VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. —
A candlelight vigil at Mt. Trashmore Sunday evening honored the life of the teen girl killed at the nearby carnival last weekend.
The 15-year-old was fatally shot just before 8:30 p.m. Event organizers identified the victim as Jeyani Upshur. Most attendees wore green and purple in her honor.
“Someone can’t just go out and have some fun,” said vigil organizer Darrell Redmond with Give Back 2 Da Block. “You expect them to come out in an environment that’s nice and thriving and not to lose their life.”
Redmond added every young life lost takes away a piece of the future.
He said, “We’re 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 he found out about the shooting, “I immediately contacted him to comfort him as much as I possibly could, but there’s not much you can say in a situation like that.”
Heckstall addressed the crowd, urging them to act in their communities to prevent killings like this.
“To stand up right now and think of what we could have done or what we should have done, it doesn’t bring them back. Who wants to be thinking about a situation like this? Who wants to go through something like this?
Police are still looking for suspects in the shooting. During a meeting last week about the investigation, Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said, “we’ve been lied to repeatedly.”
Police are also looking for answers in a separate shooting that occurred 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.