Tivani-Tapuvai Fangalua Lopati was 14 when he was shot and killed near Hunter High School along 4100 South in West Valley City, Utah, on January 13, 2022. Born in Salt Lake City on February 22, 2007, Tivani was a Hunter High School student and football player who loved family, dance, sports and music, and played ukulele and guitar.

The shooting began as a confrontation between two groups of students and escalated to gunfire. Tivani and his 15-year-old teammate Paula Paul Tupou Bloomfield Tahi were killed; a third student, 15-year-old Ephraim Asiata, was critically injured. A 14-year-old male student was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting; he told investigators he had been bullied by the victims for more than a year. The victims’ families held a vigil and protested, saying they felt the outcome would have been different if the victims had been of a different race or neighborhood.

Does anyone have additional information about Tivani’s life at school, the confrontation that day, or the vigil his family held?