Posted on 05/03/2012 7:30:57 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
The mother of a 13-year-old boy fatally shot when police say he tried to rob a couple said she is in shock that her son is dead -- and even more so at the circumstances surrounding his death.
"I don't want it put out like he was a bad person or a mean person, because he wasn't," Latonya Walker, 38, said Tuesday. "This is not him, not who he was. Anybody that knew Ja'Quares knows that."
Birmingham police said Ja'Quares Cortez Walker was in a car that pulled into the parking lot of the gated Skyview Condominiums at 407 Skyview Drive shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. The condo is off Robert Jemison Drive in southwest Birmingham.
Wearing a gray shirt around his face like a bandana and armed with a loaded and cocked pistol, authorities said Ja'Quares approached a black Lexus SUV with a couple inside and ordered the driver out. The driver pulled a gun and shot Ja'Quares multiple times.
The driver's name has not been released.
Police officials on Tuesday said the case remains under investigation. Once their probe is complete, they will present their findings to the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office to determine whether charges will be filed.
District Attorney Brandon Falls said he has been told that police will present the case to him no later than Thursday.
Police released no information on the Friday incident until late Monday, until then saying only that an "unclassified shooting death" had occurred.
Police Chief A.C. Roper on Tuesday said police are still investigating.
"We questioned all the people we needed to question in relation to the incident," he said.
Police still are looking for the people who were accompanying Ja'Quares on Friday night, "but no one has been arrested," said Sgt. Johnny Williams Jr., spokesman for the Birmingham Police Department.
The shooter, Williams said, talked to investigators at the scene, and he voluntarily went to the Birmingham Police headquarters.
Latonya Walker said her son, who school officials confirmed was the quarterback on the football team at Martha Gaskins Middle School, was home about 9 p.m. Friday. She said he was visiting with two of his friends and one of his brothers in the front yard of the east Birmingham home where Ja'Quares lived with his parents, two brothers and a sister.
A red Chevrolet Trail Blazer pulled up to the group of young men. Latonya Walker said she yelled out to her son and asked who was in the car. He replied that it was one of his friends and the friend's uncle, and then got in the vehicle with them.
"Mom, we're just going to the store, and we'll be right back," his mother recalled him saying. It wasn't long, she said, before she began to worry. She said she called everyone she could think of, but had no success finding her son. She said he did not have a cellphone.
"It's not like him to go anywhere and not tell me," she said.
After several hours, Latonya Walker said she called Birmingham police and reported her son missing. She said she paced the house throughout the night, and still no word came.
"It was a real rough day," she said. "I knew something wasn't right."
It wasn't until about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, she said, that a Birmingham police detective called her and asked her if she had reported her son missing.
When she said yes, he asked her to meet him and look at a photo of a youth shot to death the previous night.
Police have said they were not able to identify Ja'Quares until Saturday.
Latonya Walker said the account of her son's death doesn't make sense to her. "He got fussed at like all kids do, but he was a real respectful child," she said. "Every day was a happy day for us."
She said she just wants to know the truth.
"Even if he did this, someone had to put him up to it. Why else would 16- and 17-year-olds want to hang out with a 13-year-old boy?" she said. "It's not the way he was raised."
She said her heart is heavy, and she's still not sure everything has hit her yet.
"It's like he's still here, and I feel him holding me up," she said. "All I can do is pray, and know God was ready to take his angel."
In the Deep South and large decaying cities up north, they may not be holding up cars with guns, but they are doing other things that are not legal or acceptable. I'm including benefits fraud and small time thieves, shoplifting, petty other stuff. The culture is all about being entitled to other people's money or things.
“...deaths caused by participants in the crime...”
Agreed. We both know as you say it depends on the state statutes given the age, etc. And it has to be believed to some extent that these guys knew something of the law to the extent of sending out the yute to do the job. It is a possibility, but not a fact. As you say, conspiracy is collateral to the topic at hand, but can be a charge to put these scum away for a long time as well.
It can fall partly under this law.
Section 13A-6-26
Compelling streetgang membership.
(a) For purposes of this section, the term “streetgang” means any combination, confederation, alliance, network, conspiracy, understanding, or other similar arrangement in law or in fact, of three or more persons that, through its membership or through the agency of any member, engages in a course or pattern of criminal activity.
(b) A person who expressly or by implication threatens to do bodily harm or does bodily harm to a person, a family member or a friend of the person, or any other person, or uses any other unlawful criminal means to solicit or cause any person to join or remain in a streetgang is guilty of the crime of compelling streetgang membership.
(c) The crime of compelling streetgang membership is a Class C felony.
(d) Notwithstanding subsection (c), the crime of compelling streetgang membership is a Class A felony if the defendant is over the age of 18 years and the other person is under the age of 18 years.
(e) This section shall not be construed to repeal other criminal laws. Whenever conduct proscribed by this section is also proscribed by any other provision of law, the provision which carries the more serious penalty shall apply.
(Act 98-490, p. 942, §§1, 2.)
F**ked up name.
Maybe this was an alternative to its assonance, JarJar (from The Phantom Menace), after that name was officially declared to be RACISTTM.
Cheers!
Cheers!
We got one of those too! 14 is what I counted.
Thanks for looking that stuff up and sharing it.
Good point, and you didn’t have to convince me at all, I know they’re out there. Have no problem with it, would jury nullify for someone prosecuted for carrying without.
Interesting ...
His death probably will ultimately save many people’s lives who would have been future victims.
I agree.
“Now you gone”
“How much you ment to me”
His mother.
Sounds suspiciously like a ‘community organizer’ working on stepping up the training. This supposed ‘uncle’ may not even be from Alabama. The ‘organizers’ who have been training the flash mobbers are not from the areas they’re working.
Look at her own music interests as posted on her FB page. She listened to that thug crap herself.
crap was supposed to be rap. lol
LOL!
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