INDIANAPOLIS — Monday on the northeast side members of the community held a pop-up prayer service that organizers said they will keep holding across the city.
Monday's vigil was focused on the area where a 16-year-old girl was hit and killed by a stray bullet.
In 2020, there is plenty to protest about and according to Barbara Golder even more to pray about.
"You can protest until you're blue in the face, but if you don't change the heart of a person then nothing is going to change," Golder said.
That is the energy fueling this drive-by prayer on the corner of East 38th Street and Arlington Avenue in a part of the city that Golder said needs serious help.
"There's a spirit that we believe rests on the east side of Indianapolis. Homicides, burglaries, thefts, people getting mugged and things of that nature," Golder said. "And so we came here so that we could take authority over all of that spiritual wickedness and bring all of our crime rates down."
The corner of 38th and Arlington is where 16-year-old Nya Mae Cope's life was cut short when she was hit and killed by a stray bullet. Cope was riding in a car with her family in the overnight hours of May 3 while a large crowd gathered in the old Value City parking lot. Police said the bullet may have come from the crowd. Cope's death is one of the many that called this drive-by prayer back to that very same parking lot.
"Too much murder," Golder said. "Too many things are going on this side of town and so the church has to rise up and start going out beyond the four walls of our churches and do what we say is going to bring deliverance and that's prayer."
Golder said the praying will continue each week in parts of the city where brighter days are needed.
"A lot of people won't walk into a church but if we can catch you as you are going into a store or a liquor store or driving down the street and if a seed is sown that will change your life forever then it's worth every effort that we put forth," she said.
Next Monday the group plans to pray at the corner of 71st and Michigan on Indy's northwest side. That's near the corner where Dreasjon Reed was shot and killed by an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer.
