SAN ANTONIO – Gun-related incidents involving children are becoming more frequent, and some nonprofit organizations are feeling the impact.
The Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas is seeing a record-high number of children needing care.
Marian Sokol, executive director of the Children’s Bereavement Center, says they work with more than 2,500 children who have experienced death loss each year on average.
“We just must do more; we don’t want more children. We don’t need more clients here at the Bereavement Center, where we’re having trouble keeping up,” said Sokol.
She explained that crime plays a consistent role in her work.
“So many homicides, drive-by shootings. I just talked to this group of Parents of Murdered Children two weeks ago, thinking there can’t be more cases like this. This is too awful,” said Sokol.
Lori Rocha is a volunteer and advocate for parents of murdered children. She lost her son in a road rage incident nearly seven years ago.
She says the recent shooting that left a 2-year-old girl dead on Monday is heartbreaking, and she understands the pain everyone affected by the loss is experiencing.
“It can happen anywhere. It happened here. It happens there. It happens everywhere. There are no boundaries anymore. These people that have a killer mentality with the guns, they are everywhere,” said Rocha.
Maritza Wong, a mother of two and a volunteer with the nonprofit organization Moms Demand Action says until the right laws are set in place in Texas, crimes where innocent people are killed will continue to happen.
“What scares me is that kids nowadays are noticing that there’s no escape from it, whether it’s at home, in a public place, or at school. That is a scary thought, to think of what our kids might be seeing as their normal world,” said Wong.