Hundreds mourn Sacramento County gun violence victim: KJ Frierson was just 10

Brittani Frierson stood on a stage and read a letter she had written to her son, Keith Jhay “KJ” Frierson, 10, whose small body lay in a bright white casket before her. Hundreds had gathered at Liberty Towers Church in Foothill Farms to grieve the young boy, who was shot and killed Dec. 30 as he played outside his home.

Brittani wept as she spoke. “The day that you were maliciously taken from me,” she said, “you brought them groceries in. And I know we don’t question God, and I fully understand life and death. But if there was any kind of way for me to know it was your calling —”

She stopped speaking for a moment. She sobbed, then took a breath.

“If there was any way for me to know it was your calling, I would have just turned you around and said, ‘Baby, let me just look at you. Let me just look at you.’

“And I would have just stared at you before letting you go outside.”

Brittani had previously told reporters that after KJ helped her with the groceries, he asked for permission to ride his bike, a Christmas present he’d received just days before. About 15 minutes later in their Foothill Farms condo complex, police say KJ was shot and killed by another 10-year-old boy who used his father’s improperly stored gun.

Speakers at Saturday’s funeral tried to make sense of the tragedy — both for the adults in the room and for the many young people grappling with KJ’s death. In the audience sat dozens of children, many wearing the orange-and-black jerseys of the Jr. Foothill Mustangs, KJ’s youth football team.

One boy wearing a jersey stood up toward the end of the funeral, when mourners were invited to take a microphone and say a few words. He began to tell a story about playing the video game Fortnite with KJ.

He couldn’t finish. He returned the mic, sat down, and crumpled forward.

Mourners remember a caring, curious boy

KJ was a student at Hazel Strauch Elementary School, starting in kindergarten. Principal Cheryl Chandler spoke at the Saturday service and described him as “bright, caring, competitive, funny.” She said that as she prepared her remarks for the funeral, she spoke with his math teacher, who relayed that KJ was always asking, “Can you give me a harder problem?”

Chandler said he was a kind person, who cheered up his peers when they were sad and helped injured students as they “hobbled to the nurse’s office.”

One of KJ’s aunts, Erika Hughes, told the people in the auditorium that her nephew was an insatiably curious boy.

“I’m gonna miss him so much,” she said. “Your business was his business. Period. Everything I done been through, he know about.”

KJ had told his mother that when he grew up, he wanted to be a police officer or an influencer. He had just turned 10 in September.

Police: Unsafe gun storage leads to tragedy

Brittani previously said that KJ considered the shooter a friend. Police have said that the other boy, who has not been named publicly, used the gun his father left loose in the family car to shoot KJ.

That child’s father, Arkete Davis, 53, faces felony charges of child endangerment, criminal storage of a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Prosecutors also charged him with a misdemeanor for destroying evidence; police said Davis threw the loaded gun into a trash can after the shooting in an attempt to cover up exactly what happened.

Davis’ son was initially arrested but has since been released. KJ’s mother said the boy shot her son intentionally. The district attorney’s office has declined to charge the 10-year-old in this homicide, however, saying all criminal liability lies solely with Davis.

Under California law, storing a gun in a way that is likely to be accessible to a child is a crime even if no child ever touches the gun. Such negligent gun storage can be reported to police, and perpetrators can be charged with criminal storage of a firearm in the third degree for simply leaving the weapon somewhere a child could pick it up.

Although California has relatively strong firearm safety laws, preventable deaths still occur in the state. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, six California children were killed in accidental shootings by themselves or another child who found a gun last year.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has said that one-third of American children live in a household with one or more guns. Among those households, 43% have at least one gun that is stored unlocked, either loaded or with its ammunition. The professional society recommends that pediatricians counsel caregivers on best practices around firearms, including safer gun storage: They should be kept locked, unloaded and separate from ammunition.

At the funeral, Paris Dye, a leader of the Black Child Legacy Campaign, told the mourners, “We have to figure out, how do we live in this world? How do we live here and move forward, supporting our families and supporting our people? How do we move forward? How do we try to make sure this never happens again? Because we’ve got a long road ahead of us. We have a lifetime of grief for this one little baby right here.”

The boy had been so cherished, all the speakers said in one way or another.

Addressing her son, Brittani said before the crowd, “I hold every moment with you near to my heart.”

The funeral program listed nine pallbearers. Three of them were identified as “honorary pallbearers” — KJ’s brother, Cecil Ray Frierson, and his two cousins, Desmond and De’Aaron.

They were too small to lift a casket.