Hundreds gather to mourn Jamyla Bolden

[ttt]

This little girl shouldn't be forgotten, nor should the thousands of other victims across our country. 


www.stltoday.com/news/local/jamyla-bolden-s-funeral-draws-hundreds/article_c5d34911-2cae-51eb-b4b5-b781e9f757ef.html


Once Jamyla Bolden’s fourth-grade class started singing in front of the casket at Friendly Missionary Baptist Church Saturday morning, the sobs grew audible.

Tissues were passed down the aisles as the children from Koch Elementary in the Riverview Gardens School District sang “That’s What Friends Are For” in memory of their classmate, who lay in the coffin behind them.

A crowd that appeared around 500 people — friends, family and strangers who just wanted to pay their respects — filled up the sanctuary to put to rest the 9-year-old girl whose shooting death in Ferguson this month shined a national spotlight on the region’s struggles with gun violence.

“The entire community, region, country, we’ve all been wounded along with you,” Friendly Missionary pastor the Rev. Michael Jones told Jamyla’s family as services began. “We dare not say we experience it in the same way as you.”

The bullet that killed Jamyla found her on her mother’s bed while she was doing homework on the night of Aug. 18. Her mother, Kendric Henderson, was injured in the leg. A source told the Post-Dispatch neither was a target in the shooting.

Jamyla’s death again drew attention to Ferguson, still healing after a year of turmoil, and it comes amid several children recently injured or killed by guns.

“We say go to school, get an education ... she tried to do all of that,” former Missouri Rep. Betty Thompson said after the service.

Police on Thursday charged De’Eris Brown, 21, of O’Fallon, Mo., with second-degree murder, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and three counts of armed criminal action in connection with the shooting.

The charges came after more than a weeklong search where police secured cooperation from a witness and an informer.

Lillie Vinson, a friend of 50 years with Jamyla’s great-aunt, said it seemed like the community worked well with the Ferguson Police Department and its new interim chief, Andre Anderson, to try to solve the crime.

“I hope we just stop all of this senseless shooting,” Vinson said before the service began. “Enough is enough.”

As the service began, and a long line of mourners snaked out the back of the sanctuary waiting to view Jamyla’s body, the words of Psalm 23 echoed through the room. Those who knew her talked about her singing, her involvement in her church’s praise dance band and how she loved to cook and help out in the kitchen.

Several Ferguson police officers attended, along with Chief Anderson and the city’s mayor, James Knowles III. Two officers who responded to the shooting spoke during the service.

“We are here for you,” Sgt. Dominica Fuller told Jamyla’s family. “The city of Ferguson. The community. Look at what she brought together.”

Officer Greg Casem told the gathering how he held Jamyla as she was dying that night, telling her to “hold on” and handing her off to paramedics.

“I watched the ambulance speed away, and I felt lost,” he said, overcome with emotion. “You have touched the heart of the entire nation.”

The church also played a video during the service, which featured St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III asking the community to pray for Jamyla and justice. He and his wife, Ira, paid for the family’s funeral expenses.

Along with other prominent community members, Mayor Francis Slay also delivered a message during the video: “I urge all of you to be partners with us against gun violence that is menacing our community,” Slay said.

St. Louis Alderman Jeffrey Boyd attended the service and delivered a resolution adopted by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on Friday recognizing and remembering Jamyla.

Though this is just a piece of paper, it is one of the highest honor the Board of Aldermen can bestow, Boyd said.

Clergy sought to give meaning and purpose to Jamyla’s short life, asking to let it bring the community together.

“God doesn’t make mistakes,” the Rev. George Bowers of St. John Church of God in Christ said during the eulogy. “Everything he’s doing, he’s doing for a reason ... A whole lot of us here today may not be in a sanctuary for a long time. God has a way of bringing us together.”

His message drew loud cries of “amen” and “hallelujah.”

“Sometimes God has to do things to get us to the place he wants us to be,” Bowers continued. “He wants us to love one another.”

Outside the church on Martin Luther King Drive, St. Louis resident Caroline Anderson left thinking: “What can I do more for my community as well as others?”

She didn’t know Jamyla or her family, but the incident made her feel she had to show up Saturday. She bemoaned the drug trade that draws in youths who feel they have few options to make a living amid sparse job opportunities and disinvestment in some parts of the region.

“All of this plays into losing a 9-year-old child like this,” Anderson said.

Next to her, Bobbie Beard of St. Louis chimed in: “A lot of this is because there’s no love in the home. And they don’t have no jobs.”

Will this time, Jamyla Bolden’s death, be different? Will something more good come out of it?

“It did bring the community together,” Caroline Anderson said. “But we aren’t the ones carrying a gun around and shooting.”

[iammalcolmx]

Her poor family , them saying go to school and get an education really stuck with me. I can't imagine being the officer, holding her, telling her to hold on. He must be a wreck.

[jln]

Such a waste. My sympathies are with her family.

[josieposy]

How did those kids get through that song without breaking down? The whole story is just so beyond sad.

[EnchantedSoul]

So incredibly sad. I'm sickened for her family, and those fourth graders who had to attend their friend's funeral. Completely senseless.

[lg28]

Heartbreaking. And senseless.
Ugh.

[pixy0stix]

I can't guys. I can't. May her family eventually know peace.

[Velar Fricative]

So, so heartbreaking.

[sangria]

Damn. Heartbreaking doesn't even begin to cover it

[twotrue]

[nsuhomer]

Heartbreaking. Just so, so sad.

[mrsukyankee]

So sad.