About 300 people gathered Saturday evening at a vigil for Carmelo Duncan, the 15-month-old boy who was shot and killed in Southeast D.C.’s Marshall Heights neighborhood on Wednesday.

And at one point, a large gust of wind blew and ruffled the surrounding trees. The crowd gasped and exclaimed; To them, it felt as if the baby boy himself decided to make an appearance.

“OK, Melo!” yelled one woman in the crowd.

“Melo, we feel you, baby,” said another.

Then, Duncan’s family invited the crowd to release their blue, white and silver balloons into the sky. Family and friends held signs with enlarged photos of the child. He was a baby with a big smile, who had just recently learned how to chase the family dog around the house.

The vigil took place a block away from where Duncan was killed. Attendees filled the parking lot of a small shopping center and spilled out into the streets at the corner of Central Avenue and Southern Avenue Southeast, right at the D.C.-Maryland border. Another community vigil organized by the anti-violence organization Guns Down Friday took place up the street shortly after. It was an outpouring of community support for the family of the youngest victim of a fatal shooting in D.C. this year.

According to police, Duncan was shot multiple times on Wednesday while in a vehicle with his father and another child. D.C. police, D.C.’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms, and Explosives, and the FBI are offering a total reward of $60,000 for information on the killing. So far, police have not publicly named any suspects.

One of Duncan’s uncles opened the vigil with a prayer — and then directly addressed those who shot Duncan. The uncle did not say his name and the family asked media not to interview family members.

“You can hide from the police,” he said. “You can hide from us. But you can’t hide from Jesus. So if you’ve got any Jesus in you, turn yourself in. You can’t hide… that’s a one-year-old that I didn’t get to know.”

According to D.C. police data as of Friday, there have been 187 homicides so far this year — a 20% increase over this time last year. This year has seen more homicides than any other this decade.

Speakers at the vigil emphasized how important it will be to support Duncan’s family long after the immediate aftermath of his death. They also spoke about cultivating a broader network of community support, which they said would be needed to combat gun violence in the District.

“Melo should still be here,” Nee Nee Taylor, an organizer with D.C.’s Black Lives Matter chapter, told the crowd. “We want to build a community where we keep us safe … a community where your next-door neighbor is just like a mother, father, sister, brother, cousin.”

Another speaker, who did not identify herself, connected the tragedy to systemic racism and segregation.

“[White people] set this shit up like this for us,” she told the crowd. “I want everybody to go home and research what the fuck redlining is…We killing each other for the white man. Don’t make it easy for them.”

Marie Antoinette Wood, a 53-year-old Ward 7 resident, said she didn’t know Duncan — but she came to the vigil and brought a handmade sign that said “RIP Baby Melo,” with small flameless candles attached to it. She had heard that his family referred to him affectionately by that nickname.

“He was a year old,” said Wood. “I’m concerned about the children and the violence in our neighborhood.”

Wood said the large turnout at the vigil was a sign that there was great concern in the community, and a desire to come together to mourn the loss of a child. She said she was wondering what she could do in her capacity as a small business owner to help.

“But,” Wood added, “we need better leadership.”

Faith leaders from several churches and the Nation of Islam were also in attendance.

“My prayer is that we’re at a tipping point when it comes to this violence,” said Rev. Delonte Gholston, the Senior Pastor at Peace Fellowship Church in Deanwood, after the vigil. “My hope is that enough people were here tonight to hear the message of nonviolence…I think it shows that this community is love, his family is love, and to kill a baby — there are no words for that.”

In the aftermath of Duncan’s killing, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who will soon leave his post for one in Prince William County, has emphasized the need to get illegal guns off of D.C.’s streets. Newsham and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser have also repeatedly called for harsher penalties for previously convicted felons who are caught with guns.

But Gholston, who helps lead the anti-violence initiative Peace Walks DC and serves on the police reform commission created by D.C. Council this year, said he believes the city needs to respond to violence by increasing investments in behavioral health services, trauma services, employment programs, and other initiatives that address root causes.

“We’re at a fork in the road,” said Gholston. “We can make a strategic investment in peace or we can continue to make a strategic investment in the numb, dull instruments of force. And…if you continue to overinvest in instruments of force as opposed to investing in instruments of peace, you will continue to see a violent response.”

On Saturday night, Duncan’s family specifically urged people in the crowd not to respond to the baby’s death with more violence. Gholston told the crowd that Duncan’s grandmother asked him to deliver a specific message.

“The grandmother asked me to tell each of you tonight that vengeance belongs to the Lord. It doesn’t belong to you,” said Gholston. “You leave this in God’s hands.”