DETROIT – Friends and family gathered to honor the life of 14-year-old Ryan Parker, who lost his life to gun violence.
Parker was killed Monday (Dec. 19) night on Ferguson Street on Detroit’s west side.
He was rushed to the hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries.
“It’s just so heartbreaking to see this is what we have to go through,” said Parker’s aunt, Mary Fortune McCree. “Something so senseless, so tragic, so violent.”
Parker, unfortunately, lost his life after being shot multiple times on Detroit’s west side.
“No one deserves to go like that,” said Parker’s cousin, L’Oréal Fortune. “It’s crazy when you see stuff like that on the news and when it happens to one of your own, it’s just like a different type of feeling.”
His great aunts, Carolyn and Mary, can only remember the good times.
“I remember Ryan as being sweet,” said Carolyn. “Always smiling when I see him playing basketball. I would just tell him to be careful out here, and he’ll smile and say, ‘Okay, auntie.’”
The support from students and staff at Old Redford Academy High School has been comforting at a very rough time.
“I am so overwhelmed,” Carolyn said. “We are so overjoyed, the prayers, the condolences that’s been coming in. We just want to thank everybody and keep them coming because, God knows at this time, we need all the strength we can get.”
The person responsible for killing Parker has yet to be caught by police.
Family members are now pleading with the gunman to turn themselves in. Especially Fortune.
“We just hope that maybe you come forward cause at the end of the day, like, justice will be served,” Fortune said.
Parker would have been 15 on New Year’s Eve.
You can help his family by clicking here.
