I'm stressed and I'm heartbroken I'm heartbroken for these families who send their children to our
schools hoping that they'll be safe it was just one week ago today that our community stopped in
horror as a school shooting killed one student and one teacher and hurt seven others St Louis
mayor Tashara Jones spoke from the heart as the city's leader and as a mom and she is joining
us live this morning to help us all with moving forward yeah mayor Jones thank you so much for
being here I mean I think the community really relies on you to be a voice of comfort and also
to help us with a way forward so you've been really open and honest about being a single
mom about I think your son Aiden might be in high school now yeah he's a freshman he's a freshman
okay so what kind of what kind of conversations are you having and are you and your family okay
um you know we're we're getting by but it's okay not to be okay so I just want to let people know
that if they are not please reach out there are tons of Behavioral Health Resources now available
to wrap our arms around our community they could always call The Suicide Hotline at 988 or behave
labor Health response we are just so Overjoyed with the amount of mental health resources that
are coming forward to wrap their arms around our babies especially in this moment my son
was re-traumatized because of a sudden death that happened to us earlier this year so and he knew
a couple of the students as well you know High School is high school students know each other
through social media nowadays and so they're all just kind of connected that way now every
time we send our kids off to school we expect them to be safe expect them to come back okay
and we know that Central vpa had you know things in place to keep the kids safe there but a gunman
was able to get through what role can the city play in making sure that these schools are going
to be safe for all kids well we have been working with the school district and the other schools for
the last several months on active shooter drills with our Police Department it's an
unfortunate reality but this is the the era that we're living in and fortunately Central vpa just
had their active shooter drill a week before the shooting so that the children were prepared the
staff were prepared the school resource officers were prepared everything went according to plan
and of course we more in the deaths of the people who lost their lives in this tragedy but it they
saved lives and it could have been a lot worse absolutely I know that you're in this bipartisan
effort with Mayors all across the country and I'm wondering if you could talk about that first
of all but also I'm wondering if you can't get Federal change if we can't get red flag laws in
place couldn't cities do that couldn't Mayors be the people who make this happen well unfortunately
the Missouri legislature has prohibited us from passing Common Sense gun safety practices on
the local level they've been relaxing gun laws since 2007 and it hasn't made our state or our
law enforcement safer but we're fighting wherever we can through Mayors against illegal guns we've
we have a lawsuit currently against the Second Amendment preservation act which ties the hands of
our local law enforcement and enforcing gun laws and taking guns out of homes that so people don't
harm themselves or others we're also looking at holding gun manufacturers accountable because any
other industry that was as dangerous the federal government would have stepped in to hold them
accountable like tobacco and auto manufacturers and the like what is the one thing you would
like to say to the community this morning to to give them a sense of confidence as we try to move
forward I would say that our law enforcement did everything that perfectly I would say that you
know we had the best trained law enforcement in the country and so again it's unfortunate that
people lost their lives and were injured in this incident but they prevented it from being a lot
worse but also it's okay not to be okay take the time to check in with yourself check in with your
children check in with your children's friends because sometimes they may not have parents who
can notice those signs this is the time to wrap our arms around each other and around our children
mayor thank you so much for being with us this morning and we will all get through
this together yes I appreciate you being very open and honest with us thank you thank you
and if you have been impacted by the deadly shooting we do have a list of resources for
you just text the word help to 314-425-5355 and we will send a link straight to your phone