'This is hard.' Louisville mourns Old National Bank victims, calls for change at vigil

Emily Goodlett hid inside a cash vault on Monday morning as a gunman killed five of her colleagues at Old National Bank.

Two days later, she and her husband came together with hundreds to mourn, pray and celebrate the heroes.

Louisville is grieving, and on Wednesday evening, the community had the opportunity to do it together at a vigil at the Muhammad Ali Center, about eight blocks from where the shooting was downtown. For Goodlett, this pain was raw and personal, and she cried after the vigil as her husband, Caleb, told the story of how she had frantically called him from inside the vault. He immediately left his office a mere three blocks away and arrived at the scene as Officer Nickolas Wilt was shot.

The couple had previously discussed what to do and who to call during a mass shooting.

They lived it on Monday.

"You can’t say this isn’t the time to make this political," Caleb said in an interview with The Courier Journal. "If we don't make it (political) now, … This is happening again tonight somewhere. This is happening tomorrow somewhere."

The Goodletts weren't the only ones crying out for change Wednesday.

More: 911 calls of Louisville Old National Bank shooting paint bleak picture inside the building

As Louisville remembered Tommy Elliott, 63, Jim Tutt Jr., 64, Josh Barrick, 40, Juliana Farmer, 45, and Deana Eckert, 57, who were all killed at the bank, as well as Chea’von Moore, who died in a different shooting downtown Monday morning, faith leaders, officials, and doctors clamored for change at the vigil.

Scattered throughout the moments of remembrance and prayers were forceful cries for gun reform and pleas for Kentucky politicians to find a bipartisan solution to keep tragedies like the killings at Old National Bank from happening again. Politicians, faith leaders, doctors and advocates all had the same message.

Mass shootings like this have to stop.

"Let’s join together as children of one God to take meaningful and necessary steps to ban assault weapons that were only created for battlefields," Rabbi Beth Jacowitz Chottiner cried out during her remarks, over applause as someone from the crowd shouted, "Put it on the ballot."

One of the speakers, who took the podium, was Dr. Muhammad Babar from University of Louisville Health. Babar was at U of L Hospital with his friend, Tommy Elliott's wife, on Monday when she learned her husband was killed. He was also there when Juliana Farmer and Jim Tutt’s families heard the unbearable news that their loved ones died as victims of gun violence, which has claimed more than 40 lives in Louisville this year.

More: Letters: Louisville responds to mass shooting at Old National Bank, 'Do something!'

"We all need to play our part so that there is no Muhammad Babar sitting in a hospital with a Maryanne Elliott and breaking the news to her that her husband is no more," he said.

Babar said "seeing their grief and their emotions" is what made him realize he could no longer be a bystander but had to speak out against gun violence at the vigil.

"If we all keep silent or if we don't speak up, nothing is going to change for coming generations," Babar said.

Close ties like Babar's relationships are strong in Louisville.

Congressman Morgan McGarvey began his remarks simply by saying “This is hard." He repeated that line more than once in his three minutes on stage.

In this city, everybody knows somebody who is hurting because of the killings that happened on Monday.

"This is hard," McGarvey said again. "It's going to be hard. We are hurting, and we're gonna hurt for a while. And as hard as it is to read the names of the six people we lost Monday, we would have lost more if it weren't for the brave actions of the officers."

More: 9 minutes of chaos: Swift LMPD response saved lives at Louisville bank shooting, officials say

Tim Tomes, a community member who attended the vigil, said he had personal connections with several of the shooting victims, including two who were killed.

"In a small town like Louisville, we all have connections," he said. "Whether it's one, two or three degrees apart."

The vigil ended Wednesday night with the crowd rising to its feet and Louisville singer-songwriter Jason Clayborn singing "Amazing Grace."

In those final moments, the cries for change paused as some people sang and some people cried.

And everyone mourned.

Reach Maggie Menderski at mmenderski@courier-journal.com. Contact reporter Olivia Evans at oevans@courier-journal.com or on Twitter at @oliviamevans_

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville mourns Old National Bank victims, calls for change at vigil