Community reacts to Stockton student's killing at town hall

Nearly one year after a student was stabbed to death at Stagg High School, Stockton residents gathered with city leaders again Monday night following the slaying of a second high school student on April 12.

"I, too, have been to too many funerals of my students over the years," Traci Miller, interim superintendent of Stockton Unified School District, told the roughly 150 people gathered at the Arnold Rue Community Center.

Cesar Chavez High School student Thai Khin, 17, was shot to death on April 12 during a robbery at a park across the street from Chavez, police said.

He is the second Stockton student within a year to be killed near their campus during school hours: Stagg student Alycia Reynaga was killed on campus on April 18, 2022.

At the town hall Monday — led by Mayor Kevin Lincoln, Councilman Dan Wright, and police and school district — Khin's death resurfaced frustrations about mistrust in city, police, and school officials and gun violence across Stockton the country.

"We as the community need to know more about what's happening behind the scenes," Yesica Avendano, a teacher and parent of a Chavez student, said. "We just hear gossip."

Khin's death came amid the April 12 resignation of Chavez principal Cynthia Cardenas Sanchez, who resigned after a year on the job, claiming she was forced out.

With her resignation, half of Stockton Unified’s comprehensive high schools are now engaged in a leadership shake-up that could impact thousands of students fall.

Avendano said she worried about her child's safety at Chavez. "There are days where I'm like ... I hope I don't get that phone call."

In the days following Khin's death, students expressed sadness and anger about the regularity of shootings in Stockton. Across the U.S., Ellena Bivens, who teaches A.P. literature at Chavez, said.

"It was a lot of anger," Bivens said. "This is the elephant in the room. This is a nationwide problem."

Multiple people argued a lack of safe places for young people to play and work outside school put them at risk.

"We're trying to restore all those services that were knocked away during bankruptcy," Wright said. "But it's not going to happen overnight."

"They cut class at 2:30; they hang out at the park," Lamar Scott, parent of a former Chavez student, said.

"We're all here, but where're the kids? Who's listening to the kids?"

The city has extended outreach from the Office for Violence Prevention to children as young as 12, Lincoln said. It's also pursuing a $4.3 million workforce development program for people between the ages of 16 and 29 — the age group most impacted by gun violence in Stockton, he said.

"We have the same vested interests ... we want to put our money -- your taxpayer money -- where our mouth is."

Record reporter Aaron Leathley covers public safety. She can be reached at aleathley@recordnet.com or on Twitter @LeathleyAaron. To support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: Community reacts to Stockton student's killing at town hall