Students Held A Beautiful Seaside Vigil To Honor Stabbing Victim Maren Sanchez Last Night
It’s prom season, and teens across the U.S. are getting ready for their big night. But for the kids of Jonathan Law High School in Milford, Connecticut, prom has taken on a different, darker meaning. Last night dozens of teens gathered at a seaside vigil to mourn their friend Maren Sanchez, the victim of yesterday morning’s fatal high school stabbing, which allegedly occurred when Maren refused to go to prom with her ex.
Students from Jonathan Law High School and other schools in and around Milford gathered at Walnut Beach to pay their respects. The teens were asked to wear their prom attire, and they released dozens of purple balloons in Maren’s honor (because purple was her favorite color).
According to her peers, Maren was extremely well-liked and friendly with everyone. So much so that the candlelight vigil held at the First United Church of Christ for Maren was a packed house with standing room only. According to one friend, Sean Berg:
”She was friends with everyone. It’s a horrible event, but to see all of Milford, it makes us stronger. But it should never have happened.”
This story is overwhelmingly sad. According to news reports, Maren was killed by a jilted ex-boyfriend after she refused to go to the prom with him. The boy, 16-year-old Chris Plaskon, allegedly shoved Maren down a flight of stairs yesterday morning around 7:15 a.m. He then tried to choke her before stabbing her in the neck with a kitchen knife that he had smuggled into school from his home.
The school’s student newspaper, The Advocate, tweeted that students should wear purple on Monday to honor Maren, and tweeted and retweeted various messages covering the vigil. They also let Jonathan Law students know that support staff and counselors will be on hand this weekened, today from 10:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. and tomorrow from noon until 5:00 p.m.
Now, I fully expect the pro-gun and anti-gun fanatics to jump on this story and make it about gun control, but that isn’t what this is about. Just this morning alone I’ve seen dozens and dozens of comments on news stories bringing this subject up, so I wanted to addrtess it here:
And just in case you think people are only arguing about guns vs. knives, there are plenty of other ridiculous comments out there:
This is about one extremely damaged young man taking is disappointment and rage over being rejected out on the object of his affection. It could have happened anywhere, to anyone. I hope the media will choose to focus on this bright young woman’s life instead of how she died and the tool she was killed with, what she supposedly did to “bring it on herself, or anything else.
(Photo: Twitter)
