, where the occasional red T-shirt bearing the school symbol, a tomahawk, stood out in the dim light, were students who were in the cafeteria when Fryberg opened fire. Those students, all students, he said, need to know that they are not alone as they struggle with trauma, pain, anger.
The four students who were wounded -- two girls and two boys -- had been rushed to Providence Regional Medical Center in nearby Everett.
One of the boys, a 14-year-old, was later airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. By Friday evening, the second injured boy was also taken to Harborview. All four victims were in intensive care.
The 14-year-old boy was shot in the jaw and remains in serious condition, and the second boy, 15, was shot in the head and remains in critical condition, a Harborview official told the Los Angeles Times on Friday night.
The two girls, whose ages weren’t specified, were both shot in the head and remained in critical condition at Providence, a hospital official said.
Fryberg, the son of a prominent family in the Tulalip tribe of Native Americans, apparently was distraught over a recent breakup with his girlfriend. His postings on social media suggested that he was upset over personal relationships.
“It won’t last ... it’ll never last,” Fryberg said in his final posting on Twitter on Thursday.
Two days earlier he wrote: “It breaks me.... It actually does.... I know it seems like I’m sweating it off.... But I’m not.... And I never will be.”
One student, a fellow football player, said Fryberg had at least one altercation at school. “He had gotten in a fistfight with another football player about two weeks ago,” said Cesar Zatarain, 16.
A school official reported the shooting at 10:39 a.m., according to Marysville Police Cmdr. Robert Lamoureux, who said officers confirmed “the shooter was down” just four minutes later.
Marysville Police Chief Rick Smith, at a Friday evening news conference, declined to discuss Fryberg or possible motives behind the shooting, saying he would not “dramatize someone who perpetrated a violent crime and cruel act in a place where children should be safe.”
An official with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, speaking at the same news conference, said authorities had determined that the gun Fryberg used had been obtained legally. He did not elaborate, however, and would not say what type of firearm it was.
Herman Williams Sr., chairman of the Tulalip tribe Board of Directors, issued a statement late Friday saying that “tribal members” were involved in the shooting.
“I am deeply saddened by the terrible tragedy in our local school district,” he said. “The fact that tribal members were involved makes it extremely hard to respond to any inquiries until we are aware of all the circumstances.”
Dr. Joanne Roberts of Providence Regional Medical Center appeared shaken as she spoke to reporters, and said she had already met with more than two dozen relatives of the injured.
“Our community is going to mourn this for years,” she said, adding that even seasoned hospital staffers “will all go home tonight and cry.”
La Ganga reported from Marysville, and Queally and Parker reported from Los Angeles.
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