The Hardest Stories to Tell

We launched Since Parkland with a simple mission in mind: to tell the stories of nearly 1,200 children and teens who were shot and killed in America in the year following the Parkland massacre. We worked with student journalists to write the profiles because young people in the U.S. are contending with gun violence every day, navigating the threat of gunfire in their neighborhoods, and participating in regular lockdown drills at school. Gun violence is their story to report.

When the project went live in February in partnership with the Miami Herald, McClatchy newspapers, and NowThis News, the profiles were organized in categories that showed these children and teens as more than just statistics: They were athletes, musicians, siblings, college-bound seniors, young parents, community volunteers, dancers, artists, and more.

But one category, “Stories Left to Tell,” housed profiles of more than 100 young victims whose hobbies, talents, and aspirations remained unknown. Some of them were killed too close to the launch of the project for the student journalists to have time to report them out. Other victims landed in the category because they had left no discernible digital trail. But the majority of the incomplete profiles — most of them were of black and brown teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18 — remained unfinished because the media coverage we relied on to seed our reporting was so scant.

Over the summer, we assembled a team of 10 of the teen journalists who powered Since Parkland to correct that.

The young reporters were dogged in their search for sources and tips. They reached out to coaches, classmates, and neighbors. They sent Instagram DMs to cousins, best friends, and significant others. They listened to victims’ SoundCloud songs and watched their YouTube videos. They spent hours on the phone with grieving brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. They identified previously unknown victims and in multiple cases found the correct spellings of names mangled by initial reports.

By September, they added humanizing detail to 85 profiles, resulting in stories like these: 

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Israel Gamez Jr.

Age 18

Woodbridge, Virginia

In awe of his newborn son

“Family was the driving force in his life,” his older sister Maria said.

She saw it in the home-cooked meals he would bring her when she was a struggling single mother. In the pedicures he got with their mother, just so he could spend time with her. She saw it in the way he’d kiss his son — with an “awed look, like ‘I made that,’” Maria recalled. “That baby was everything to him.”

Israel Gamez Jr., 18, was shot and killed during an alleged robbery in Woodbridge, Virginia, on November 4, 2018. His son was 28 days old.

By Prerna Mukherjee, age 16, and Callie McQuilkin, age 18

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Abaas Aidarus Mohamed

Age 17

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Earned college acceptance, supported his mom

His sister recalled his dedication and love for their mother. At 16, he sold some of his belongings. “The minute he got the money in his hands,” his sister said, “he went straight to my mom and gave her everything.”

A senior at Clarkson High School, he studied diligently and got into Georgia State University. He dreamed of creating a successful franchise in the fashion industry to make his mother proud. She had immigrated from Somalia to give them a better life. He just wanted to take care of her.

On November 11, 2018, Abaas Aidarus Mohamed, 17, was shot and killed in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

By Katherine Oung, age 15, and Sophia McDermott-Hughes, age 18

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Christopher Williams

Age 18

Brooklyn, New York

Web design intern, brother of six

Dancing in the living room, candlestick in hand, tapping along in what he called his “Michael Jackson shoes” — that’s how his mother, Shawndell Henry, remembers him. “He lit up the world,” she told The Trace. 

The brother of six siblings was a web design intern and an up-and-coming rapper whose favorite meal was his mom’s Caribbean shrimp roti.

Christopher Williams, 18, saved his friend from an attack outside a Brooklyn storefront, but was shot in the back as he walked away. He died days later on June 16, 2018. His mother hopes to start an anti-gun violence organization in his honor.

By Fawziah Fariha, age 17, and Sarah Emily Baum, age 18

Our work does not end with this update, however. Two dozen Stories Left to Tell remain; nearly all are of teens of color. Our student reporters, assisted by staffers from The Trace, will keep digging. But we need your help. You can find the list of incomplete profiles here. If you have information to share on any of them, please write us at [email protected]. 

All of the Since Parkland profiles required tenacious reporting and dedication from our teen journalists, but the 85 profiles in this collection took extra effort. They go beyond the thin or nonexistent local and national news coverage that followed the victim’s shooting, which often failed to tell readers anything beyond the circumstances of death. They honor these young people by revealing who they were to those who loved them. 

These were the hardest stories to tell, and they are worth your time. 

— Katina Paron and Akoto Ofori-Atta