As part of the vigil, residents of Cathedral Hill Apartments at Bowdoin and St. James Avenue lit candles and paraded around the perimeter of the property.
SPRINGFIELD - More than 40 residents of an apartment complex in the city’s McKnight neighborhood assembled Tuesday night in a community vigil calling for solidarity and peace in the wake of what organizers say are ongoing problems with violent crime.
As part of the vigil, residents of Cathedral Hill Apartments at Bowdoin Street and St. James Avenue said prayers, lit candles and paraded around the perimeter of the property.
The apartment complex is roughly seven or eight blocks away from the city’s latest homicide, the shooting death early Saturday of 38-year-old Antonio Gonzales during a disturbance near 305 Bay St. Sixteen-year-old Joshua Pena is under arrest and charged with murder.
Organizers said the vigil was not arranged as a result of the Gonzales shooting, but rather a series of troubling incidents at and around the apartment complex over the last several months.
Keya Hicks of the Alliance to Develop Power, the group that organized the vigil, said there have been problems with drugs, gang violence and guns that have combined to terrorize the residents. Several months ago, a bullet crashed through the bedroom window of one of the apartment, narrowly missing a child who was asleep, she said.
“People don’t want to be hostages in their own homes,” she said.
Cathedral Hill Apartments is a 48-unit co-operative housing complex owned by the Alliance to Develop Power, a non-profit community-based advocacy group that works on behalf of low-income families.
Hicks said the vigil is not intended to be an endpoint as much as it is a beginning. The goal is to continue to bring people in the neighborhood together to work with police and the city to make quality-of-life improvements.
In the coming weeks, she said, residents will be working on a campaign to promote safety in the area while working to build a stronger relationship with the police.
“We are just trying to bring people out and show solidarity and unity,” she said. “We are united for peace.”
Theresa Cooper-Gordon of ADP told the gathering “Thank you for coming out to support peace and unity. We are here today to pray together for the unity that is the foundation of a community.”
Rev. David Ramos of the New England Interfaith Chaplaincy said urged the gathering to not fight or argue over what he called little things.
"Let’s forget about the small things and concentrate on the bigger things and try to live our lives in peace.," he said.