Other deaths on campus also need attention

On the night before nursing student Laken Riley was horrifically killed last month, a University of Georgia student, a freshman from Atlanta, also died. Like Riley, his life was just getting started and his loss hit the community hard. Both students were remembered at a community vigil that weekend in Athens, where thousands of UGA students grieved together.

But unlike Riley, whose accused killer is an undocumented Venezuelan migrant, the second student died by suicide. So as Riley’s story has ignited a national political firestorm, along with promises from lawmakers to make sure something like it never happens again, the mental health crisis facing young people all over the country has gone mostly unaddressed since then.

The same goes for the Georgia State University students who say they are traumatized by frequent violence on and around their campus. On the Sunday after Riley was killed, 21-yearold Javare Shakir-Fulford was fatally shot around noon across the street from a Georgia State dorm, just two blocks from the state Capitol. The student body president was so shaken he announced he would not run for reelection.

Last year, Jatonne Sterling, a member of the Clark Atlanta baseball team, was shot to death near a residence hall. And that was just a few months after a drive-by shooting injured four people, including two Clark students, near the school’s library.

Too many other Georgia college and high school students have also tragically died by suicide and homicide in recent years. What if lawmakers and candidates had promised as much action on the suicides and homicides affecting Georgia campuses as they have on the issue of illegal immigration? All three have taken the lives of Georgia students, but the focus has been on only one.

There have been moments of silence since Riley’s death and public protests over immigration enforcement, an emergency hearing and quick passage in the state House of legislation mandating local law enforcement actions related to undocumented immigrants. The state Senate is expected to pass a more stringent measure soon.

Thursday, in Washington, U.S. House Republicans, who have been trying in vain to get a border security bill through to President Joe Biden’s desk, introduced and quickly passed the “Laken Riley Act,” to require federal detention for any immigrant accused of shoplifting, as Riley’s accused killer had been.

As the grief over Riley’s