Skip to main content

Curtis Brown, 26, died March 29 in the parking lot of the McDonald's/Circle K on Lake Bradford Road after he was shot during a gun battle

Curtis Brown, 26, died March 29 in the parking lot of the McDonald's/Circle K on Lake Bradford Road after he was shot during a gun battle between the Holton Street or West Side gang and the North Side gang. The shooting broke out about 4:30 a.m. that Sunday, scattering a crowd of about 150 people.Family members have said Brown, who was not a gang member, was shot in the back of the head at close range. They suspect he was targeted. Leon County deputies said Brown was an innocent bystander.Hundreds of people in the packed sanctuary of the St. Mark Primitive Baptist Church, 5820 N. Monroe St., waved their arms in the air, clapped and danced to the booming gospel music the choir and live band played throughout the two-hour funeral.Several sitting in the pews had to be fanned by ushers as they were overcome with emotion.The grandmother of 15-year-old Michael Jackson, slain in a gang-related shootout on Holton Street more than one year ago, served as an usher.The funeral began with an open casket. Family and friends, many of whom wore white and gold to match Brown's suit and tie, waited in line to walk up to Brown and say their goodbyes. The cover of the funeral programs they were given showed drawings of doves carrying olive branches next to a picture of a tough-looking Brown. He's giving the camera a menacing look, and his shirt appears to say "win or die."The aunt of Brown's 18-year-old brother, Rakeem Edmond, spoke on Edmond's behalf, since Edmond is incarcerated at the Leon County Jail on several charges, including aggravated battery on a law-enforcement officer and fleeing and eluding."If it was his way, he would be here," she said, as the band played "My Heart Will Go On." "He told my daughter, 'If I had to come in handcuffs, I would come.' But they didn't want him to come."
The Rev. Gregory James, who presided over the funeral, said what happened to Brown will serve as a cautionary tale to young people.
"Yes, there's sadness that we're experiencing, but there's joy," he said. "Because if Hump's life is the life that's being sacrificed to bring about peace in our community, putting away violence in the community, then we know that this life was a life glorified by God."
The Rev. Chris Burney urged the young people in the audience to make a better life for themselves."You don't have to follow in the footsteps of your no-good daddy," Burney said. "If you really want to show who you are, get up and go to work, get an education, make an honest living, have respect for one another."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expressi

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Timms, a resident of the San Diego community of South Park, refused to take off a black leather vest with the motorcycle club's “death's head” insignia when he reported for jury duty. He's a big burly man, 5 feet 8 inches, 250 pounds, with a full beard and auburn-colored, shoulder-length hair. At 7:45 a.m., Timms' stance got him booted from the San Diego Superior Court's Hall of Justice by sheriff's deputies, along with another Hells Angel who also refused to remove his insignia vest. Nine hours later, representatives of both the Superior Court and the sheriff's department apologized to Timms and club member Mick Rush for “misunderstanding” an order issued April 24 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser. Rush also had been reporting for jury duty. “It all boils down to a misunderstanding of Judge Fraser'
Post a Comment
Read more

Rashawn and Deon Beneby Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip

''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an
2 comments
Read more

Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow

Rivi was, for a time, the hit-man of choice for Griselda Blanco, aka the Black Widow. Griselda was the grande dame of the Miami cocaine business, a Colombian mother of three, of impoverished origins, who slaughtered and intimidated her way to the top of a billion-dollar industry. She is a central character in this movie, the most deadly figure in a story in which the bodies are stacked like dominos. Conspicuous by her absence as an interviewee, she is one of the few key survivors of the era whom the film-makers were unable to coax before the lens. “Her release was imminent at that point, as was her deportation. I think she has changed her mind since, because we have been reapproached,” Corben says. contract killer Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, the director of Cocaine Cowboys Billy Corben says: “He told me where there is a body buried in Miami, by the Florida turnpike. It’s all developed now, malls and condominiums. He knows where all the bodies are buried. We told the police. I think he told the
6 comments
Read more