Kendall Scott, 17, was excited to be graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School on Tuesday, which was to take place shortly after Huguenot High School’s graduation at Richmond’s Altria Theater.

He was just a few blocks away from the Altria Theater when the shots rang out. Kendall received a call from his grandmother.

“She was in the crossfire,” Kendall said. “She told me ‘they’re shooting, they’re shooting’ and she told us to turn back around.”

It wasn’t long before Kendall learned the reason for his grandmother’s frantic call. A fatal shooting had occurred near Monroe Park around 5 p.m. just as jubilant Huguenot graduates and families left the Altria Theater. Seven people were shot and others were injured, including a 9-year-old who was hit by a car during the commotion.

Several hours later, city officials and police confirmed that Huguenot graduate Shawn Jackson, 18, and his stepfather, Renzo Smith, 36, died from their injuries. Amari Pollard, 19, was arrested and charged with two counts of second degree murder for the shooting.

Kendall was afraid for his grandmother, friends and Thomas Jefferson High School faculty when he heard the news. He also was upset that he could not graduate, but he feels safer attending his rescheduled graduation ceremony because of increased security. However, he is afraid of what could happen in public spaces.

“You never know what’s on people’s minds these days,” Kendall said.

Kelly Johnson-Crowder, Kendall’s mother and a teacher at Carver Elementary School, is devastated for the families affected and her son.

“Unfortunately, living in the city of Richmond, too many moms are burying their children,” she said. “It should be the other way around.”

She would like the rescheduled graduation to take place at Thomas Jefferson High School and would feel unsafe at the Altria Theater. However, her family will be out of the country to celebrate Kendall’s graduation and she believes he will miss his opportunity to walk across the stage.

Mrs. Johnson-Crowder suggests stricter gun laws and harsher penalties could help prevent these incidents from occurring. Correcting bad behavior in children as early as elementary school could also help curb these issues.

“There is no value to human life anymore,” she said. “No one cares about human life.”

Leslie Brown, a VCU employee, and Laurel West, a teacher at Bellevue Elementary, attended a community march near the Virginia State Capitol on Wednesday to protest the shooting.

Ms. Brown believes protests should happen every day because this is an everyday issue somewhere in the United States. Awareness of the shooting could help spark change, but the issue could keep occurring, she said, adding that more legislation should be in place to prevent such incidents.

“I cannot even fathom the choices now in front of parents,” Ms. Brown said. I just don’t understand why you would do that to your friends and neighbors, even people you don’t like.”

Ms. West has run out of words for such incidents and does not understand why the issue with shootings has not been addressed.

“I don’t know what else we need to say,” Ms. West said. “Do we really believe that guns are more important than our children because we’re sure acting like we do.”

Dr. Dennis Parker, COO of the mental health agency, Hargrove Oliver & Parker Enterprises, also is president of Caliber Virginia, which represents minority community-based mental health service providers across the Commonwealth. Dr. Parker said has worked with a teen who knew someone involved in the shooting at the Altria Theater and the teen discussed the issue in a “very numb, non-emotional manner.”

Dr. Parker is saddened by the shooting and believes such situations are what leads to post traumatic stress syndrome in many Black communities.

This causes numbness in order to survive, he said. Black teens suffer from PTSD expecting that these issues are a part of life and are going to happen.

“It does give you some type of cop- ing mechanism,” Dr. Parker said. “But it also normalizes behavior such that you may or may not take the proactive steps to try to redirect it and change some of that because you get to think that it’s just the way it is.”

Caliber Virginia and Dr. Parker will host a virtual session on June 15 to discuss ways to protect teens and young people.