GRANADA HILLS : Slain Boy’s Mother to Address Students

The mother of a 15-year-old shot to death at a party will take her crusade against guns and violence to Granada Hills High School next week.

“To stand up in front of a group and continually tell them about the night my son was killed, it hurts, it hurts,” Lyn Squires said. “I cut out a lot of details, the pain is so deep. . . . But when I say, ‘our son was shot, he never came home,’ you can hear a pin drop. Everyone is intent. In that moment, you can educate.”

Granada Hills High School student Marc Squires was fatally shot by an 18-year-old youth at a party in 1990.

Joan Lewis, coordinator for a gang-intervention program at the high school, said many of the students who knew Marc have already graduated, but said she hopes Squires’ visit will leave an impression on a younger generation of students who have entered since his death.

For Squires, the assembly is an extension of her efforts of the past two years. Following Marc’s death, she and her husband, Clark, formed a group called MARC (Mad About Rising Crime) devoted to educating people about violence and guns. The group has held community seminars, organized graffiti cleanups and provided training sessions for teachers. Squires has addressed smaller groups of students, but has never before addressed an entire student body.

Squires said she wants to prevent other parents from enduring what her family faced when Marc was shot during an argument with a gang member over a beeper.

“Marc had been saying there were some problems at school, but as parents it doesn’t quite sink in,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t know to look for it.”