Community vigil honors shooting victim

More than 200 men, women, teenagers and children surrounded the family of Wesley Wing on Sunday evening for a community vigil in memory of the Springfield man who was killed last weekend after he confronted a woman about drug activity in their neighborhood.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150427/NEWS02/704279995

Community vigil honors shooting victim By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer | April 27,2015 SPRINGFIELD — More than 200 men, women, teenagers and children surrounded the family of Wesley Wing on Sunday evening for a community vigil in memory of the Springfield man who was killed last weekend after he confronted a woman about drug activity in their neighborhood. People listened to leaders of Project ACTION and Springfield ministers urged people to remain “Springfield Strong” and to fight what many view as a rising tide of violence and drug dealing in their community. After a brief ceremony and a couple of songs, there was a moment of silence in memory of Wing, 37, a local builder and father of four children. People lit candles. The crowd then made its way around the South Street neighborhood, first around Stanley Road, and walking past the corner where Wing was shot and Jake’s Market where Wing had gone for help. The gathering also made a loop on Hall Street. But later, a small group of residents walked the three-tenths of a mile farther south along South Street, to Birdland, the neighborhood where the Wing family lives and where the man now accused of shooting him to death once lived. Terry Wing of Springfield, Wesley Wing’s mother, hugged many of the people who had come to the vigil and walked around the neighborhoods. She hugged Police Chief Douglas Johnston and Lt. Mark Fountain, who said he had known her for years. Shirley Gurney of Charlestown, N.H., said she had come to support Terry Wing, a friend of hers. “We have been friends for a long, long time,” said Gurney. One neighbor of Birdland — a small neighborhood that gets its longtime nickname from its streets which are all named after birds — had asked Select Board Chairman Kristi Morris if the group would walk around the Birdland neighborhood. Although much of the gathering had dispersed by then, about three dozen people made the walk — past the Wing home at the corner and on past the modest home of Wendy Morris, 25, and Gregory Smith, 30. Wing’s two teenage daughters, Casey, 15, and Brooke, 16, joined the walk and marched past the Morris house, a neat, white clapboard house with blue shutters. Later, Brooke Wing said she had heard that Wendy Morris, who also lived there with her brother, had been evicted and would be leaving the small neighborhood in May. But that was no comfort to her. Brooke Wing said she believed that Morris was just as guilty as Gregory Smith, who is charged with her father’s murder. It was Morris who went and complained to Smith, her boyfriend, after Wesley Wing had complained to her about the drug traffic in their small neighborhood. In court Friday, Morris was released on a non-cash appearance bond on a charge of accessory after a felony. Smith was ordered held without bail, pending another evidentiary hearing. Later, Johnston said another person would be charged with harboring Smith on his five days of eluding capture last week. He declined to identify the person involved. But he said that under Vermont law, members of Morris’ and Smith’s families cannot be charged with helping them elude arrest. Fountain said police officers continued investigating the case all weekend and would for many days to come. Another girlfriend of Smith’s, Kristin Walsh, 29, of Keene, N.H., was arrested last week in Keene, after police determined Smith had fled to her apartment the night of the shooting. Walsh, who has a lengthy criminal record herself and was on probation at the time of the incident, is being held for lack of $20,000 cash bail. Morris, who has no criminal record, was released on conditions by the Vermont court. That infuriated many at the gathering, including Wesley Wing’s daughters, both of whom had attended Friday’s arraignments of both Smith and Morris. “She’s just as guilty,” said Brooke Wing, who said her father had been shot five times — including once in the back — by Smith, not the four times mentioned in the police reports. “That bothers me,” she said. “He was shot five times.” “She pointed him out. My dad told them at Jake’s, ‘Greg Smith shot me,’” said Brooke Wing, who was accompanied by friends on the short walk around Birdland, a neighborhood of tidy, well-kept homes. “My dad stood up for his community,” she said. “My family’s wounded for life.”