Candlelight vigil for El Paso, Dayton shooting victims held in St. Charles
About 150 people of all ages held a candlelight vigil Monday night on St. Charles' Main Street bridge, spending a minute of silence for each of the 31 victims killed in two separate shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, during the weekend.
Miki Powell, a member of the steering committee of the Kane County Coalition, said the purpose of the vigil was to remember and honor the victims as well as provide an outlet for local residents unable to travel to El Paso or Dayton to show their concern there.
"People are frustrated to the point they don't know what else to do," the St. Charles resident said. "It's a tangible way for people to do something."
As they stood along the north side of the bridge under a darkening sky, the vigil participants held their candles up and flashed the peace sign to drivers who honked their horns in solidarity.
They held signs with such slogans as "Ballots Over Bullets," "Vote > Your Life Depends On It," and "Pass Sensible Gun Control."
The 31 minutes they stayed silent honored the 22 people killed Saturday morning at a Walmart in El Paso, and the nine more killed by another gunman early Sunday in an entertainment district in Dayton.
Each shooting also wounded more than two dozen others.
After the vigil, the crowd heard from Pastor Richard Malmberg of Little Home Church By the Wayside in Wayne, whose wife is a member of the Kane County Coalition.
"People ask me, 'How can a just and loving God allow this carnage to happen?'" Malmberg said. "The fact that you're here shows we have power, we have strength.
"God won't do for us what we can do for ourselves," he added.
Powell described the Kane County Coalition as a collection of about nine grass-roots groups that sprang up after the 2016 election. She said the common threads that allowed them to be woven together include strong women in leadership and an interest to change some of the directions initiated by the Trump administration.
Powell said much but not all of the coalition's membership comes from the 6th and 14th congressional districts now represented in Washington, D.C., by Democrats Sean Casten of Downers Grove and Lauren Underwood of Naperville respectively.
Another event tied to concern for last weekend's deadly shootings has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 7, at Barbara's Bookstore in Hawthorn Mall in Vernon Hills. That event is being organized by the group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America for the more specific cause of gun violence prevention.