As rain poured down the steps of St. Joseph’s Monastery Parish on Wednesday night, the Rev. Mike Murphy momentarily reconsidered whether to lead the prayer walk to the outskirts of Irvington.
He decided to carry on.
“It’d be even a stronger witness that, despite the uncomfortableness of the rain, that we still walk, we still pray and we still speak their names,” Murphy said as Irvington neighbors filled the pews in front of the altar, still decorated with holiday lights and flowers.
As Baltimore police officers stood by the entrance, Dorothy Cunningham, president of Irvington’s community association, walked into the church with her little boy, Aiden, who wore a jacket that had a dinosaur for a hood. She couldn’t find a sitter, she explained. Plus, she said, it’s good that he attends such things.
Cunningham has worked with Murphy, an Irvington native, for years, helping him lead his prayer walks. Although this is the first year since Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 that fewer than 300 people have died by homicide in Baltimore, 258 people have died in this manner in 2023.
On this night, they all would be remembered, their names read aloud inside the West Baltimore church and later during a prayer walk through the neighborhood. Four years ago, Cunningham read her grandson’s name.
She says she has been to at least 56 walks like this, where a group — usually much smaller than the 75 or so on this night — walks around the neighborhood, stopping at what she calls the “problem corners” to pray. Each walk has gotten easier, and yet his death remains raw to her.
Aiden grabs one of the candles being passed around. She takes it from his hand — fire isn’t for children, she tells him. Soon, dozens of candles illuminate the church.
The holidays are hard for those who have lost a loved one, the priest tells the gathering. “But even more so,” he added, “when they leave us so quickly, so suddenly, so violently.”
“So we believe that, when we speak people’s names, that it brings them to life and [shows] reverence [for] them,” Murphy said. “They remember it as being loved.”
Dozens of names were then read aloud at the church, which was otherwise quiet except for the storm outside.
They started with an unidentified male, age unknown, who died three days before Christmas. They then remembered 2-year-old Charlee Gamble.
He was followed by Carlos Ivan Oseguera Funez, a senior at Patterson High School who was part of Soccer Without Borders, and Pava LaPere, a tech entrepreneur who founded the company EcoMap. The victims ranged from young people just grasping adulthood to those as old as age 80.
Then the parishioners ventured into the night. Their raincoats, which had just begun to dry, were met with rain again. Cunningham held an umbrella over her and Aiden, following a trail of lit candles. At times like this, she said, her mind turns to action — to what the city has done to address violence, to what the city has yet to do.
More than two decades ago, she remembered, her daughter was 6 and she saw Irvington as a good place to raise a child. Murphy recalled a supermarket, a pharmacy, a movie theater and all kinds of mom-and-pop shops and sit-down restaurants.
That has changed.
Cunningham said crime has hit Irvington, too, though homicides are down this year.
Those gathered stopped in front of the parking lot of a dollar store, with most of the candles still burning, shielded from the rain by umbrellas. Police Commissioner Richard Worley stood on the outskirts of the crowd as more names were read aloud. They included Aaliyah Gonzalez, an 18-year-old honors student from Anne Arundel County who died in the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting in July, and Fabian Alberto Sanchez Gonzalez, a 23-year-old T-Mobile employee who died during an armed robbery.
The priest had invited the Baltimore police, the commissioner said. Worley, who was sworn into his position in October, said he wanted to “pay respects” to those who lost their lives to violence.
“Even though we’re going to come in under 300, that’s not a number to celebrate. It’s a number, unfortunately, made up by the media to judge us. It’s still 258 murders this year,” he told a Baltimore Banner reporter. “That’s way too many for our city.”
He credited the drop in homicides to partnerships with the federal and state governments, as well as community organizations. Yvonne Wagner, from the Grief Ministry, a volunteer-driven partnership with the Archdiocese of Baltimore and Catholic Charities, echoed the commissioner.
“When we’re all working together, then we can reach a solution that maybe will turn the tide for people in the many communities in Baltimore that are affected by violence and the mothers and the fathers and the children and the brothers and sisters who are spending this holiday without their loved one,” she said.
Over the summer, the Grief Ministry teamed with St. Joseph’s Monastery Parish for a gun buyback. It took 362 firearms off the streets.
They have also organized care packages for mothers of homicide victims, helped pay funeral costs and provided immediate outreach to families affected by the Brooklyn Homes shooting, which left two dead and 28 injured.
The group’s last stop was My Brother’s Keeper, a community center in West Baltimore that is part of Catholic Charities. Hot chocolate, muffins and crackers awaited the participants, their candles halfway melted, raindrops staining the protective glass around each flame.
Cunningham helped read more names.
D’Asia Garrison, the last person named, was 17. She was shot on New Year’s Day at 3:29 a.m.
And then they prayed — they prayed for those who are alone, who live in fear and who suffer from mental illness.
“Let our voices be raised asking our legislators to enact gun laws to protect all in our society, especially the most vulnerable,” Murphy said, leading the prayer. “That our pens write messages demanding change are also scripting words of hope and transformation.”
They prayed for peace.
