Clergy come together in prayer after Greenwood Park Mall shooting
GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) — Gerson Cardona woke up Tuesday morning and felt a push to call on others to come together after Sunday’s mass shooting at Greenwood Park Mall.
“Our desire is that the lord will heal the souls, heal the people, and give us peace,” Cardona said Tuesday night.
A husband, his wife and another man died, and Elisjsha Dicken, 22, fired his Glock handgun 10 times to take out the 20-year-old shooter before more people were hurt, the Greenwood police chief said Monday. The three Indianapolis residents who died were Pedro Pineda, 56; Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37; and Victor Gomez, 30.
Cardona, along with pastors from more than 10 other churches, gathered Tuesday night in the parking lot of the Greenwood Park Mall. People from different denominations and languages came together to find comfort and peace. Jamie Flores is a Baptist pastor from El Salvador. He believes it’s important that everyone comes together after the shooting.
“We like to show Greenwood and Indianapolis that evil is not over us. We are going to defeat evil, to pray, to come together as one,” Flores said.
The Greenwood Park Mall shooting wasn’t just something Cardona has been paying attention to on the news. His family was in the mall Sunday.
“I had a text message from one of my nieces who was working here at the mall. This is the worst text message I had from my sister, that she was hiding in the back. So for me, it hit home. It’s one of my little babies,” Cardona said.
The pastor says the most important thing the community can do is rely on each other because the community is still shaken.
“There is trauma. There is fear that can come. People will be watching your backs, and that’s not how God wants us to walk, so I’m ministering to them as family members, but I know if they feel that way everybody who left this place, left like that,” Cardona said.
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Mental health resources
- Be Well Indiana
- Indiana Suicide Prevention
- Indiana Department of Child Services’ Children’s Mental Health Initiative
- National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 988 or 800-273-8255
- More resources
