Yellow police tape flapped in the wind across the window of Paul’s Jewelry store on Sunday afternoon.
The scene of a horrific crime on Friday morning - a robbery and shooting that took the life of 67-year-old longtime downtown business owner Jamie Iverson - the store provided the backdrop to a candlelight vigil that drew a crowd larger than most festivals here have in the past few years.
It included people from all walks of life who came out to mourn, pray, sing and worship together.
It was a powerful hour-long service led by pastors, a praise band and even briefly by Iverson’s widower, Rodney Iverson, who fought back tears as he paid tribute to his late wife.
It was a sad and beautiful event all at the same time, bringing a most diverse group of people together under the worst of circumstances.
For most in attendance, it was the first time they ever heard the name Delexius Betties.
Betties was shot and killed just over 30 hours after Iverson.
He was driving three other friends around town on Saturday night when his car was apparently ambushed by multiple men who shot more than 30 bullets, one of them hitting the 29-year-old fatally.
Betties, police believe, just happened to be driving in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Folks in Indianola are struggling to make sense of these senseless acts of violence.
Why Iverson, a devoted mother, grandmother and church member?
Why Betties, a hard-working father with seemingly no enemies?
Indianola turned its eyes toward heaven Sunday evening and cried out for the answers to those questions, asking God to grant justice, hope and an end to gun violence in our city.
Many people have commented in the aftermath of these shootings that Iverson and Betties “were killed for nothing.”
It’s true that the killers took nothing of earthly value from their victims, but that does not mean they died for nothing.
Sunday’s vigil is a prime example.
These tragic deaths have sparked the kinds of cries many of us have only read about in scripture but have never actually seen in action.
It’s the sound of the lost repenting and reaching out for the only one who can truly revive, unite and save our community.
People of different races and walks of life gathered in the streets this past weekend to pray and beg God for mercy and forgiveness.
What a legacy for Jamie and Delexius.
If we go back to sleep. If we allow hate to consume us. If we don’t rip up the train tracks in our hearts and start loving our neighbors, then they will have indeed died in vain.
As the rest of this nation embraces division, Indianola is poised for unity and revival in 2021.
There’s really no choice at this point. The cat’s out of the bag. We’ve publicly and loudly identified the solution.
We have it within ourselves to reject the culture of random gunfire and the countless acts of violence that are committed, even ones that are not homicides.
Rather than treating our differences as hinderances, we can embrace them as opportunities to learn from one another.
That power was felt this past Sunday night on Front Street.
It’s not political power. It’s not even police power.
It’s the power of prayer and a people that have humbled themselves and are crying out to God for help.
That’s not nothing.
That’s everything.
