'Time for us to fight back': Pecan Acres holds vigil for slain 10-year-old
PETERSBURG — High above a city apartment community, 49 red and white balloons rode a southward wind toward the sky. Some of them bumped up against the apartment building in Pecan Acres where a young boy had been fatally shot while he watched movies in his room. The balloons quietly bounced away, and continued upward.
Down below, the family and friends of K’Von Morgan were not being so silent. Speaker after speaker called on the city and its residents to fight back against violent crime in Petersburg and the importance of protecting the children.
“Our city, our fight!” Pastor Angel Allen emphasized. “This is the time for us to fight back!”
As she kicked off the ceremony, the pastor of Infinite Spirit Ministries in Petersburg said she was “sick and tired” of needing to have memorial celebrations such as this.
“Why do I have to see ‘RIP’ on someone else’s T-shirt?” Allen said emphatically and bluntly.
A subsequent speaker was even more blunt.
“How in the hell are the kids going to be our future if we’re taking them away? If we’re killing them?” Ward 1 City Councilor Marlow Jones asked.
Bluntness was the theme as 100 or so Pecan Acres residents and others gathered for a candlelight vigil and balloon launch in remembrance of K’Von, a 10-year-old planning to be a fifth-grader at Pleasants Lane Elementary School. K’Von was killed June 17 when a bullet pierced the wall of his bedroom and struck him as he and a buddy watched a movie. He was rushed to a local hospital where he later died.
Police have no suspects in the case thus far.
His death was the seventh of nine homicides in Petersburg this year and the beginning of a deadly stretch where three people were killed in the city within a 10-day period.
The mourners came to surround and hold onto K’Von’s family, who stood by and wept openly as speakers encouraged folks to say something if they knew or saw something. They and others wore white T-shirts sporting different images of K’Von.
His mom, Carrie Friar, opted not to speak during the vigil, just saying a soft “Thank you” to everyone who came out. His dad, Perry Morgan, walked around before and after the vigil, sharing handshakes and hugs with well-wishers.
Perry Morgan’s 6-year-old daughter held onto him throughout the ceremony, sobbing. Other children cried as their parents comforted them.
Allen nodded toward Friar during her remarks, alluding to the biblical proverb, “There but by the grace of God go I.” She encouraged the attendees to keep watch over her and the family even after K’Von’s funeral Thursday, telling them to “keep standing” and “keep praying.”
“It could have been mine,” she said. “It could have been yours. It was hers. And no one will understand what she’s been under at this moment.”
The vigil, Allen and others said, should serve as a clarion call to everyone that if violent crime is to be erased in Petersburg, then it takes more than just the police. It takes the eyes and ears of the citizens who live in those neighborhoods to make criminals unwelcome.
“Putting unity in our community means that there is not a day that goes by that our children should not be out here playing and feel safe in their homes and feel safe. There’s a problem with that,” Allen said.
Midway through the vigil, the balloons were released. Attendees had been asked in advance to bring the balloons for release, but Petersburg has a law prohibiting the launch of 50 or more balloons at one time. Therefore, the organizers opted to send 49 of them skyward while adorning the apartment building and the vigil scene with the rest of them.
Some of the balloons were heart-shaped. Some had messages printed on them. All had the same mission, though — remembering a child caught in apparent crossfire.
Authorities said they believe the bullets came from a gun battle that was playing out near the Pecan Acres community but not in it,
Jones, Vice Mayor Darrin Hill and Ward 6 City Councilor Annette Smith-Lee represented Petersburg’s elected leadership at the event. Jones recalled growing up in Pecan Acres “and not once did I have to attend a vigil like this.”
He asked the children gathered at the front – most of them K’Von’s friends and schoolmates – to turn to the adults in the crowd and say, “We want to live! We deserve to live!”
Then Jones spoke directly to the children. He encouraged the children to fight, to believe, to look out for one another, to hold each other accountable, to pursue their dreams as one who has been in their exact same shoes and overcame those challenges.
“Now listen kids, I ain’t never thought I would be on council. Here I’m in a position to make change when I was living where y'all are living,” said Jones. “Y'all are the future councilmen, you don’t even see it yet! The future police...the future everything. You are the future but if they are the future, we got to stop killing them!”
Also in attendance but not speaking was Democratic state Senate candidate Lashrecse Aird.
After the vigil, Perry Morgan briefly met with reporters to talk about what the family has been enduring over the past 11 days. The father said his son would have enjoyed the celebration because “he was all about love.”
Prior to the vigil, he spoke with The Progress-Index about his son. He said he misses K'Von's energy and the way he would hug his dad when he came home
“I’m just trying to make it,” he said.
K'Von's funeral service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at Metropolitan Baptist Church on Halifax Street in Petersburg.
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More: Two shootings in Petersburg within hours; one claims Chesterfield woman
Bill Atkinson and Joyce Chu are award-winning reporters for The Progress-Index. Bill covers covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI. Joyce is the Social Justice Watchdog reporter. Contact her with comments, concerns, or story-tips at Jchu1@gannett.com or on Twitter at @joyce_speaks.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Petersburg's Pecan Acres community holds vigil for slain 10-year-old
