'We Choose To Stand Here': Annunciation marks one month since mass shooting
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On a wiffleball field outside of the site of a mass shooting, Annunciation Catholic School principal Matthew DeBoer said what was on many people’s minds.
“We don’t want to be standing here today,” he told a crowd of about 125 people at a prayer service on Saturday. “But we choose to stand here.”
On Aug. 27 — just one month earlier — two children were killed and 21 people injured in shooting during a worship service that drew attention worldwide, including from Pope Leo XIV. Harper Moyski, 10, and Fletcher Merkel, 8, both students at the school, died that day.
“We’re here to stand, to sing, to live, to non-violently fight for Harper and Fletcher and all of us impacted by that day,” DeBoer said. “Remembering what happened, but not being defined by what happened.”
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Jen Campbell has been an active member of Annunciation for 27 years and is currently a trustee.
“Today was really about coming together and remembering everything that we have and to be a light for others,” she said. “It’s really important to be here and to honor Fletcher and Harper and to hold each other up because we’re all still healing.”
Being with others was also important to Catherine Spandel, who was inside the church on the day of the shooting.
“I get so much strength from my community,” Sandel said, before boarding a bus to attend a memorial service across town at the Cathedral of St. Paul led by Archbishop Bernard Hebda.
Inside the Cathedral, as flowers adorned the altar and nuns lined the first row of pews, several hundred people worshipped and remembered.
“We pray for healing, most especially for our Annunciation family,” Hebda said.
At about the same time, protestors rallied at the Minnesota State Capitol against gun violence. Dubbed the “Don’t Look Away” rally and organized by Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, demonstrators called on Gov. Tim Walz to call a special session on a policy response to gun violence.
Brittany Haeg, whose 6-year-old son, David, was shot one month ago and spent days recovering in the hospital, was wearing a blue Annunciation T-shirt at the rally.
“One of the things David has said in the last few weeks when people ask him how he’s feeling, he says he’s sad and he’s mad,” Haeg said. “And I think that’s how I’m feeling.”
When asked if she’s feeling hope, Haeg wasn’t sure.
“Hope is a fragile thing,” she said. “It’s amazing to see the outpouring of community support. What we know about this issue is that it is broadly popular to take the kind of life saving measures that would have protected my kid.”
Olivia Hanson contributed to this story.
Correction (Sept. 27, 2025): An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Mary Gianna.
