'Be mad, be angry, but be positive'

CLOVIS — Arron Chavez was a premature baby, a small child and a young man of little more than 5 feet in height, said his father, "but he had a big heart."

Clayton Chavez spoke Thursday evening before a crowd of about three dozen at the site where his son was shot dead by police less than three weeks earlier. Police said they initially pursued him in a stolen motor vehicle, then killed him after he left the car and began swinging a blade at an officer.

Arron Chavez' friends, family and members of the community he called home are beginning to try to heal.

His father said it's "been a nightmare" since the Oct. 8 incident, but that he was "blessed" to have had him for a son the past 22 years.

"He made me proud and happy every single day," Clayton Chavez said. "He will always be a part of this community here in Curry County."

Organizers attached to a fence post a white cross where Chavez had been killed, and nearby affixed a cluster of balloons that were released to the sky at the end of the vigil.

"The incident that happened here was awful," said Living Word Church of God's Associate Pastor Bonetta Hutson. "Awful things happen all the time ... and we need to not just read a newspaper and turn a page because we don't know them."

"When a tragedy happens, it affects all of us," she continued. "Can we change what happened? No. Can we help you go forward? I pray that we are able to do that."

Jessica Barnett said she was pumping gas at the station south of the Prince Street overpass when Arron Chavez was killed after midnight just a few yards away. She said she heard the gunshots but didn't realize what happened, nor that it happened to the son of a man she'd known the past two years.

"It means a lot, the support for the family, everybody that's here for him," she told The News.

Among those at the vigil were Chavez' siblings, who cried and held each other and their father at various times during the 45-minute meeting.

The pastor for Clovis' Pure Heart Word Center church opened with a prayer, imploring those gathered to "be mad, be angry, but be positive and be smart."

"What are you going to do from here?" asked David Dawson. "Excuse me if I shed some tears. It touches my heart when we have things like this that occur."

One of the event's organizers said it was intended "basically to pray for healing," and buttons distributed there said exactly that much.

"I think the community needs to have peace and respect for the officers and for the family," said Josefita Griego, who helped organize the vigil. "We shouldn't let something like this divide us as a community."

Church of the Brethren's associate pastor Daniel Murrell echoed a feeling from many that the situation could have been handled differently, could have ended differently, though it wasn't, and didn't.

"Lord, I don't like this situation," he said. "We're not going to let Arron's life end in vain .... Please understand that you're never too young to leave this earth. We're all going to miss Arron."

Arron Chavez' older sister Samantha Chavez agreed with that sentiment. She said the most persistent thought in her mind in the weeks since the incident was that "tomorrow's never promised."