Gun violence prevention rally

Intermountain Catholic

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IC photo/Marie Mischel

More than 2,000 people marched in downtown Salt Lake City on June 28 to protest gun violence. The march, organized as part of the Episcopal Church’s 78th General Convention, drew local participants as well as more than 60 Episcopal bishops and others from across the country who attended the convention. Marching from the Salt Palace Convention Center to Pioneer Park, participants chanted “God does not make death” and “Nor does God delight in the death of the living.” They also sang and carried signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “In memory of Emmanuel A.M.E. Church, Charleston, S.C.” Speakers before, during and after the march decried the deaths caused by guns; among the speakers was Carolyn Tuft (shown) of Utah, who was severely wounded during the shooting at Trolley Square on Feb. 12, 2007 and continues to suffer from the effects of lead poisoning caused by the more than 100 shotgun pellets that remain in her body. Tuft’s 15-year-old daughter, Kirsten Hinckley, was shot and killed in front of her mother’s eyes, one of five people killed at the mall that day by Sulejman Talovi, who was killed by police that night.