Students hold candle light vigil for Paris victims

Dozens of college students gathered on MU’s campus Saturday night to remember the people killed during the terror attacks in Paris.

Students from Stephens College and the University of Missouri paid respect to the victims in a moment of silence and candle light vigil arranged in Speaker’s Circle.

Amanda Huntley, a freshman student at Stephens College, shared her idea for a vigil on Yik Yak Saturday morning. She said the attacks in Paris affect everyone around the world.

“We are all united by the awful thing that happened to them,” Huntley said. “Not just because one American died, but because they were going about their lives, they weren’t doing anything wrong, and then you go and you do that to them? It’s not right.”

Officials say the death toll has now risen to 129 people, including an American college student, and 352 people were injured.

Students held a second of silence for each person killed in the attacks.

Huntley said her post on Yik Yak about organizing a candle light vigil attracted a lot of enthusiasm from students. The anonymous social media site is the same one that was used to post a racial threat toward MU students Tuesday night.

“Due to this week’s events it brought a lot of negative energy from the media and worldwide,” said Cordell Cox, a freshman MU student who also helped to organize the vigil. “I wanted to show that there are good people here and we want to do good things.”

Both Cordell and Huntley agree that something positive was needed to help ease the recent tensions in town.

“I know that Columbia really is a welcoming and friendly place,” she said. “We’ve had some problems in the last week with all of the protests, but really at the end of the day Columbia is a great place. I really feel that we can extend that and show that with something like this.”