Indialantic vigil for Parkland victims gives voice to local frustration

A chorus of candles softly glowed along the darkened bank of the Indian River as a score of people gathered Saturday evening in Indialantic to honor the 17 victims of the Parkland school shooting.

About two dozen Brevard residents, including students from local middle and high schools, endured the cold river wind in Douglas Park to share their thoughts on the tragedy and express solidarity with the survivors.

Organizers Laura Rankin and Sarah Webb were the first to arrive. They spoke about the shooting with equal parts passion and exasperation.

"Every time I think about it or talk about it, it makes that feeling in your chest like you're going to throw up or can't stop yourself from crying," Webb said. "So I have to be here, because you feel so powerless if you don't do something."

"We have to do something," Rankin echoed. "We have to keep it in our consciousness and keep focusing on this. We have to stop this. This is madness."

As people trickled in before the event, the adults gathered at the abutment, watching manatees lounge in the shallows. The older children stood apart on the far edge of the small park while the younger ones climbed the tangled branches of a nearby tree.

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MaryBeth Scrivener, a first grade teacher at Indialantic Elementary, looked on.

"This can't happen again. No student should ever feel unsafe coming to school," Scrivener said. "We have all those people fighting right now to have gun laws changed. I hope it's a tipping point. I just want to see change."

Webb floated between groups of people, distributing glow sticks and LED candles.

Webb's teenage sons, Jaden and Sam, were conflicted when they first heard about the shooting. Jaden, 16, is a student at Melbourne High and Sam, 14, attends Hoover Middle.

"I didn't really know what to feel, because so many shootings have been happening," Sam said after descending from his perch in the tree.

"My first thoughts were, how could someone do something so awful?" Jaden said.

It made them both wonder whether they may also have to run for their lives one day.

"I think it might happen," Jaden said, shifting uncomfortably. "It depends on how far someone is willing to go."

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The sun fell, streaking the low sky in ember orange. The candles flared to life. Rankin started a generator to power a small PA system and people stepped forward to speak.

"This really hit close to home," said Indialantic resident Sally Kahler. "This happened within a mile of our grandchildren who, if they lived three blocks further north, would have been in that school."

"I think we all get jaded," said Bill Deluccia. His children huddled close to their mother, watching.

"When our second amendment rights are more important to us than our children, our community and our nation have some problems," he said. "So we do need to pull together and do something about this."

One by one, people came forward. Their silhouettes bled together in the dying light. Their voices, at turns frustrated and optimistic, fought against the biting wind.

Scrivener's younger daughter, a precocious 10-year-old named Hope with blonde hair like her mother's, took the mic. Behind her, the manatees dipped their snouts above the water.

"I wanted to speak because there's so many lives that got taken away," she said, brushing her long hair from her face with a tiny hand. "And that could have been any of us. And there's still hope that, in our generation, someone can put an end to this."

As the sun went out, shrouding the park in darkness, the attendees held a long moment of silence. Afterward, Rankin and Webb lingered behind, the last to leave.

"It's so frustrating to me to live in a place where people's rights to own a gun of mass destruction are more important than the lives of people," Webb said.

When asked if she considered the event to be political, Rankin peered through her signature pair of sassy, rose-colored glasses.

"In terms of being a human being and just wanting to have kids go to school and learn and grow up and live their lives," Rankin said. "If that's political, then yes, I'm political."

Contact Rogers at 321-242-3717 or esrogers@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EricRogersFT.

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