PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — While Philadelphia police continue to search for suspects in the deadly shooting at Roxborough High School two weeks ago, lawmakers on Tuesday delivered a half-million dollars in state funding for security at the school.
The grant will pay for door alarms, additional security cameras, and classroom door locks at Roxborough High.
At a news conference outside of school, principal Kristin Williams-Smalley said she sought out the funding in the wake of the shooting after a football scrimmage.
“I’ve always been told that a closed mouth doesn’t get fed, said Williams-Smalley. “I continue to ask for what we need for our community and for our school.”
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The money came from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, secured by state Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia, a Roxborough alum.
“This sacred place has been shaken in a way that none of our schools and none of our parents and families should have to experience,” said Kenyatta.
“My hope is that with these additional investments, the students in this building today and their parents who may be hearing about this feel a little bit safer about sending their kids to school.”
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Five teens were shot in the ambush two weeks ago. Nicolas Elizalde, 14, was killed.
His mother Meredith Elizalde pleaded for the community to get involved in stopping the violence. She spoke hours after a 13-year-old student at Wagner Middle School was killed.
“Look at what we have let ourselves become. My son is not even the most-recent child murdered In this city,” said Meredith Elizalde.
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“People are reaching out to me from around the world because they’ve heard about Nick. And he deserves that honor. But so do all of our children.”
Hughes said everyone needs to be part of the solution to violence, and he called out the Republican-led state legislature which has not moved on what he called “common sense” gun laws.
“We are struggling with a legislature that chooses to be unresponsive to common sense gun laws that all we’re trying to do is get enacted,” said Hughes.
Kenyatta mentioned a “dream board” inside the school where one student wrote that her dream was simply to live past 30.