How do you tell kids a friend was killed? These Sacramento adults speak from experience

The fourth graders burst into tears when their teacher shared the news.

She had taken a leave from teaching but entered the Bannon Creek School in South Natomas with administrators in tow and delivered the awful announcement: Their classmate, 9-year-old Samarah Mora Gutierrez, was dead. So were her two sisters.

Darlene Tellis, a long-term substitute teacher for Samarah’s class, recounted the interaction.

Immediately, tears began to flow as close friends of Samarah and 10-year-old Samantha Mora Gutierrez learned of their classmates’ deaths. Their father David Fidel Mora-Roja killed his three daughters in 2022 — Samarah, Samantha and their 13-year-old sister, Samia Mora Gutierrez, who attended Leroy Greene Academy — and a 59-year-old man before turning the gun on himself at The Church in Sacramento, authorities have said.

Tellis recalled passing out Kleenex, distributing a pound cake specifically she bought for her lunch and playing music in hopes to soothe nerves.

But the heaviness settled deeply in Tellis, the moment still a serious and shocking one in her life.

“How does a child wrap their head around this?” Tellis remembers wondering.

The instance provides a glimpse into how violence ripples through a community outside of the immediate family after a child is gunned down. It’s a reality that a teen’s family, loved ones and classmates have begun to grapple with once again after gunfire struck and killed a 15-year-old boy Monday at an Arden Arcade apartment.

A group of teenage girls released balloons outside the apartment complex on Tuesday, hugging and embracing one another. The group, including Myiah Wooders, 15, who said she was the victim’s girlfriend, spoke briefly to a Sacramento Bee journalist but did not identify the 15-year-old who died. His identity will be released by the coroner once family has been notified.

Homicides among youth increased during the COVID-19 pandemic but have dropped since then, according to The Sacramento Bee’s analysis of the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office records. But the impact of one death can have long-lasting impacts on a person.

Since 2020, 33 children have died from homicides in the county, including 11 in 2022.

More than half of the youth killed were 17, according to the analysis. A 10-year-old shot and killed another 10-year-old last year in Old Foothill Farms — the first time since 1980 that such an instance occurred, according to information provided by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office via a Public Records Act request.

An additional 18 homicide victims since 2020 were 18 years old.

So far this year, Sacramento County has seen two shooting deaths among teens, according to law enforcement and coroner’s records, including Monday’s in Arden Arcade.

Elijah Wallace Jr., 17, was killed in Colonial Manor on June 15. He was set to play varsity football at Cordova High School during his senior year. Family described Wallace as a person who possessed undeniable charm, a kind heart and infectious smile, according to a GoFundMe created to help with funeral costs.

Venting, memorials: How students and others cope with death

The impact of gun violence leaves a lasting impression on students.

Mathew J. Bradley, a former Valley High School basketball coach, recalled how the death of his student, D’Andre Blackwell, scared his team immensely. They all realized youth doesn’t offer invincibility, he said.

“I love D’Andre and miss him a lot,” Bradley wrote in an email. He is now the assistant men’s basketball coach at Cosumnes River College.

Blackwell, a four-year basketball player at Valley High School, had planned to attend Cosumnes River College and return to his alma mater as an assistant coach.

But gunfire ripped through a graduation party at Holiday Inn Express in Elk Grove, killing Blackwell at age 18 in 2010.

The team coped with Blackwell’s death by spending time together and using basketball as a positive distraction. They shared memories and let one another vent their anger and hurt, Bradley said.

Other times, it was just giving a hug, he said.

“You continue to honor D’Andre in any way you can because you love him … and also so you remind your players about things that have happened in the past to young people like themselves so they stay educated and on a positive path in life,” Bradley wrote.

Tellis said her students created a memorial in the classroom, filling it with loving notes and gifts.

But her students broke down in tears in the months following the deaths of classmates. Sadness prevented them from partaking in lessons, Tellis said.

Processing the death proved difficult for the young students. They asked Tellis what happens after death or if the girls were in heaven.

The teacher attempted to make sense of the incident long after the nightmare unfolded, shaking her head as she reckoned with a father who killed his three girls. She cried for the students who experienced such tragedy at a young age.

But that sense of understanding never came to her.

“There is no sense,” Tellis said. “It’s just really bad. Just bad all the way around.”