‘Our city needs a healing’: Syracuse clergy call for peace in wake of recent gun violence

As Syracuse clergy shuffled behind the pulpit for a press conference Saturday at Immanuel Temple Church of God in Christ, local pastor Erik Eure wanted to make sure cameras caught the group standing in unity.

“You guys are the media, we are not,” said Eure, a pastor at the Promise Land Church in East Syracuse, to the handful of journalists gathered to hear the clergy address a shooting that occurred just a few blocks away.

Bryant Gerald, a pastor at Immanuel Temple Church, was about to deliver a statement.

“Should we stand around him to show solidarity?” Eure asked.

That’s exactly what the handful of clergy members did as they addressed the media to talk about the shooting that injured five people, including an 8-year-old child, at a home on Syracuse’s South Side on Thursday night.

All were in stable condition as of Thursday, according to police. Still, the clergy said, the gun violence in the city needed to end.

“We can no longer remain silent while our family and friends continue to become victims of crimes,” Gerald said. “Another Syracuse family has been devastated by this violence.”

In the wake of the Midland Avenue shooting, clergy across the city have attempted to provide community members comfort. Residents have gathered in churches and prayer vigils as questions about the violence linger.

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Thursday night’s shooting wasn’t the first violent incident to rock the community in recent years, said Colette Carter, a pastor at the Zion Hill World Harvest Baptist Church. Last year, 21 people were killed in the city, including a 15-year-old boy, according to Syracuse.com.

“Everyone is upset and very concerned about all the shootings,” Carter said. “Any shooting is detrimental. Any shooting is hurtful.”

Thursday’s shooting, Carter said, was particularly upsetting to community members because it involved children.

By Friday afternoon, Pastor Nitch Jones had organized a prayer vigil on the South Side. About 50 people attended the vigil, including family members of the victims of the Thursday shooting.

Some wore shirts with the faces of homicide victims. Ashley Delee, who attended the vigil Friday with family members, held a photograph of her nephew, 24-year-old Lawrence Moore Jr. He was killed in a homicide in April, and his daughter was one of the victims in the Thursday shooting, Delee said.

Attendees of the Friday vigil, led by Jones, Reverend Derrick Tannyhill, Pastor Ashanti Dickerson and Pastor Phil Turner, prayed for peace in Syracuse as the sun set over the South Side. At times, the clergy encouraged people to hold hands and hug.  

“I believe on the scale of this problem right now, we would all agree that our city needs a healing,” Tannyhill said.

“Amen,” members of the crowd responded.

Community members join pastors in a moment of prayer to end violence in Syracuse. Paul Schlesinger | Staff Photographer

People routinely turn to religion or the church in devastating situations or situations beyond their control, Eure said in an interview. He believes it’s his job to be the voice of hope.

People feel helpless after tragedies, Eure said. Then they need a place to recover, he added.  

“We’re all better off having help doing that, as opposed to trying to do it ourselves,” Eure said. “The church is one of those venues or vehicles that can help with that healing and recovery.”   

Syracuse religious leaders aren’t just helping congregants recover from Thursday’s shooting. Some said members of their churches were impacted by a shooting at a Chili’s restaurant in DeWitt last weekend, where two employees were killed.

Eure and other pastors on Saturday called on religious leaders across the city to address Thursday’s shooting during church services this weekend. Clergy also encouraged leaders to put out calls for information that may lead to an arrest in connection to the shooting. Police have not apprehended or named any suspects as of Sunday afternoon.

“It is time to break the cycle of violence by breaking the cycle of silence,” Gerald said.