A Young Life Lost: Remembering David Sankey
Photo credit: Jericho Missionary Baptist Church Media Ministry
Classmates, family, and friends honored Sankey’s life at a candlelight vigil the next evening, with over 100 people coming together to mourn the loss.
Sankey’s mother, Yvonne Johnson, surrounded by Sankey’s friends and family at the vigil, desperately cried, “Somebody, anybody tell me what happened to my baby.”
Realizing that students from all over, not only Central, were shaken by the murder, the City of Urbana and the Urbana School District released a statement providing information on how students struggling with this tragedy could receive help from staff.
As well as grieving at the vigil, students from both Champaign and Urbana schools took to social media to express their sorrow. With students posting about how “it doesn’t seem real,” it’s clear that the shooting has broken the hearts of many young people in the community.
Pictures posted online of Sankey highlight a young man with a lot of potential for a bright future lost because of senseless violence.
Urbana High School senior Kalika Shapiro, who was at the Carle Emergency Room for an unrelated event the night Sankey passed remembers, “It was very chilling. I heard his mother crying. This world is a messed up place.”
Sankey being killed at such a young age damages the psyche of many, causing fear to escalate in the people, and especially young people, of this town. According to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, gun violence, namely directed at young people, has been on the rise throughout Illinois.
This scale of violence has forced young people across Champaign-Urbana to face suffering too early . Though not everyone always knew Sankey, his passing has deeply affected many students.
Death is never easy to handle, but people coming together to pay respects to this young man gives hope to a brighter future, one where arguments won’t end with shots being fired and where violence doesn’t stop young people from living a great life.
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