At a Northland vigil, prayers for two shooting victims and hope for justice

Friends, family and other well-wishers prayed Sunday for the two victims of last week’s shotgun attack in the Northland and thanked God for sparing their lives.

But with the unknown assailant who shot them still on the loose, many of those attending Sunday’s candlelight vigil at Northgate Baptist Church offered up one further hope, this one to the police.

“I hope they get him,” Earline Allen said as she and others handed candles out to the 200 who attended the service. “I can’t imagine why he hurt them. They’re real good people.”

The drama began early last Tuesday morning when a 911 dispatcher received a report of a man with a gun in 10200 block of North Flora Avenue in Kansas City, North. A resident there said he saw the man walk out of his garage carrying a shotgun.

On a police recording, the dispatcher says, the gunman “told the caller not to test him, said he wasn’t who he was looking for.”

Shortly afterward, a shooting occurred about a block away at a home in the 10300 block of North Virginia Avenue. The 46-year-old woman who lived there and her 14-year-old daughter were both critically wounded. The Star is not naming the victims because the shooter remains at large.

Both of their conditions have improved since then, the woman’s husband said in a Facebook post.

The woman told police she did not know the assailant, whom police described as a white man in his early 20s with dark hair and a scruffy beard. He is about 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 150 pounds. He was last seen wearing dark pants and a gray or dirty white T-shirt.

At Sunday’s prayer vigil, people signed poster-sized get-well cards laid out on tables near the pulpit. Another offered happy birthday wishes to the girl, who will turn 15 later this month.

The Rev. George Sipp described the mother and daughter as “two miracles” for having survived the attack.

“They are with us by the grace and miracle of God,” he said. Then later, as candles flickered, Sipp noted the moment’s symbolism.

“We will not let some bad person snuff out the lives of these women,” he said.

This story was originally published July 12, 2015 at 8:36 PM.