Vigil honors teenager shot dead at carnival

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia —

A candlelight vigil at Mount Trashmore on Sunday evening honored the life of the teenager killed at the nearby carnival last weekend.

The 15-year-old was fatally shot shortly before 8:30 p.m. Event organizers identified the victim as Jeyani Upshur. Most attendees wore green and purple in his honor.

“Someone can’t just go out and have fun,” said vigil organizer Darrell Redmond of Give Back 2 Da Block. “You expect them to come out in a nice, prosperous environment and not lose their lives.”

Redmond added that every young life lost takes away a part of the future.

He said: “We are losing so much potential. We lose another doctor, lawyer, changemaker, whatever.

Keith Heckstall is a friend of Upshur's father and helped plan the vigil. He spoke on behalf of the family Sunday evening, saying after learning of the shooting, “I immediately reached out to him to comfort him as much as possible, but there's only so much you can say in a situation like that.” »

Heckstall addressed the crowd, urging them to take action in their communities to prevent such killings.

“To stand up now and think about what we could have done or what we should have done, that doesn’t bring them back. Who wants to think about a situation like this? Who wants to experience something like that?

Police are still searching for suspects in the shooting. At a meeting last week about the investigation, Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said, “We have been lied to repeatedly.”

Police are also seeking answers in another shooting that happened the same night at the carnival. An 18-year-old man was shot; he is still in the hospital at last report. The shootings are not believed to be related.