MARRERO, La. - A West Bank high school campus is reeling after two teens with connections to L.W. Higgins High School were murdered this week. Both of the shootings happened at different times on Monday about six miles apart.
"Justice will be served," said Terry Sanford. The grieving mom had very few words on Thursday night. She received hugs from family and friends offering their condolences.
"He (was) popular, he (was) friendly with everybody. Everybody loved Tyrone," said Sanford of her son, 19-year-old Tyrone Sanford who was one of her 13 children.
Family members say he was gunned down on Monday night walking home in the 300 block of Treasury Drive in Avondale.
"Tonight I say put down those guns so we don't have to lift these candles in the air," said a woman addressing the crowd at the vigil.
Dozens of people filled the teen's family's driveway holding balloons and lighting candles that spelled out "rest in peace."
"It doesn't quite hit home until it's someone that you're really close to and for it to be someone so young with such a bright future," said Jennifer Ahysan who identified herself as a family friend.
The 19-year-old had dreams of becoming a ball player or entertainer dreams cut tragically short.
Just like the life of 15-year-old Kevin Thomas who was shot and killed hours earlier, also on Monday morning, in a separate shooting. It happened in the 1000 block of the Sycamore Drive at the Tanglewood Apartments in Westwego.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and Westwego Police Department are investigating both those homicides and say so far, they appear not to be connected despite the fact that both those teens have attended L.W. Higgins High School in Marrero.
"Don't have sorrow in your heart for him because God got him in the hollow of his hand," said Associate Minister Willie Hall with the Second Good Shepherd Baptist Missionary Church.
As mourners stood together to remember Tyrone, Hall the family's minister, had one message to those gunmen destroying young lives and the lives of loved ones left behind.
"We need to learn how to value us. Black lives matter and if we don't value each other, then nobody else will," said Hall.
If you can help detectives solve either of these homicides please call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.
