From East Lansing to metro Detroit and beyond, Michiganders gather to mourn

Reeling from a frenzied night spent in fear, and a grim Valentine’s Day spent in shock, hundreds of Michiganders gathered at prayer services and vigils held across the state Tuesday night, revealing the magnitude of the heartbreak felt over the three students killed at Michigan State.

And as their grief swelled, they questioned the senselessness of it all: Why Brian? Why Alexandria? Why Arielle?

At the vigils, they came to grieve wearing Spartan green and white ― from Grosse Pointe, where Brian Fraser, 20, played lacrosse, to Clawson, where Alexandria Verner, 20, donned No. 24 on the basketball court, to East Lansing, where Arielle Anderson, 19, was working toward a career in medicine. 

Mourners converged solemnly across the state, and they plan to mourn through the week to honor the Spartans who were lost, injured and traumatized as shots rang out on campus, with vigils planned Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and beyond. MSU officials will hold a vigil on Wednesday around The Rock at 6 p.m., a boulder students decorate between North Shaw Lane and Auditorium Road on the MSU campus. 

More:Michigan State shooting victim Arielle Anderson wanted to become a doctor

More:Michigan State shooting victim Alexandria Verner was all-state athlete, leader

More:Michigan State shooting victim Brian Fraser remembered as a leader in community

On Tuesday, someone had painted “How many more?” in large red letters across The Rock. It has only been 14 months since vigils were held in the aftermath of the Oxford High School shooting, a massacre that claimed four lives. Just as survivors clung to #OxfordStrong in the days and months after, MSU’s community has adopted #SpartanStrong.

'Spartan Strong'

As students and others filed into Martin Luther Chapel in East Lansing for Tuesday evening's prayer service for a community in shock, a "Spartan Strong" banner hung from the balcony of a 1905 house across the street on Abbot Road.

A crowd of about four dozen people, young and old, gathered inside the Lutheran church's sanctuary, filling a ring of chairs set up for the service led by the Rev. James Robinson, campus pastor, and the Rev. Curt Dwyer, lead pastor. There, they sang hymnals — "O God Our Help in Ages Past and Abide with Me" — and shared in prayer and grief.

Just outside the medium-size, brick-walled sanctuary, a half dozen students sat on the floor, reading along with the prayers and slowly stroking four golden retrievers from the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dog Ministries, some of them sniffling back tears.

Nancy Borders said she has been a part of the Northbrook, Illinois-based organization's therapy dog program for about seven years, working with dogs Anna and then Claudia, both based in Toledo.

The dogs, she said, have been to the sites of school shootings across the country, including Parkland, Florida.

“Dogs can help people,” Borders said. “Whatever they need, they can talk to a dog.

“They’ll be noticeably stressed. We like to bring the dogs to situations like this to show them there is more good than evil and some hope. The dogs act as a bridge for compassion.”

Robinson, speaking before the service, said he had been counseling students at listening sessions on campus earlier Tuesday.

The students, he said, expressed anger and guilt: anger at the violation of a place of learning where they had felt safe and guilt over surviving a shooting that some of their peers did not.

As attendees made their way out following the service, many stopped to sign their names on three blue and white wooden hearts with the names of the slain students in the center. The hearts will soon be displayed on white crosses that will be erected at the church.

Less than a mile away, as worshippers arrived for a 7 p.m. service at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in East Lansing, they were given a list of legislators' contact information.

“We do believe in prayer first. It is important but it cannot be the last step,” the Rev. Kristin Stroble said before the service began.

Eastminster, set well back from Abbot Road, is a small church with a strong campus ministry of university students and staff, she said, adding that students have come with concerns about their safety and for help in comforting their families.

"An act of unspeakable gun violence has happened in our community. Evil owned fire on students in places where they should be safe,” Stroble said at the beginning of the vigil service. “We are gathered because our hearts are broken. We are gathered because we need to lament.”

Neil Myer, the church’s campus minister, said the students he had counseled Tuesday are dealing with powerful grief and hurt.

“They are processing the trauma and needing to be together, dealing with broken hearts and just needing a space to just be,” Myer said.

Bob Kleine, a member of the church and an MSU MBA graduate, said attending Eastminster's service was important to him.

“This kind of thing really affects you,” he said. “I’ve been outraged by these school shootings for a long time. My generation never had to deal with it like this. Nobody ever thinks it is going to happen where they are until it happens.”

More:MSU shooting suspect had troubling history with guns, records and interviews show

Mourning in metro Detroit

At St. Paul on the Lake in Grosse Pointe Farms, a sea of people converged Tuesday evening on the Catholic church, where Brian Fraser attended Mass with his family.

Boxes of tissues sat at the end of every pew in the packed sanctuary overlooking Lake St. Clair. The turnout was so great that even an overfill room with video monitors streaming the service became standing room only.

The Rev. James Bilot, the pastor at St Paul’s, told the crowd that Fraser wasn’t alone when he was violently gunned down in a mass shooting on MSU’s campus. A guardian angel was with him, he said.Soft cries from the parishioners followed. The boxes of tissues placed at the end of each pew were used.They prayed. They prayed that God will help Fraser. They prayed that God will have mercy on him and bring comfort to his family. And they prayed for the other students killed — Alexandria Verner and Arielle Anderson. At the church’s altar, a portrait of Fraser. It’s a photo his family wants everyone to see him as. Smiling and happy.Also at the altar were dozens of candles lit by Fraser’s loved ones and other MSU students.The candles are meant to show the family that there’s still light in this word, Bilot said.

He added: “We will be strong. We will be confident. We will be able to persevere.”

On the other side of Detroit in Clawson, a stunned crowd lined up along the football field at Clawson High, holding candles in red solo cups and wedged into plastic lids. As they entered the stadium, several held each other close, some greeted each other in tight hugs.

The scoreboard lit up with Alexandria Verner’s name and 2020, her graduation year.

Speaking to the crowd that filled nearly half the field, Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger said Verner "was kind, giving, humble, selfless, so positive and smiled hard every time you saw her.”

“We don’t honor the narrative of last night, but honor the narrative of 20 years," he said. "We do that by embodying what she did.”

He called for a 24-second moment of silence, asking the crowd to think of Verner’s smile and honoring her legacy. “Here’s to you No. 24.”

Then, a small group led part of the crowd in a quiet rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

Many friends and loved ones were on hand to remember Verner, whom they called “Al.”

“If you were down, she would always bring you up,” said Ava Lamotte, 18, an MSU freshman who knew Verner in Clawson.

Ava’s mother, Kris Lamotte, said families in Clawson checked in with one another through the night to make sure the community’s kids were OK, adding:

“And we woke up in the morning with friends calling us telling us it’s not.”