Activists question how local leaders are keeping children safe amid Miami Northwestern High School shooting

MIAMI – Activists and neighbors are holding a rally Tuesday outside Miami Northwestern High School following last week’s shooting that left a student in critical condition.

A video surfaced showing students fighting before police said a teen pulled out a gun and fired at 15-year-old Devin Reeves in the faculty parking lot of the school Thursday night after a basketball game between Miami Central and Miami Northwestern high schools.

Police said Reeves was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital in critical condition after the shooting.

Another student has since been arrested.

Authorities with Miami-Dade County Public Schools confirmed Saturday that Reeves and the alleged shooter are both students. It is not clear which school they both attend.

Activist Renita Holmes, whose own child was murdered, questioned Tuesday what local leaders, including the Miami-Dade School Board, is doing to prevent things like this from happening, saying leaders are only speaking out after the fact.

“The biggest culprit is the gun. It only gets power when people allow guns and children get access,” she said. “I concur that you have to do your duty to punish children and hold them accountable but one of the main objectives for us as parents is to ask the question to our leaders: what do you do as a child or a juvenile or a young one that’s walking the streets and the other guy across the street or behind you on the school bus has a gun? Am I responsible for not protecting myself?”

Holmes stressed that police officers use guns to protect themselves, but questioned how children, specifically in this area, are being protected by local leaders.

“Before we blame, shame or gain fame, saying ‘prosecute, prosecute, prosecute,’ I have a problem with that,” she said. “This is a social economic situation that’s going on here. That’s why it’s so Black. When I look at the response to shootings of officers, I’m amazed. They got guns. But when I look at the response of a child or a boy or even girls now – we’ll hit that next – then I’m concerned that there’s nobody coming.”

Tangie Sands, who also attended Tuesday’s rally, previously told Local 10 that she felt panic last week and rushed to Northwestern, at 1100 NW 71 St., to see if her son was safe. He was, but she is convinced that more needs to be done to protect students.

“You have to screen every child, every single person that steps on the grounds of these schools,” Sands said.

She fears that without improvements “this will continue to happen.”

“Why is that happening in the Black community, and no one is saying anything about it? But as soon as a law enforcement officer gets close to a Black child, then everyone’s out here trying to protest,” Robert Malone, of the Black Affairs Advisory Board, said Tuesday.

School Board member Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall joined the activists Tuesday morning and called on other parents and school board members to step up.

“We’ve got to look in the mirror and say, ‘What am I doing to save the children? What am I doing?” she said.

Authorities have not released the identity of the alleged shooter and a motive for the shooting has not been released at this time.