PHOTO: The Very Dead Kendrai Walker
In the short term, Debra Hopkins wants only this: To regain enough use of her legs to walk out of the hospital and attend her 18-year-old son's funeral.
In the long term, she wants more: An end to the black-on-black violence that took her son's life. And a return to the feeling of community that once permeated her north side neighborhood.
"I just hope people start waking up and ...start doing for each other like we used to do instead of hating on each other," she said. "Put the guns down and pick up a Bible or book or something. Pick up a phone and say, 'Hey, how you doing? Let's go to a show or something. Let's go to the park and play some ball.' "
Hopkins' son, Kendrai Walker, was fatally shot May 15 near his family's home on N. 28th and W. Burleigh streets. His death was the 59th homicide in the city this year. As of Friday, there had been two more.
The evening after Walker died, gunmen opened fire on a vigil in his memory, wounding five people, including his mother. Those at the vigil were among 11 people injured by gunfire in a 12-hour period.
On the last day of his life, Walker attended the funeral of a friend who had been fatally shot less than two weeks earlier, just a few blocks from the home where he grew up.
Walker came home from the service with a fistful of flowers, one tucked into his hair. Even a funeral couldn't stifle his goofy side, the one always trying to make his family and friends laugh.
He tried to leave his grief behind and focus on the barbecue planned for his mother's birthday the following day.
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