Barbara Bunn wept as members of a prayer vigil approached to embrace her and lay hands on her.

Her grandson, 18-year-old Cortez Powell, is one of two men charged in the shooting death and robbery of a pizza delivery driver earlier this week on Branch Avenue. Nashown Laquan Alston, 26, of Roanoke Rapids, was the second person charged.

“If I’m feeling like this, I can’t imagine what the other families are feeling like,” she told a small group assembled for the vigil in honor of the victim, James Anthony Lee Jr., the 21-year-old Weldon man who was shot and killed in his car late Monday night while making a delivery to Branch Avenue.

As Bunn walked to her car afterward, she said, “I just wish the other families the best. I’m just so sorry. All we can do is teach them.”

Bunn said she has spoken with her grandson. “I just told him to be strong and to be involved in something like this,” has its consequences. “To me I wanted him to be no part of it.”

The vigil was held at Way of the Cross Church of God, a short walk from the crime scene.

Florine Bell, a longtime community activist and minister in the area of Roanoke Rapids commonly called Lincoln Heights, organized the event.

“The neighborhood is deeply saddened and are praying for the family, employer and all who are deeply concerned regarding the invaluable loss of Mr. James Lee Jr.’s life,” Bell said in a statement. “There is no justification for this homicide or any of the violence consistently taking place throughout America’s urban and suburban neighborhoods.”

Bell said, “In order to bring about the positive changes needed surrounding criminal elements manifested throughout the nation and our communities, we should ban together for more public awareness and involvement beginning with this community.”

Said Bell: “I’m hopeful that we may accomplish this action along with our many supporting local agencies as well. Most importantly, may we pray to God for his intervention and that he will heal the land and bring a spirit of calm and peace to our entire nation from the government to every community in America.”

In her prayer, Bell remembered the accused and their families. She remembered the victim and his family, friends and coworkers. “We’re going to pray for the culprits out there committing crime that God will give them a mind to want to come in and serve him.”

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David Harvey, president of the Halifax County branch of the NAACP, said, “First of all my heart goes out to the family for all they had to go through. This was just a senseless, senseless murder. To think that a young man just out trying to work and do the right thing and individuals just taking his life over a robbery and a couple of dollars and a pizza, it’s just senseless.”

Harvey said, “We have got to find a way, all of us in this community, to get these young people to understand that there is a better way to do things. It’s just senseless. It happens everywhere, but when it happens right here at home it really hits hard. He was just 21-years-old. To have something that senseless happen right here in this community it’s sad, it’s a sad time.”

The first step in addressing the matter is for communities to come together and understand, he said, “that everyone’s lives matter. That starts with families, church and the community to get our young people to understand the importance of life and there’s a value in life, to get them focused on positive things. 

“That’s going to take everybody and to start them young bringing these kids up. That’s the first step, it starts at home and we have to get these people to understand the importance of educating their children on just the importance of life and that you can’t take what you want. You’ve got to go out and go to work. There’s opportunities here but it starts at home, the structure at home and then from there on up in the schools and in the workplace and in the church, the whole community.”

Ophelia Gould-Faison, a Littleton town commissioner and member of the Roanoke Valley Southern Christian Leadership Conference, told the prayer circle, “We are here to lend support. We will interact and express concerns to different bodies. We don’t live alone. If it affects Roanoke Rapids it affects me. I really hope our situation in this county is heading for a turn.”

Photos from Friday’s Stop the Violence Walk

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Pastor Chris Mallory of the Grace and Peace Church in Roanoke Rapids organized a Stop the Violence in Lee’s memory, according to Weldon police Chief Chris Davis.

The walk went from Ransome Circle to Weldon STEM High School. There was a balloon release at the high school. Domino’s Pizza, where Lee had worked for a week, supplied pizza for the people who participated in the walk.