Marchers raise voices against gun violence
Protesters walk across the Golden Gate Bridge
Leelee Daschbach Cusenza walked across the fog-hazed Golden Gate Bridge Saturday, tears streaming down her face.
The 62-year-old Pleasanton resident was joined by scores of gun violence survivors and demonstrators, clad in orange shirts, for the second annual march across the Golden Gate Bridge to honor National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Cusenza’s sister, Michele, went to Salon Meritage in Seal Beach in Orange County for a haircut on Oct. 12, 2011, and never returned.
Scott Evans Dekraai was involved in a child custody battle with his former wife. He went into the salon that day in October and killed his ex and seven others, including Cusenza’s younger sister.
“In that two minutes, lives were changed,” Cusenza said.
Not only was Cusenza’s world altered that day, so was that of her sister’s three children, who were in their teens at the time. Dekraai pleaded guilty to the shooting on May 2, 2014, Cusenza said.
“You sit there and think about the unfairness,” Cusenza said. “You have a list of 5,000 what-ifs. What if she hadn’t been there, or if the appointment had been changed?”
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms De-
“I watched mass shooting after mass shooting. If I don’t do something, I’ll be culpable.” Shannon Watts, founder, Moms Demand Action
mand Action, an organization pushing for legislative action and gun reform, came to San Francisco Friday evening from Colorado to lead the march. She said similar marches and events were planned for cities across the nation.
“I watched mass shooting after mass shooting,” Watts said, explaining why she started Moms Demand Action, even though she herself hadn’t been a victim of gun violence. “If I don’t do something, I’ll be culpable.”
Gun violence kills more than 90 people a day nationwide and injures hundreds more, Watts told the crowd of people gathered at the Marin Vista Point, after marching from San Francisco.
Demonstrators carried signs that read “Gun violence is a public health issue” and “Background checks save lives.”
California has the most stringent gun laws in the country, Watts said, but it’s not enough. Her work won’t be over until federal regulations are passed that require background checks and restrict sales of guns to people with mental health issues and those with a history of domestic violence.
In November, California voters approved Proposition 63, an initiative that bans the possession of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, requires background checks for people purchasing bullets and makes it a crime for individuals to not report lost or stolen guns.
“People often forget that for each victim, there’s family members. There’s children. There’s parents. There’s first responders who are all affected,” said Cusenza, who also had on an orange shirt and a pink hat with cat ears, the same hat worn by participants in the Women’s March the day after President Trump’s inauguration in January.
The demonstrators Saturday wore orange because it’s the color often worn by hunters, Watts said.
“We are saying, ‘We are human, don’t shoot us,’ ” Watts said to the sea of orange standing before her.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wore orange during a press conference Friday as she remembered Hadiya Pendleton, a high schooler from the South Side of Chicago, who was killed on Jan. 21, 2013 when a shooting occurred at a playground in that city.
“Soon after, Hadiya's childhood friends commemorated her life by wearing orange,” Pelosi said. “And so this day (June 2), which would have been her birthday, is the day that we wear orange.”
In San Francisco, Richard Martinez drove in from San Luis Obispo County to participate in the march. He gripped a sign that read, “Schools R 4 Learning. Not Lockdowns.”
On the sleeve of his jacket was a pin, with a crack across the middle, that bore a photo of his son, Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez.
Christopher, who was a student at UC Santa Barbara, was killed at the age of 20 at the Isla Vista shooting near the university campus on May 23, 2014, along with five others.
“He was such a wonderful kid, and now he’s gone and there’s nothing we can do to bring him back,” Martinez said. “I just don’t want other families to lose kids like we lost ours.”