NEW ORLEANS — Family and friends are grieving the loss of a 14 year old boy who was fatally shot on Christmas night.
They held a prayer vigil for him Sunday night to remember his life.
"Grief is so real. It takes so much out of you to see something happen like this," said Bishop Lester Love.
Jamere Alfred will be remembered for much more than his final hours.
"If you knew Jamere, that's your reason for being out here because it happened to one of the good ones," said Jamere's dad, John Alfred.
Jamere is remembered as a bright student, a football player, and a band member, but his family is now grieving his life.
"Violence has no limits or no measures. It can hit anyone on any given time, but on Christmas night in this parking lot, it hit ours," Alfred said.
Sunday night, at the same place where Jamere's life was cut short, his parents are overwhelmingly surrounded by their pastor, city leaders, and friends and classmates of their son to celebrate his life and release balloons in his memory.
"Thank you for 14 years, impacted our community, may be the pivotal point to turn this whole city around," Bishop Love prayed. "We're praying for a healing of our land, a healing of our city."
Christmas night, Jamere and a few family members were running an errand to Walgreens on Bullard Avenue in New Orleans East. It turned into a tragedy when someone drove by and began shooting.
"Tonight we are saying that enough is enough," Jamere's grandfather said at his vigil.
Jamere was taken to a hospital, but he did not survive. NOPD has not released details on a possible motive or a suspect.
"The sad part about it is you're not alone. We have work to do," Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at the vigil.
Jamere's former barber pleaded too for other New Orleans barbers to seek answers.
"I'm asking every barber to take the responsibility to be inspirational and ask questions," Stan Norwood said.
All Jamere's family knows is that someone turned their lives upside down and they want to know who to heal and even to pray for that person's family.
"Because ultimately they had to have some issue they were dealing with to commit a crime a senseless crime such as this," Alfred said.
They're praying for answers and they're praying maybe their tragedy will ignite change to stop violence like this.
If you know anything, you can report tips anonymously to Crime Stoppers.
