Family members, neighbors, friends and antiviolence groups gathered at a Brooklyn playground this week to memorialize Troy Gill, the 13-year-old boy shot and killed while walking home from a basketball game last week.
But the gathering took on a more urgent tone than the typical tearful remembrances for victims of fatal shootings. Gill is the fifth person to die as a result of gun violence in Crown Heights so far this year, and is also the youngest victim citywide so far. Activists as well as Gill’s family and friends issued a call to action.
“You should want life for your brother the same way you want life for yourself,” said Mubarak ‘Bless’ Ahmad, a member of the antiviolence group Save Our Streets. He stood next to Gill’s mother Mary Culbertson, who was racked with tears during the Tuesday night vigil.
“This is unacceptable. Crown Heights is crying,” Ahmad said.
Police said on Wednesday that they were still investigating details of Gill’s shooting, including who he was with and where he may have been going after attending a Brooklyn Nets Game at the Barclays Center last Thursday night.
Neighbors and violence interrupters weren’t waiting for the NYPD to diagnose the problem, though, and appealed directly to young people in the crowd.
“It’s only two ways: Ya’ll gonna die, or ya’ll going to jail,” Save Our Streets member Gloria Cutler shouted into a megaphone. “We want better for ya’ll… We care. So get it together, please.”
She implored the kids who had assembled to get involved in programs at the Save Our Streets center on nearby Kingston Street, and warned them about what could happen if they chose violent paths.
Gill’s stepfather Joseph Ward told the crowd that the teen was killed just as he was beginning to get involved with Save Our Streets.
“They were trying to get him to volunteer, trying to get him some work,” Ward said. “So this is crazy.”
Anthony Rowe, the project director of Save Our Streets’ Brooklyn-based parent…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply