Two weeks after a deadly shooting derailed an elementary school championship track meet, hundreds of young athletes were finally able to compete.
The DCIAA Championship Meet took place at Coolidge High School Wednesday afternoon, and some parents say they hope the children will learn a valuable lesson from the change of plans.
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WATCH HEREOrganizers said students from 14 elementary schools participated in the meet.
Even though the relays took place two weeks later than originally planned, for young athletes like Aamirah Limes and her dad, it was worth the wait.
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SIGN UP “It felt good,” said Aamirah, who is in fourth grade. “I thought it was going to be hard until I actually ran it, and it felt fun. And I felt like when I was running, I felt very fast.”
“I think the parents had more fun than the children did,” said her father, Louis Limes. “We were cheering and just having a good time.”
D.C. Public Schools said more than 200 fourth and fifth graders participated in the DCIAA Elementary Championship Track Meet Wednesday, rescheduled after a deadly shooting put a pause on the event and several surrounding schools on alert in May.
“No child should ever have to experience what was experienced on today,” Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said at the time of the shooting.
D.C. police said Kian Magruder was walking along 26th Street NE at about 2 p.m. on May 20 when three men drove up and opened fire, killing the 31-year-old just feet from the field where hundreds of young athletes were getting ready to compete.
“I’m really, really proud of her,” said Hope Walker, the mother of one of the athletes, Jzelle Green. “We came to cheer her on today. We were at the other event as well, but it was her birthday that day too.”
Walker said she left it up to her daughter to decide if she wanted to compete.
“I did good, I got second … I got second and first place,” Jzelle said.
“I’m glad she made this decision on her own,” Walker said. “I asked her, she said they were going to reschedule the championship, I was like, 'You know, if you don’t want to run you don’t have to.’ I didn't give her any pressure, and she was like, ‘No, I want to do it.’”
There was a noticeable police presence at Coolidge High on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately a lot of the parents from her school pulled their children out because of that, which I can understand the fear of anything happening to your child, because if the meet was still going to be over there, she wasn’t going to be competing,” Limes said.
Limes said he thinks the experience will teach the athletes an important lesson about setting goals and never giving up.
“As parents, we’re going to protect our kids as much as we possibly can, but we also are going to allow them to continue to do the things that they need to be doing,” he said.
