About two dozen people wore orange and walked through downtown Anchorage on Saturday morning to call for an end to gun violence, led by the mother of a 19-year-old Anchorage woman who was shot in the head in October.
Chelan Schreifels, an Anchorage civil engineer, said her daughter's shooting was only the latest instance of gun violence in her life. As snow fell on the Delaney Park Strip on Saturday, Schreifels stood on a bench and told the assembled walkers that she's a gun owner and supports the Second Amendment.
But she said laws, such as those requiring background checks, should be strengthened to prevent guns from falling in the wrong hands.
Saturday's walk coincided with a nationwide effort of "Orange Walks to #EndGunViolence," which began after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The walks aim to remember victims of gun violence and the color is meant to resemble the orange worn by hunters to warn other hunters not to shoot, organizers said in a news release.
Schreifels said her brother and his best friend were shot and killed during a robbery in Anchorage in 1994 and her stepfather was murdered in 1985.
In October, her daughter, Caia Delavergne, a hockey player who had just started school at UAA, was shot along with another teenager at a home in Bootlegger Cove. Delavergne survived, but has since lost an eye, Schreifels said.
Delavergne walked alongside her mother Saturday morning but did not address the group before the walk began.
A 21-year-old man, Christian Beier, is awaiting trial in connection with Delavergne's shooting, which police have described as a domestic violence incident. Schreifels said Delavergne had only met Beier three weeks earlier, at UAA's homecoming.
Also present at the walk were Cindy and Butch Moore, whose 20-year-old daughter, Breanna Moore, was shot and killed by her boyfriend in 2014. The boyfriend, Joshua Almeda, pleaded guilty to murder in July. He is scheduled to be sentenced in late January.
In July, Gov. Bill Walker signed Bree's Law, named for Moore, which requires school districts to teach students about how to prevent teen dating violence.
On Saturday, Butch Moore, who had an orange blanket draped around his shoulders, said he and his wife are working on new legislation addressing criminal penalties for murder charges, alcohol restrictions and enforcement of existing gun laws.
Schreifels said Delavergne and Moore played together as preschoolers.
It was hard to believe, she said, that both were shot a year and a half apart.