Andy Parker, father of Alison Parker, is comforted by a family member of Parker’s boyfriend and colleague, Chris Hurst, following the Interfaith Service of Remembrance and Healing to commemorate the lives of WDBJ reporters Alison Parker and Adam Ward at the Jefferson Center in Shaftman Performance Hall in on Aug. 30, 2015, in Roanoke, Virginia

Alison Parker’s Father: I Will Do ‘Whatever It Takes To End Gun Violence’

August 31, 2015

ROANOKE, Va. (CBSDC/AP) — The father of the Virginia reporter who was gunned down by an ex-colleague last week on live television says he will do “whatever it takes to end gun violence.”

In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Andy Parker, the father of WDBJ-TV reporter Alison Parker, wrote that he will devote all of his “strength and resources to seeing that some good comes from evil.”

“I am entering this arena with open eyes. I realize the magnitude of the force that opposes sensible and reasonable safeguards on the purchase of devices that have a single purpose: to kill,” he wrote.”

Parker called on federal and local legislators from Virginia to step up their actions on gun control.

“Legislators such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who represents Roanoke, where the shooting of my daughter and her colleague Adam Ward took place on live television. In his more than two years as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Goodlatte has had plenty of opportunity to bring up universal background check legislation and other gun violence prevention bills. He has refused to lead on this issue, and he has done absolutely nothing to help contain the carnage we are seeing. On the other hand, Goodlatte had no problem cashing his check from the National Rifle Association during the 2014 election cycle. Shame on him,” Parker said.

He continued, “At the state level, we are talking about legislators such as Virginia state Sens. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke), who represents the area where Alison and Adam lived, and William M. Stanley Jr. (R-Franklin), who represents my home district. Edwards’s district also contains the Virginia Tech campus, so he is fully aware of how easy it is for dangerously mentally ill individuals to acquire guns in the commonwealth of Virginia. Yet he has been a constant opponent of sensible gun reforms, such as expanded background checks, during his nearly 20 years in the state senate, breaking ranks constantly with his colleagues in Virginia’s Democratic Party.”

Parker praised California for enacting the gun violence restraining order policy following last year’s mass shooting in Isla Vista at the hands of Elliot Rodger.

“To California legislators’ credit, they wasted no time in taking decisive action to prevent the next tragedy. Yet when Edwards and Stanley had a game-changing opportunity to vote on a similar GVRO policy in Virginia, they elected to serve their gun lobby masters and voted no. Shame on them,” he wrote.

Community religious leaders gathered Sunday to remember 24-year-old Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward.

The interfaith service at the Jefferson Center in Roanoke was filled with somber prayers across several religions, along with music from the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and others.

The ceremony, attended by about 500 people according to Christie Wills, a spokeswoman for the interfaith group that organized the event, began with a slideshow of the WDBJ-TV journalists wearing warm smiles as they worked as a tag-team on stories.

In his remarks, WDBJ-TV General Manager Jeffrey Marks recalled that Parker and Ward were almost never angry. Marks said he suspected that the most you would get out of Parker was an “emphatic darn,” and then she would be back hard at work.

“Adam and Alison saw that as their mission — to awaken us to what is good and fun in life,” Marks said.

Marks also talked about better prioritizing mental health treatment.

“Mental illness cannot exist on the periphery of health care." Marks said. “It should be obvious that it needs to be center stage because most mental illness is treatable if we can get to the sufferer. In this case, we didn’t.”

Ward and Parker were on an early morning assignment for WDBJ-TV at Smith Mountain Lake when Vester Lee Flanagan walked up and shot them and Vicki Gardner, a Chamber of Commerce official, with a 9mm Glock pistol during a live interview. Ward and Parker died at the scene and Gardner is recovering in a hospital.

The shootings occurred as thousands of viewers across the central Virginia community watched the footage quickly spread to millions on social media. Flanagan shot himself as police pursued his car. He died hours later.

Ward’s funeral will be Sept. 1 at First Baptist Church in Roanoke. Parker’s obituary says after a private memorial service, a celebration of her life will happen at a later date.