As long as America maintains its trillion dollar military budget and remains the number one arms merchant of the world, the blowback shall be slaughter in the hoods and suburbs of America.
Again, Baldwin, "The murder of my child will not make your child safe." Imagine, your president maintains a list of people to murder around the world and we expect peace in America. Poppycock!
--Marvin X
Recalling a Girl, 14, Laughing, Before She Was Shot on a Bus
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
D’aja Robinson’s mother, Shadia Sands, in sunglasses. The police say D’aja was an unintended victim of a gang shooting; no arrests have been made.
By KIA GREGORY
Published: May 24, 2013
Standing before hundreds of mourners at a church in Jamaica, Queens, on Friday, Shaquanna Almonds told the family and friends of 14-year-old D’aja Robinson about her last moments.
Related
Girl Fatally Shot on Bus Wasn’t Target, Police Say (May 20, 2013)
Bullet Kills Girl, 14, Riding M.T.A. Bus in Queens (May 19, 2013)
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
At D’aja’s funeral in Jamaica, Queens, on Friday, friends wore pictures of her and remembered her as an honor roll student who liked to sing and dance.
“We had so much fun, laughing, dancing, taking pictures,” she said of the birthday party that the two attended last Saturday night. But just after the party, as D’aja was sitting on a Q6 bus at the corner of Rockaway and Sutphin Boulevards about 8:30 p.m., nine bullets were fired at the bus, and one hit D’aja in the head.
The police said they believed she was an unintended victim of a gang dispute.
“Who could have known walking down the block would have been my last time with my best friend?” Shaquanna said. “Who could have known when I was holding her in my arms?”
“D’aja,” she called out, sobbing as she turned toward the white coffin a few feet away. “I miss you so much.”
While the police continued their investigation into the killing, mourners at the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York remembered D’aja as an honor roll student with a bright smile who liked to sing and dance.
The police this week questioned a 16-year-old boy in connection with the killing, but released him to the custody of his mother on Friday. No arrests have been made.
During D’aja’s funeral, a minister urged witnesses to come forward.
“Someone knows who did this,” he said. “God knows who it is. And my prayer is there will be no sleep until justice is served.”
In his eulogy, the Rev. Alfonso Wyatt spoke against retaliation, declaring Friday “D’aja Day.” A call to action, a call for change.
“If you want to fight,” Mr. Wyatt said, addressing the young people among the mourners, “fight the mentality that says you don’t have a destiny. You were created in God’s image, not to die for a piece of concrete, a street that will never know your name. You ain’t Sutphin Boulevard!”
“D’aja Day means no more business as usual,” he said. “That would dishonor her day.”
D’aja’s mother, Shadia Sands, dressed in white, sat in the second pew. Sunglasses covered her eyes. A few times she left the room, buckling with grief. D’aja is also survived by her father, Steven Robinson, three siblings and other relatives, including great-grandparents.
Next to her coffin was a heart of pink and white flowers with a teddy bear. Photos of D’aja, who lived about a mile from the site of the shooting and attended a Campus Magnet High School in Cambria Heights, looped on a giant screen: a toddler posing with giant crayons; a girl grinning on her mother’s lap; then laughing in her father’s arms; a teenager with a big smile and almond-shaped eyes.
In between the photos, words describing D’aja were displayed: always daddy’s girl; beloved sister; grandma’s baby.
Before the service, mourners walked by the coffin in a slow procession to pay their respects.
“Oh my God, she’s gone,” one young woman wailed as she leaned on a friend. “She’s really gone.”
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