Blair Holt’s parents went to Julian High School on Monday morning hoping to dissuade students from participating in a planned walk-out in protest of the death of their son.
When the doors opened, the students streamed out of Julian — first by the dozens, and then into the hundreds — carrying signs that read “One is too many” and “R.I.P. Blair.”
Moved by the sheer numbers, Holt’s parents joined the march they had hoped to stop, swept along by the dual currents of grief and outrage.
Holt, a 16-year-old student at Julian, was shot to death Thursday, one of five students hit by a spray of bullets when one gang member opened fire at another on a CTA bus, police said.
At 103rd Street and Lowe Avenue, where the bus came to a rest after the shooting, Holt’s father, Ronald, a Chicago police officer, raised his hands, and the crowd fell silent. He told the students that although he and Holt’s mother were touched by the gesture, the students were safest back in school.
“Will you do that for me?” he asked, so quietly only the closest students could hear. The students agreed, and most returned to school.
While Holt’s parents and students called for intervention, across town, two teens charged with Holt’s murder and five counts of attempted murder appeared in Bond Court.
Dressed in hooded sweat shirts, sneakers and baggy jeans, the teens, who were charged as adults because of the seriousness of the crime, wept after prosecutors detailed a rift between them and the intended target on the bus, a gang member who was not injured.
Prosecutors said Michael Pace, 16, planned to shoot a gang rival on the bus and that Kevin Jones, 15, gave Pace the semi-automatic gun used in the shooting, acting as a look-out while Pace fired on the crowded bus.
They stood with heads bowed as a judge ordered Pace held without bail and Jones held in lieu of $750,000.
At Julian, earlier in the day, students were facing yet another empty classroom seat. This time, they responded with a plan, spread by e-mail and text messages. Just after 10 a.m., they walked.
They called for increased police presence in their community, on their buses and in their school. School officials said 250 students were identified as taking part in the march. A police officer on the scene estimated the number at three times that.
