By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
December 17, 2025
Describing what students are having to learn in the classroom at a time when school shootings happen too often, Holden Pasley said what most in the small crowd were probably thinking – “This is not normal.”
The lanky, shaggy-haired senior at Herron High School in Indianapolis detailed the experience of instinctively searching for the best place to hide in case a gunman enters the building, participating in active shooter drills and knowing how to stop gunshot victims from bleeding out.
“This is not normal, but it’s what we’re all being forced to go through,” Pasley said.
Pasley was among a small crowd who came together at the Statehouse on Friday afternoon for the Sandy Hook Remembrance Day ceremony. Members of Moms Demand Action, faith leaders and lawmakers gathered to commemorate the 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, who were killed by a lone gunman on Dec. 14, 2012.
The speakers shared how they had been touched by school shootings, prayed for all the lives lost to gun violence and called for legislation to keep children, schools and communities safe.
“We have the right to grieve and then we have the hope to turn our grief into action,” Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn, D-Fishers, said during the ceremony.
Indiana members of Moms Demand Action have held a remembrance for the Sandy Hook victims for several years, but Friday was the first time the organization assembled in the Statehouse to mark the heartbreaking anniversary. Sounds from the ceremony, which included musical performances, prayers and remarks by Democrat legislators, echoed throughout the nearly empty state capitol building.
Donations of children’s shoes were collected to commemorate the young victims of gun violence and given to Grace Care Center, a food pantry operated by Grace Community Church in Noblesville. Holding a pair of white and pink sneakers, Pastor Barry Rodriguez thanked the crowd for its generosity and said the footwear would be going to children “who need a little bit of hope.”
Rodriguez then cited Psalm 72, which offers a vision of the poor, oppressed, weak and needy being lifted up.
“Father God, we acknowledge that our nation has failed these children that have been lost, that there has not been adequate justice, that there has not been adequate representation for those who are crying out to you, who are defenseless and need your help,” Rodriguez prayed. “We have failed them, and yet, Father, we know you have called us to be different. You have called us to change this world.”
According to Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit founded by several of the families whose loved ones were killed at the elementary school, more than 390,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999. Garcia Wilburn and her Democratic colleagues in the legislature recounted how school shootings had bookmarked their lives.
Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, said she was a high school junior studying in the science lab when she and her classmates learned of the horror at Columbine. When the tragedy at Sandy Hook unfolded, Hunley was a principal working in her elementary school, and when she learned of students killed at Florida’s Parkland High School in 2018, she was helping second graders exchange Valentine’s Day cards.
Sen. Carey Hamilton, D-Indianapolis, had sons in middle school and was serving in her first legislative session as a lawmaker when the Parkland massacre occurred. Wanting to do something to prevent another mass shooting, she offered an amendment that would have banned bump stocks and when she was denied the opportunity to introduce her provision, she took a point of personal privilege to explain why she thought legislators should at least debate the measure on the House floor. Several Republican representatives quietly thanked her afterward, she said, but the supermajority avoided further discussion of her amendment by killing the entire gun bill.
Garcia Wilburn remembered after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, her 9-year-old son told her not to worry. He assured her if someone was shooting in his school, he would stay safe by running into the nearby woods.
“I nearly lost my breath,” Garcia Wilburn said. “My precious son was carrying the weight of inaction by local and federal lawmakers.”
An emotional Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, told the crowd he lost his brother-in-law to gun violence and confessed he was tired of attending memorials and commemorations of mass shootings. He said children should be most concerned about recess and story time and teachers should go to school thinking of only how to nurture and educate their students. But too often, he said, students and educators are going to school and never returning home.
“Friends, today is not about politics, but when it becomes personal, it becomes politics,” Qaddoura said. “When your family and your life is on the line, it’s politics because they’re making decision in his building on our behalf for our own families.”
Pasley asked lawmakers to take action so students do not have to wonder every day whether they will be safe in class. “We cannot go another 13 years before making a change,” Pasley said, noting the Sandy Hook anniversary. “I really don’t want to be here in 13 years to listen to students of the future begging us to make this change.”
The ceremony opened and closed with prayers. Rabbi Brett Krichiver called for all to remember “our duty to protect one another and, most importantly, those less fortunate than ourselves. Pastor Gerson Cardona of Mercy Road Church in Carmel reminded the crowd, “you are your brother’s keeper,” and Carmel City Councilor Anita Joshi, recited a Hundu prayer that seeks a world “where every child will grow in this peace.”
Louise Jackson inspired the attendees by leading them in the children’s song, “This Little Light of Mine.”
Following the ceremony, the members of Moms Demand Action, clad in red t-shirts, huddled together for a group photo.
Cathy Weinmann of the local Moms Demand Action said coming on Friday to the Statehouse was very meaningful because laws can make a difference. She and her friends spend a lot of time trying to convince lawmakers to support gun safety bills, and even though they have not had much success, she still has hope the General Assembly will eventually pass laws to protect children and families from gun violence.
“If I didn’t believe there would be, I couldn’t be in this group,” Weinmann said. “I have to have that hope.”
Colleen Steffen, executive editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, edited this article. She worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for more than 13 years and is now in her 10th year teaching college journalists.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
