City with a heart on the path to healing: sitting down with Elkhart's Mayor Roberson

ELKHART, Ind. -- Just days after Monday’s deadly shooting, Elkhart Mayor Rod Roberson sat down with ABC57’S Blake Parker Friday afternoon to reflect on the pain and strength he’s seen in his community over the past week.

The shooting at Martin's Super Market in Elkhart took the lives of 49-year-old Benjamin (Ben) S. Jeffrey and 19-year-old Annasue (Annie) Rocha, and also hospitalized two Elkhart officers, Corporal Paul Vandenburg and Patrolman Ethan Pasternak, who have since been released.

The night of the shooting, Roberson said he decided to go to the crime scene while first responders were still there investigating.

“Consoler and chief is part of my definition too. They need to know that I appreciate those that hit the scene, those that were helping to keep the integrity of the scene, those that came to support the first responders that hit the scene. I also made a trip over to our dispatch for our 911, dispatch officers who were on the call to let them know how the officers were doing,” said Roberson.

Like many, the spontaneous tragedy has greatly impacted Roberson. He explained he shares personal connections to the shooting, just as others in the community do.

“All of those that are connected with serving the community have an expectation of having the motions of… walking with you… it becomes difficult to express it but I’m very spiritual in the notion that God would give me the strength to be able to share if you feel that way, if I feel as though I’m with them, and I do. My wife was intending to go to that Martin’s… a very close friend of mine heard the first shots from outside the store on his way in the store,” said Roberson.

Since that tragic night, Roberson has walked with his community through every step after. He said it has shown him just how interconnected the Elkhart community is.

“We lost two wonderful people, and in talking to Ben’s widow, it made me fully understand this relationship of a thread being driven through our community that says we need to sew our lives together and understand that nothing is promised, but everything can be gained if we see each other as just one thread. That, to me, is how you build a community. You do it together. It means something for our ethnicities to be conjoined, our relationships to be conjoined, our ability to be, to feel valued to be conjoined. That’s what makes a community strong, resilient and forward-thinking. And I believe that, and so, if this situation hasn’t been an example of that I’m not sure what could be,” said Roberson.