One by one, six tearful mothers and fathers stepped up to a podium on Nov. 23 in a candlelit room at the Bronx County Courthouse. With trembling voices, they told the crowd about their murdered children.

The vigil, hosted by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., was part of the National Day of Outrage, a campaign against gun violence organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Similar events were held in more than 20 cities across the country, including an afternoon rally in Times Square.

In the Bronx County Courthouse, the dead children’s parents stood together, surrounded by teenagers holding placards inscribed with the names of murder victims. Nearly everyone in the crowd of hundreds held a small white candle.

The evening underscored recent gun violence that has claimed the lives and health of innocent Bronx bystanders whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

David Pacheco, Sr. recalled the Easter Sunday in 2006 when a stray bullet killed his 2-year-old son, David Pacheco, Jr., as he sat in the back seat of his family’s minivan. The vehicle was passing through Morris Heights when it was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight.

Yvette Montanez mourned her 25-year-old daughter, Aisha Santiago, who was killed in Mott Haven by a stray bullet in September. “I struggle to get up in the morning to go to work,” she said. “I have problems sleeping because I still see her body laying there, covered with the white sheet and the blood and her hand with the black nail polish.”

At the vigil, members of the clergy, teenagers, activists, artists and politicians railed against numerous factors they say contribute to the killings – a culture of violence, lax gun control laws, poor parenting, video games, a lack of male role models. They called for stricter gun regulation, more community involvement and better communication between parents and children.