A Senseless Killing

Christopher Redding, a 16 year old football star at “John F Kennedy HIgh School” tragically sustained a fatal gunshot wound to his back on February 11, 2026. He got into an altercation with 3 people at Mcdonald’s in Broadway and West 238th street in Kingsbridge.

I interviewed Ariana, a classmate and friend of Christopher. She had this to say when I asked what type of person Christopher was: “He always put a smile on your face no matter if he was having a bad day. He wouldn’t fail to make me and others laugh. He would act silly at times but he knew when he had to focus on his grades specifically for football, he loved football he was in many teams and he even made a touchdown during the homecoming game.”

Ariana said that she heard about Christopher's passing through a teacher. She thought it wasn't real at first and was devastated to find out it was true. “Then I asked one of my freshman friends and I asked her if it was true and she told me ‘sorry ari but it is’ [. . .] and then my friend texted me saying 'they killed cj' and that's when I just started crying because I couldn’t believe it.” Ariana said that she had recently seen him at school. “It just makes me sad realizing I didn’t say bye to him and he tried giving me a fist bump when he first got there but I just ignored it because that's how me and him would joke around”.

I asked Ariana about the impact this shooting has had on the school community. She said, “This created a very strong impacts on the school community and most of the time you would think it would impact only my school but it impacted the whole Kennedy campus which is around 6 schools.” She later goes on to say, "February 11th, it was a dark day, so many people were crying because this was so unexpected.”

As of recently, 3 teenagers have been charged with murder, manslaughter, assault, and other related charges due to the shooting.