(3 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++SOUNDBITES SEPARATED BY BLACK FRAMES++
++EDIT BEGINS AND ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Minneapolis – 3 September 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Leah Kaiser, mother of shooting victim Lydia Kaiser:
“Vice President Vance, you have enormous authority. Please use this moment to move your feet and transcend our political divides to promote peace and unity and hope. This is what the people of the United States will hold you accountable to. This Annunciation community is a force of good in the world and we invite you to be the same. On the sidewalk in front of the church, in front of the boarded up windows, someone wrote the prayer of St. Francis which says, ‘Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. And where there is sadness, only joy.’ That is it. That’s everything. That’s all I want to say.”
++BLACK FRAMES++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Harry Kaiser, father of shooting victim Lydia Kaiser and Annunciation gym teacher:
“We disagree about so many things. We both know both sides and all the talking points we fall back on. But on just this one issue of gun violence, will you please promise me as a father and a Catholic that you will earnestly support the study of what is wrong with our culture, that we are the country that has the worst mass shooter problem. We were at mass singing about being called to act with justice, love, service and humility. Will you please promise to pursue, despite powerful lobbies, some common-sense bipartisan legislation as a starting point so we can come out of our corners and find the values that we share so that this time some progress is made. Thoughts and prayers haven’t been enough. Many policies have been dismissed without even being studied or tried. It’s so complicated. I don’t claim to have the answers, but we have to commit to looking. Then we can feel good about defending life. If one thing changes for the better, perhaps Fletcher’s and Harper’s deaths and all the injuries and destruction might bring about even more unity, love and light than I have already seen this past week. One law, one executive order, one policy, you can call it the Annunciation Bill. Then I’ll be able to look Lydia and Sophia and all my students in the eye and say I tried. Sincerely, Harry Kaiser.”
++EDIT ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday met with families and victims of a deadly shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis and heard a heartfelt plea for action from at least one of those families.
Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, visited the Annunciation Catholic Church one week after an attacker opened fire during the first Mass of the school year for students of the nearby Annunciation Catholic School.
According to Vance’s office, the vice president and second lady Usha Vance met privately with family members of victims, the pastor of the parish and the school principal. They included the parents of the two children who died, Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, and families of some of the 21 people who were injured.
The Vances also went to Children’s Hospital, where several victims were treated, and met Lydia Kaiser, who is recovering from surgery. Her parents urged Vance to use his position to find real solutions to gun violence.
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