[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6240-6241]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO MAREN SANCHEZ

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, in just a couple of hours in Milford, 
CT, at 7 p.m. this evening there will be a vigil that will bring 
together many different members of the Milford community to celebrate, 
mourn, and grieve the life of a beautiful young woman who suffered a 
senseless and brutal death last Friday morning. In this inexplicable 
act of violence, she was killed by a fellow classmate shortly after 7 
in the morning.
  Jonathan Law High School was turned into a crime scene as members of 
the emergency responder team--first the police and then the medics--
sought to save her life. Tragically and unfortunately, they were unable 
to do so. The evening that was to be their junior prom instead became a 
vigil.
  We will perhaps never know what prompted this horrific and 
unimaginable act of brutality. This horrific event has united and 
brought together people who are now mourning Maren's death.
  We know with certainty what a wonderful human being Maren Sanchez 
was, and we also know this community has shown strength and courage by 
coming together and uniting to help each other--particularly those 
students who knew her. We also know with certainty how gifted, 
talented, compassionate, and caring she was as the manager of sports 
teams, a gifted singer, an athlete, school president, and an honor 
student. Her whole future was ahead of her. Most remarkably, she was a 
person of consummate caring and compassion for her fellow students. 
Those students struggle today to make some sense of this violence, to 
derive some meaning and maybe some comfort.
  I went to Jonathan Law High School yesterday for part of the 
afternoon and spoke with Chief of Police Keith Mello, whose men and 
women have helped the community so deeply; the mayor of Milford Ben 
Blake, who has demonstrated leadership in this crisis; the 
superintendent of schools and principal of Jonathan Law High School; 
and the many teachers and parents and students and the grief counselors 
and therapists who came to speak with those students and help them to 
think and live through this horrible tragedy.
  What is remarkable and so impressed me yesterday was the love and 
caring that people from disparate parts of this community showed for 
each other and continue to show in this testing time. This is a time of 
extraordinary adversity and tragedy. People who might otherwise be 
strangers are drawn together by the thread of grief and will reform the 
fabric of a community by simple acts of caring. They are united today 
in their grief and bewilderment. They are seeking to honor Maren's 
legacy and sustain it with the very qualities of courage, strength, 
caring, and compassion she demonstrated throughout her life. Those 
qualities of caring, compassion, courage, and strength will

[[Page 6241]]

see them through this tragedy as they come together for the vigil 
tonight.
  We can all honor the legacy of this remarkable young woman by looking 
for ways to make the world better, as she sought to do, and filling it 
with song and color, the lust for life, and the joy and pride in her 
contemporary accomplishments.
  We need to search for steps we can take to make our schools better 
and safer. The time to talk about policy or steps to better school 
safety will come, and I hope we will all be a part of that continuing 
effort in exploring how to protect anyone and everyone who comes to 
school, which should be a haven of safety and insulated from violence--
particularly against the most vulnerable members of our community. But 
those policy responses can wait until after the days of grief and 
mourning have passed as we celebrate this remarkable young life. She 
was described by members of her class as an angel. Her cousin Edward 
Kovac said on Friday:

       Maren should be celebrating at her prom this evening with 
     her friends and classmates. Instead, we are mourning her 
     death and we are trying to understand this senseless loss of 
     life.

  He said:

       She was a bright light full of hope and dreams. In fact, 
     she was among the brightest of lights, full of the most 
     wondrous hopes and dreams.

  So today my heart and prayers are with her family, her friends, the 
Milford community, as they gather for this vigil tonight. Separated by 
distance, I will be with them in spirit, as I know my colleagues who 
know of this tragedy will be as well. This kind of tragedy is 
indecipherable, incomprehensible to young men and women--16-year-olds--
but equally so to all of us of any age. My hope is that we will honor 
Maren Sanchez's legacy, that our hearts and prayers will go to her 
family, her parents, and all who knew her and all who would like to 
have known her because she was such a remarkable and wonderful human 
being.
  Thank you. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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