They poured out onto the sidewalk in their Sunday best, grabbing hands and bowing heads over the blood-stained pavement.
Dozens of women in white floral dresses and men in crisp, collared shirts stood on the street corner Sunday where, less than 24 hours earlier, an unknown gunman shot six people who were attending a funeral at the Gospel Truth Life Changing Ministries church in South Austin.
No longer would they turn a blind eye to the violence they saw around them, the crowd cried out. No longer would they remain a passive voice in their community, they said.
“We’re losing a whole generation,” Bishop Jeff Davis said in a fiery, three-hour sermon at Gospel Truth on Sunday. “And we’re not just losing them to the streets, we’re losing them to the graveyard!”
Pledging to help take back their community from violence, the congregation’s first act of defiance was to stand and pray where the shootings took place and reclaim that street corner as their own.
Police have yet to identify a suspect in Saturday’s shooting, which erupted outside Gospel Truth as hundreds gathered inside to mourn the death of 28-year-old Cornelius Robinson. Friends and family described Robinson, who died of heart failure linked to obesity, as a popular and good-hearted man who’d grown up surrounded by the type of violence that marred his funeral.
Police said they suspect that the shooting was gang related, but those who knew Robinson said he’d managed to escape the gang life that traps so many in the community.
“He was a loving person. He was a Christian man,” said Rosetta Elkins, 26, a cousin of Robinson and a member of the Gospel Truth church. A small gathering was mingling outside the church when the gunman approached on foot, police said. He opened fire at a 34-year-old man, hitting him multiple times. Police said he then fired shots into the crowd as he fled the scene.
Davis said the shooting compounded an already emotional day and that many funeral-goers were crying and were too frightened to leave the church.
“It took us three hours to get out because people just didn’t feel safe going out,” Davis said. Which is why Davis sent e-mails to every member of his congregation Saturday night, urging them to begin the healing with church on Sunday. And when more than 100 packed the pews, Davis had a special message he wanted to send to the black community in neighborhoods beset with violence.
“These kids out here in these gangs, these are our kids,” he said. “We can’t act like we don’t know nobody in these gangs. We can pray all day, but praying a lot isn’t going to solve the problem. We have a responsibility as parents to know where our children are. To know what they’re up to and who they hang out with.
“You can’t fault the police anymore. You can’t fault the teachers any more. We have to take control of our houses.”
