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."
I guess this kid looks like he could be one of Barry’s kids also.
“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.”
*************
Not the way he was raised?
That is so laughable.
Lady, what the heck was your “13’ year old son doing out at 11pm? Were you to busy clubbing to care!! I am sick and tired of women like this coming forward with mamma drama after the fact talking about how good their children were. You’re not pulling at my heart strings lady, you are a deadbeat mother and your son is dead because you failed him.
If the one that shot him was black, he had better be put through the same hell they have put Zimmerman through!
No telling what crimes I would have committed had my parents not provided strong corporal punishment to drive folly far from my heart.
Sometimes kids go down the bad path despite the parents' best efforts and it may be unfair of me, but I have my doubts whether this deceased boy received the corporal discipline he needed to drive folly far from his heart.
Oh, no.. he was an angel. All he wanted in life was to think about Jesus, his Momma, and an occasional handful of Skittles. Oh... and a new hoodie.
It’s impossible to evaluate this situation without knowing the race of the shooter. /s
Because good teenaged boys spend their evenings carjacking folks all over the place. It's harmless!
Nice people commit armed robbery?
The parents need to do the time for the crime!
“The driver pulled a gun and shot Ja’Quares multiple times.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_1Pw1xm9U
Obviously, angelic little Ja'Quares picked the wrong intended victim. Live thug, die thug.
God doesn't deserve this slander. If this were my son - and my sons have done some dumb*ss things, although not attempted armed robbery - I'd be apologizing to the people he assaulted for making them shoot him.
“Ja’Quares”
It’s Latin for “going to prison”.
I wonder why they didn’t interview the dad?
I'm not sure how the law applies to the present case. The improbably named decedent's death was caused by the intended victim of the attempted "robbery in any degree". Is the intended victim a "partcipant" as intended in the law?
That's a question for lawyers, and
IANAL
“It’s like he’s still here, and I feel him **holding me up**,”
The reporter should lose their job for this one.
If Alabama has the felony murder rule, then yes.
The punky QB read the wrong defense and got his ass sacked.
His Dad must be a mute as he has not opined in the matter of the fruit of his loins straying from the straight and narrow path of a law-abiding citizen.
Interesting thought....with all of the recent MSM un-publicized but nonetheless internet-ized publicity of black-on-white-"dis-is-fo-Trayvon" incidences....was the melanin-challenged driver of the Lexus..forewarned and therefore forearmed?
Texas doesn’t. Not sure why.
What was wrong with the driver of this car, doesn’t he know that it is racist to defend yourself against a person of color? I hope Holder is on top of this case.
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