CNN
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Jean Kuczka and Alexzandria Bell had been on the point of celebrating thrilling milestones of their lives.
Alexzandria, 15, was trying ahead to touring to Los Angeles to have a good time her Candy 16, her father stated. And Kuczka, 61, was on the point of retire after an extended, illustrious profession educating, her daughter recounted.
However a taking pictures rampage Monday at Central Visible and Performing Arts Excessive Faculty in St. Louis destroyed these goals and shattered the victims’ households. It was not less than the 67th taking pictures this yr on US college grounds, with a 19-year-old wielding an AR-15-style rifle, over 600 rounds of ammunition and greater than a dozen high-capacity magazines, police have stated; he died after a gun battle with officers.
“My daughter was planning on popping out right here to California and have a good time her birthday with me on November 18,” Alexzandria’s father, Andre Bell, advised CNN affiliate KSDK.
“However now we’ve to plan her funeral.”
Kuczka died defending her college students, a colleague stated.
In the course of the rush to evacuate youngsters from the college, “One pupil checked out me and she or he stated, ‘They shot Ms. Kuczka.’ After which she stated that Ms. Kuczka had put herself between the gunman and the scholars,” Kristie Faulstich recalled.
Alexis Allen-Brown wasn’t stunned to study one in all her favourite highschool academics died attempting to avoid wasting her college students, she stated.
“After I came upon, the very first thing I may take into consideration was … that’s how a lot she cared concerning the college students,” Allen-Brown stated. “She was going to avoid wasting these infants.”
Kuczka usually used inspirational quotes she believed in, corresponding to, “Earlier than you might be anything, you’re a human. And each human deserves respect,” Faulstich recalled.
Kuczka had labored at Central VPA Excessive Faculty since 2008, in line with her biography on the college’s web site. On it, she wrote, “I consider that each little one is a novel human being and deserves an opportunity to study.”
Kuczka succeeding in making an enduring impression on her college students, stated Allen-Brown, now in her 20s.
“She was kindhearted. She was candy. She at all times made you snicker even if you wasn’t attempting to snicker,” Allen-Brown stated.
“She made you’re feeling actual, inside the category and out. She made you’re feeling human. And she or he was simply so candy.”
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Alexzandria was a member the Saint Louis Dazzling Diamonds dance group. Her fellow dancers created a poster with Alexzandria’s picture that’s now a part of a rising memorial in entrance of the college.
Her pal Dejah Robinson stated the 2 had been planning to have a good time Halloween collectively this weekend.
“She was at all times humorous and at all times saved the smile on her face and saved all people laughing,” Robinson stated, preventing again tears.
Robinson, who attends one other college, needs lawmakers to behave on gun management, she stated.
“They been figuring out what’s occurring, and so they may have been did one thing,” she stated. “However clearly they ain’t doing nothing, and so they received’t.”
Alexandria’s dad stated his daughter may make any day higher.
“Alexzandria was my every thing. She was joyful, fantastic and only a nice individual,” Bell advised KSDK.
“She was the lady I cherished to see and cherished to listen to from. Irrespective of how I felt, I may at all times discuss to her, and it was alright. That was my child.”
However in his biggest time of want, Alexzandria can’t consolation her father.
He’s left agonizing over why somebody took his daughter’s life.
“It’s a nightmare,” he stated. “I’m so upset. I would like someone – police, group of us, someone – to make this make sense.”
Correction: A photograph caption on this story beforehand misspelled Alexzandria Bell’s first identify.
