At a separate venue, Metro Council Member David Tandy echoed those thoughts, saying that young criminals need to understand that their actions do not exist in a vacuum, that they affect others.

Outrage at hit and run suspect Kenielle Finch is automatic. He's a criminal with a rap sheet that includes numerous previous charges of assaulting officers, fleeing and evading police, reckless driving and drug charges. He was on Louisville's Most Wanted list on Friday when an LMPD officer pulled him over for reckless driving. As the officer walked to Finch's car on Friday afternoon, police say Finch peeled off -- roaring down Floyd Street with no regard for anyone else but himself. As Riley, Claudia and Claudia's mom crossed the street toward the U of L Natatorium after a stop at McDonald's, Finch slammed into them.

Standing at that corner today, where the public has left more than one hundred stuffed animals, poems and balloons, I had to just shake my head. Orange spray paint marked by evidence technicians on the pavement indicated the horror of the crash, the force of the Grand Am on those little bodies. I did not see any sign that Finch used his brakes.

{Insert your own expletives here}

I spoke to The Reverend Ben Maas by phone today after the funeral and burial of Riley and Claudia, side-by-side. His sermon did not attempt to give meaning or purpose to the girls' senseless deaths.

"I don't pretend to know the depth of all your suffering and this collar and these vestments and the books and degrees in my office don't qualify me to make this make sense," Maas told the congregation, "It doesn't. This was a horrible accident. That is what I believe. I don't believe this is part of God's plan. I don't believe God takes young children from such loving and committed parents. I just don't."

The only word I might debate here is "accident." Yes, Finch certainly did not set out that day to mow down two little girls, but he willfully risked others' safety for his own selfishness.

Maas focused instead on the outpouring of love and support from all corners of the community. It is that love, Maas said, "that will get you through this." And in our phone conversation later, he reiterated that long after the media glare dims, these families will need this community's love, support and prayers.

But the victims' families were not the only ones, he said, who need prayers.

"I do have a favor to ask all of you. I know for many of you this will be very difficult and maybe even incomprehensible.
"Please pray for Kenielle Finch and his mother Denise Finch who is also trying to make sense of all of this. I ask this favor as much for the Finch family as i do for all of you. Make more room in your heart. Don't let your anger grow, don't let it poison you. Our story, our Holy week story, is about God's love and the power of that love not just to give new life, but to forgive, to reconcile, and to redeem."
Riley's grandmother is a deacon at Resurrection Church and Rev. Tim Mitchell of the Church of the Advent says both Riley and Claudia "loved church and seeing priests dressed up."

Maas adding they "would long for the day when they would be old enough to wear the flowing robes."

Perhaps they would have grown up and continued that tradition. We'll never know.