KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A memorial at the intersection of Longview Road and Food Lane serves as a reminder that last week, a nine-year-old girl died there. Two grandparents stepped up to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“See, she’s not even looking,” says Jorge De Lara as he crosses the intersection. “If we weren’t here, she wouldn’t have stopped.”
Over the past few days, Jorge has spent hours at the intersection where Hazen Workman-Duffy lost her life. De Lara reached out to KSHB 41 in an Instagram message to share his initiative.
“Just couldn’t sleep that night knowing what happened," he said. "I woke up the next morning and said, ‘Well, I’m going to go do it.’”
He has three grandchildren who go to Ingels Elementary School, the same school Hazen attended.
Reminders of that tragedy remain in a memorial created in her honor.
“A lighthouse — that one boat that needs us — we’re going to be here,” De Lara said. “It cannot happen again.”
The volunteers are helping not only kids, but also adults like Jessica Barnett, who often rides her bike through the intersection.
“People don’t pay attention,” Barnett said. “They just do whatever. They don’t pay attention to who’s coming or what’s going on.”
This week, Jorge was joined by another volunteer, Anthony White.
Having grandchildren who live nearby, White feared they could have been the victims of the accident.
“I was praying that it wasn’t her,” he said.
“When I heard about what happened, it touched my heart,” White said.
He also owns the nonprofit, SafeHaven Outreach Center.
The intersection is near the school Hazen was headed to that day.
But she didn’t make it.
A van hit and killed her while she was riding her bike in the crosswalk.
Willie Spencer works at the school and walks through the area every day.
“You can kind of walk through the halls and feel the heaviness in the school,” Spencer said.
He’s glad to see the community stepping up.
“It’s something positive coming out of a dark time,” Spencer said.
The family of the little girl wants change.
“It sucks that it had to happen for any change to be made, but I feel like that was her purpose on this earth — to change the world — and she did,” said Harley Phillips, Hazen’s sister.
“I just want more awareness. I want to see things done at that intersection,” said her mom, Diana Shields. “I’d like to see school zone signs put up because it’s really not that far from the school.”
Change could be on the way as Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas proposed a new ordinance to enhance school zone safety, including no right turns on red in school zones during school hours
Volunteers say they’ll keep showing up for as long as they can.
“That’s my whole mission — to make sure it never happens again,” Jorge said.
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KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva covers stories in the Northland. She also focuses on issues surrounding immigration. Share your story idea with Fernanda.
