The shooter was a first-grade classmate.
The school day of Feb. 29, 2000, began like most other first grade school days.
But at Buell Elementary, the Rockwell-like image of young students gathered together in a carefree-and-fun learning environment suddenly turned chaotic.
Shortly before 10 a.m., a single gunshot rang out in a classroom. Rolland was shot by one of her first grade classmates.
"The very loud and hollow ring of gunfire has gone off in a school building in our country," said former Genesee County Prosecutor Art Busch at the time.
"We are shocked and saddened by the loss of life in our community."
That community within hours of the shooting quickly grew. The grieving process for Rolland began immediately and touched the lives of millions not only here at home, but around the world.
The day after Rolland was shot, police took 19-year-old Jamelle James into custody. He lived in the same house as the boy who shot Kayla and prosecutors said it was his negligence that gave the boy access to a gun.
James pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and six months later was sentenced to nine months in prison.
Friday, March 3 -- just four days after Rolland died -- hundreds showed up at a Flint funeral home to pay their final respects.
Ten years later we know that Rolland's mother, Veronica McQueen, still lives in the area.
Tamarla Owens, the mother of the boy who shot Rolland, also still lives in the area.
Owens eventually surrendered her parental rights to her two boys but regained custody of her daughter.
The boy's father, Dedric Owens, who was in jail at the time of the shooting, is deceased. The whereabouts of the boy, who is now a teenager, are not known.
A source close to the story says he was taken from foster care and placed in a group home.
In 2002, Buell Elementary, the Mount Morris Township site where the shooting took place, was closed due in part to dwindling enrollment and budget issues.
The school was damaged by fire three years later. And last April, after a $2.7 million bond issue was passed by voters, Buell Elementary was demolished.
On the anniversary of the incident, two men who have close ties to the case spoke about it.
"I recall very well because I was working and there was a news flash that came over that a child has been shot and killed at the Buell School," said attorney J. Dallas Weingarden.
Aside from the families, the two of the people in the center of this case were Mark Clement and Weingarden.
Both men represented the mothers -- Clement on behalf of Owens, and Weingarden, who represented McQueen.
"It hit me like a ton of bricks," Weingarden said. "To think that a child in a first-grade classroom could have been shot ... "
"It didn't have just statewide interest. It didn't have nationwide interest. It had the entire world looking," Clement said.
A community was looking to hold someone responsible for the tragedy. Jamel James, 19, was taken into custody. He lived in the same house as the boy who shot Kayla.
He served nine months for charges related to the case. Others were trying to hold Owens accountable.
"They couldn't charge her with a crime because she had committed no crime," Clement said.
Months after the shooting, the moms involved were brought together in Washington D.C. for the Million Moms March.
It was a chance for McQueen to speak out against the very violence that claimed the life of her girl and push for stricter gun laws.
Since the incident, both mothers have stayed out of the spotlight.
The lawyers say they have no regrets on taking the case. And at least one fears we have not seen the end of violence in the classroom.
"That may have been the first and the youngest, but it's going to happen again," Clement said.
