Minneapolis is in mourning after a school shooting at Annunciation Catholic School on August\u202f27, 2025, killed two children and injured many others .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The father of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel spoke publicly for the first time, saying, \u201cwe will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
play with him and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesse Merkel described Fletcher as someone who loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and \u201cany sport that he was allowed to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He urged the public to \u201cPlease remember Fletcher for the person he was and not the act that ended his life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minneapolis community responded with solidarity\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
organizing vigils, leaving flowers and candles, and offering counseling services to help families heal<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The tragedy reignited calls for action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harper Moyski\u2019s parents, whose 10\u2011year\u2011old daughter also died in the shooting, said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo family should ever have to endure this kind of pain,\u201d and urged leaders to act on gun violence and mental health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. A Father\u2019s Pain Minneapolis is in mourning after a school shooting at Annunciation Catholic School on August\u202f27, 2025, killed two children and injured many others . The father of 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel spoke publicly for the first time, saying, \u201cwe will never be allowed to hold him, talk to him, play with him and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4682,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions\/4682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}