INDIANAPOLIS — Christ Church Cathedral hosted a public prayer event in downtown Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon in response to a mass shooting that unfolded in the heart of the Circle City early Saturday morning.
The shooting happened near the intersection of Washington and Illinois Streets, which is located less than half a mile from Christ Church Cathedral (125 Monument Circle). The prayer event was held fewer than 48 hours after the shooting first unfolded around 1:27 a.m. Saturday.
In total, two people were killed and five others were injured in the shooting. The decedents were 15 and 16-year-old boys. Two of the surviving victims are also juveniles.
Church members and leadership called Sunday’s event a “Public Lament and Procession in Response to Gun Violence.” During the procession portion of the event, participants walked to the scene of the shooting.
“We wanted to respond in some way to the shooting deaths that happened at this part of town,” Reverend Monique Ellison of Christ Church Cathedral said during the event. “We’re people of faith, and so prayer is a way. And lament, in the scripture of my tradition, is something that is all through our sacred text. It’s how we let God know of our sadness and anger. It’s how we share that together, and ideally that moves us toward a solution to that that is making us angry or sad.”
During the event, church leadership called upon readings from “Prayers for Use in the Wake of Gun Violence,” a liturgical resource published by Bishops United Against Gun Violence.”
Andrea Hunley — a member of the Indiana State Senate and Christ Church Cathedral — attended the event. Before the proceedings got underway, she took a moment to speak with reporters.
“It’s happened again, and it shouldn’t be,” Hunley said. “It’s predictable, but it’s also preventable. We should not be in a place where another child, children, were killed on our streets.”
During the interview, Hunley, like other state and local leaders, indicated that the solution to gun violence is multi-faceted and will require efforts from civilians and government officials.
“One of the things that we need to be doing is getting away from studies, getting away from panels, forums and discussions,” Hunley said. “We know that there are real solutions that work. We’ve seen it happening in other cities, but we also know that government can’t do all the solutions. We know that government isn’t going to fix every single problem. It is incumbent upon the community, the grown folks in the community, to step up and also take part.
“We need to be asking our teenagers what they want. What do they want that to look like? For me, it was lock-ins, and going to the skating rink, and having dance clubs that were open to people who were under 21. It kept us busy in the evenings. Well, what are we doing now to keep our kids busy, to keep them out of trouble, but to also give them places to connect safely? That’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for connection, they’re looking for places to come together that’s not on the screen. We need to be celebrating that and not punishing it. We need to be giving them opportunities.”
After Saturday’s shooting, IMPD announced that it would continue to enforce stricter curfew laws in downtown Indianapolis for juveniles. The agency also indicated that it would add new cameras to strategic locations in downtown Indianapolis and receive law enforcement assistance from Indiana State Police.
While Hunley agreed with some of the gun violence solutions her peers in local and state government have presented, she indicated that she had some hesitation about curfews and similar rules.
“One of the things at the state level are the curfews that can be imposed,” Hunley said. “But I think that before we go to punitive solutions, though, we need to be looking at preventative solutions. And we have to think about our parents and our teenagers as partners, and asking them ‘What do you need?’ and then working with them.”
Hunley also added that it may be unfair to blame irresponsible parents and guardians for youth gun violence in Indiana.
“Some of the remarks we’ve been hearing have been blaming parents,” Hunley said. “And I’m feeling a sense of frustration with that. I was a principal for 20 years, and in my 20 years of working with kids and working with families, I never once met a parent that didn’t care about their kid.
“What we know is that we’re the village. We are the village. And today is a reminder of that, of us coming together to pray, but then also just taking action. If we are part of the village, then we need to be part of what really is this group gathering together to care for our kids and to offer solutions, but also to listen to what parents need, to listen to what caretakers need, and to listen to what teenagers themselves need.”
More local leaders weighed in on this weekend’s mass shooting in downtown Indianapolis during a press conference on Saturday afternoon. Commentary from Mayor Joe Hogsett, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Chris Bailey and New Breed of Youth founder Kareem Hines is available here.
