OAKLAND — Friends and faculty at Oakland’s Castlemont High School are grieving over the death of a 16-year-old student who was reported missing earlier this month before she was fatally shot at a Sacramento apartment complex last week.
Marcella Garcia, a talented singer who was supposed to perform at the school’s Cinco de Mayo celebration next month, was killed on March 17, according to the Sacramento County Coroner’s office.
Sacramento Police responded just after 11:20 a.m. that morning to a report of a gunshot victim and found the girl unconscious with at least one gunshot wound.
Officers attempted to revive Marcella, but she was declared dead by medical personnel. Two days earlier, she had been reported missing to Oakland police.
Police did not provide details about the circumstances of the girl’s death, though KXTV reported that the Sacramento Police Department Homicide Unit was investigating.
The Oakland Unified School District shared news of Marcella’s death on Friday, calling her “a bright light at Castlemont, whose natural talents were obvious to those around her.”
A friend of Marcella’s told KTVU that she was a foster youth who had spent time in both Oakland and Sacramento and was trying to get in with a better crowd. She had a beautiful voice, said the friend, who shared a video of Marcella singing Adele’s “Someone to Love.”
OAKLAND TRAGEDY: Marcella Garcia had a beautiful voice and a troubled life, her friend said. The 16-year-old Castlemont student was found dead in Sacramento this month. There are many unanswered questions. https://t.co/m7bdlMUY99 pic.twitter.com/ajkHTNO9re
— KTVU (@KTVU) March 25, 2022
One of Marcella’s teachers was so distraught when he heard the news of her death that he reached out to his peers on Twitter for advice on how to face his class that day.
“I’m a mess, found out one of my students was shot and killed just before school starting,” wrote math teacher Eric Husted. “How … am I supposed to teach math today? If any teachers have been through this kind of thing before, what did you do? Thanks in advance.”
I’m a mess, found out one of my students was shot and killed just before school starting. 😭 How TF am I supposed to teach math today? If any teachers have been through this kind of thing before, what did you do? Thanks in advance.
— Eric Husted (@erichusted) March 18, 2022
In a statement, Oakland Unified’s spokesman John Sasaki said the school community was devastated by Marcella’s death.
“Of course,” he wrote, “the fact that she passed the way she did is another tragic example of our country’s scourge of gun violence, which must come to an end.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com