Mia Tretta was 15 years old when she was shot by a gunman at Saugus High in Santa Clarita. Three years later, she reflects on a never-ending stream of gun violence
, Mia Tretta volunteered at a Los Angeles food bank every year around Thanksgiving.
He killed two students, including Mia’s best friend Dominic Blackwell, and wounded three before taking his own life. Hurt and dazed, Mia ran into a classroom.Students walk to a reunification area after a gunman opened fire at Saugus High in November 2019.when it happened three years ago. And why would we? There have been many more school shootings since, and hundreds of acts of gun violence in California and across the country this year alone.
“You can’t wait to care until it happens to you,” Mia told me Tuesday. And if telling her story, driving that point home, gets the attention of just one person, it’s worth the salt-in-the-wound ache of digging up the details, she said. “First and foremost in the grand scheme of anything like this, we are lucky because she’s here. She’s with us,” Tiffany said. “Those are the things you think about when the holidays come. I think about [Dominic’s] family.”
“Hi mom, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there has been a shooting. Tell Max to chew with his mouth closed,” it read. Max is Mia’s little brother, in first grade when the shooting happened and an open-mouth eater at the dinner table, much to his big sister’s dismay. Mia still has physical problems from being shot — she’ll have another procedure in coming months. But the emotional recovery is harder.
“You say my child was shot at a school shooting, everybody has an opinion on that,” Tiffany said. “It’s the only thing that is polarized, and it’s really unfair. You’re talking about kids’ lives and kids’ safety.”
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