The shoes say it all: Victims of gun violence throughout Hampton Roads numbered in the hundreds in 2022

HAMPTON — The types of shoes lining the floor were as varied as the people they represented.

There were tennis shoes, dress shoes, sandals, loafers, boots and high heels — all placed side-by-side in a square in the commons area of a Hampton church. Some were dark colored, some bright. Some tiny, some large.

On top of each pair was a tag with the name of the person the shoes represented written in black marker — one of the more than 200 people killed by a gun last year in Hampton Roads.

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church held the vigil Saturday night to remember each victim and to pray for common sense measures to help end the violence in the coming year.

As they walked out of Mass that evening, parishioners grabbed a glass votive with a lit candle inside and placed it in front of one of the pairs of shoes. Pastoral Associate Mark Hoggard then led them in prayer and song.

Church member Joan Kennedy helped gather the victims’ names by combing through local and national databases. Most had been shot by someone else, she said, but some died by suicide.

Parishioners donated the shoes, Kennedy said. They chose pairs that aligned with the victim’s gender — and in the case of child victims, their age.

A pair of shoes is marked by a nametag that reads ‘unnamed’ to represent a victim of gun violence. Over 200 pairs of shoes were placed around a room with nametags during a vigil at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hampton on Saturday. (Billy Schuerman/The Virginian-Pilot)

The youngest to have a pair placed out was a 2-year-old Portsmouth boy. He died in April from a gunshot to the head in an incident police said may have been an accident. The oldest was retired Norfolk police sergeant William “Bill” Moore, who was killed in March during a home invasion and robbery at his Ocean View house. Moore was 83.

Church members had been gathering to pray for shooting victims each time someone was killed, but it got to be too frequent, Hoggard said. This year, they opted instead to have one event to remember all who’d been fatally shot throughout the year.

“We decided to really focus on the magnitude of the issue,” Hoggard said. “We hope to make this an annual event until there are zero shoes.”

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com