Reynolds High School Shooting Victim Emilio Hoffman Mourned 2014

The 14-year-old boy fatally shot at an Oregon high school Tuesday was a good-natured athlete with an easy laugh, his family said in a statement.

Emilio Hoffman was a freshman at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, a suburb of Portland. He was killed in the locker room of the school’s gymnasium when Michael Padgett, a 15-year-old freshman, opened fire, police said.

In the statement, Emilio’s mother, Jennifer Hoffman, said: “You couldn’t be around Emilio without laughing! Anyone who has ever met Emilio laughed with him. He had to be the center of attention at all times!”

LIKE DAT APPAREL GIVING BACK

After hearing of the shooting that happened at Reynolds through students I mentored who attended school that day, I knew the community would need some support and the best way I could think of at the time was to create a design with wings and put Emilios name in it. I heard he was a good kid who loved sports and cared about his friends who didn’t deserve to die. To me thats Angel like. So I printed some shirts over the next few days and then had a friend drop the shirts off and not give a name or where the shirts had come from. The friend delivered the shirts to the school and happened to pass a shirt to a young lady who was crying and identified herself as Emilios girlfriend. Days later, I saw the young lady on the news and in the paper with her family wearing the shirts. 

“I knew it was the right thing to do at the time and it touched my heart hearing of the young man losing his life, yet made me feel good to know that my effort to give what I could was appreciated by those who cared for Emilio.”  I chose to remain anonymous because it wasn’t about me or the shirts but the impact it has on community when our youth die young and when we don’t take mental health or gun control as serious as we should.  – Dontae Mathis Sr. 

Logo Created & Apparel Printed: Like Dat Apparel