TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A community is left reeling after the shooting events near Campbell Avenue and Irene Vista over the weekend.
Pastor Grady Scott says he never thought something like this would happen in this community.
“I don’t think anyone that’s lived in Tucson could have seen this coming,” he told KGUN9.
Scott has been a Pastor at Grace Temple Missionary Baptist Church for nearly 31 years. Sunday services took place just a few hours before the shooting, and just a couple miles down the road.
Pastor Scott calls that day's events a tragedy.
“I was terribly hurt, terribly upset when I heard about the shooting. The innocent people who were hurt. Who lost their lives...and even the shooter,” he added.
He says this shooting made it clear that Tucson, and America as a whole, has to address two issues:
“We have to address issues of mental health and we also have to address issues of mental health as it pertains to gun violence. This is the kind of thing that you hope never happens and never happens again,” Pastor Scott told KGUN9.
To help prevent that, Pastor Scott will meet with other pastors to see how they can best help a reeling community.
“I pray that we never see this again, but if there is a next time, how will we prepare to deal with this when it comes,” he added.
He says now,more than ever, is a time where the community needs to stick together and make an effort to recognize the community issue at hand.
“We can galvanize together from this or it can tear us apart. We can start looking at ways we can heal or looking at ways we can hurt people, and I think this is a time for us to say this is a tragedy. We have to see it that way, and when we come together during tragic times, we find out we have resources within our community and within ourselves that we didn't know we had,” he told KGUN9.
