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CHAMPAIGN — Nessa Bleill recalls running into the street every Fourth of July in downtown Highland Park to grab a spot on the curb. There, she'd grab all the candy thrown during the city’s Independence Day parade.
Since her grandparents and cousins lived in the Chicago suburb, Bleill and her family always visited for the celebration. One of her fondest memories is going shopping with her grandmother in the same downtown space during the holidays, all the trees lined with lights.
But the Champaign Central High School senior hasn’t returned to Highland Park ever since she and her family survived the July 4, 2022, mass shooting there that claimed the lives of seven people and wounded 48 others.
The anger Bleill feels, now that her ability to enjoy the city has been stolen and replaced with anxiety and fear, led her last year to create Champaign-Urbana’s first local chapter of the Students Demand Action gun-safety advocacy group.
A little before noon today, she’ll stand on the Illinois State Capitol steps in Springfield alongside state senators, representatives and other organizers to tell her story and address a crowd rallying for the passage of new gun-violence-survivor-centered legislation.
“It was such a traumatic event and it made me really angry, and so I wanted to kind of take my anger and use it to turn it into motivation to help stop this from happening to other people and to do anything that I can to prevent gun violence,” Bleill said Monday.
Before the Highland Park mass shooting, Bleill planned on pursuing a career in chemical engineering. Now, she is committed to studying political science at the University of Wisconsin in order to become a politician.
She created Central’s chapter of Students Demand Action with two other students last year after learning about the group from her mother, who had been a member of Moms Demand Action for years.
She said she had thought about gun violence before, but it wasn’t until she witnessed it first-hand and experienced how it can affect a person’s life that she decided advocating for gun safety felt more important.
The student group now has 30 to 40 members and has worked to raise awareness by speaking at a Unit 4 school board meeting and attending a local Pride Fest and Centennial art fest, Bleill said. Two other local Students Demand Action groups have since sprung up in the area.
Today’s event will gather hundreds of volunteers from numerous groups — Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, One Aim, LiveFree, The Network — to meet with state legislators and advocate for the Homicide Victims’ Families Rights Act to be signed into law.
The bill, among other things, would allow families to request that law enforcement agencies assign new investigators to reopen first-degree or second-degree murder cases that have run cold for longer than three years.
Though the man charged as responsible for the Highland Park shootings is behind bars and scheduled to go to trial next year, Bleill said she can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be for someone to know their shooter is still out on the streets.
Bleill first attended Springfield’s gun-safety advocacy day rally last year, and said it was energizing to be around other Illinois students, organizers and survivors all focused on the same cause.
She planned on attending the really again this year, but didn’t expect it when Students Demand Action’s Midwest coordinator reached out just two weeks ago to see if she’d provide remarks alongside other speakers like state Sen. Celina Villanueve or Rep. Maura Hirschauer.
Bleill said she started writing her speech last week and has prepared by researching the Victim’s Families Rights Act along with the Homicide Data Transparency Act — another bill she’ll discuss, which would require law enforcement agencies to make public how many homicides resulted in an arrest or charge.
Though Bleill has never stood up in front of a crowd this large before, she said she’s excited to be a young voice discussing how the bill can help victims’ families through trauma-enforced policing.
“That’s why I started this group, I want to get my story out there, I want to get other people’s stories out there, I want to get these bills passed,” Bleill said. “It’s what I’m most passionate about, so to be able to be there and to inspire other people and educate other people is just the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Ultimately, Bleill said she’d like to see further gun-safety regulation passed, to make sure the weapons are used responsibly. In the meantime, while she’s off to college, she hopes other Central students carry on the advocacy she kicked off in Champaign.
“My sister is a freshman so I know she’ll be here to help keep it going even when I leave,” Bleill said. “I just hope that they continue to do what I started.”
