After West Side mass shooting, leaders offer hope, call for more funding to combat violence: ‘We are not destroyed’

A woman who wanted to be identified as Mrs. Patterson, left, cries at a public gathering Wednesday to discuss violence on the West Side. Mrs. Patterson organized Monday night’s vigil for a woman who had died. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times)

Pamela Smith joined nearly 150 people Wednesday who assembled at California Avenue and Polk Street in East Garfield Park, where two nights before there had been a children’s Halloween party, a vigil for a woman who had died and then a mass shooting in which 14 were wounded.

Smith came out because religious and city leaders had called a vigil for the victims of Monday night’s shooting and a close family member of hers was among the people shot.