Hundreds of distraught mourners, some wearing shirts engraved “Justice for Kimani Gray,” packed a Brooklyn church this morning to remember the 16-year-old teen shot by cops after he allegedly pointed a gun at them.
“Any young man that has passed on in this community, our hearts grieve for them, for this family,” said the Rev. Charles Galbreath, of the 67th Clergy Precinct Council, to the more than 200 mourners at St. Catherine of Genoa Catholic in East Flatbush.
“I know he has touched a lot of lives, a lot of our young people,” he added next to the teen’s silver trimmed casket, which was carried by six teenaged boys into the church. “So we want to just continue to keep them in prayer and ask for guidance and strength.”
Gray’s heartbroken mother, Carol Gray, arrived in a black Mercedes-Benz bus about 10 a.m. She had tried to rush her son’s casket the night before at the wake.
An unidentified woman had to be taken out on a stretcher by emergency personnel. Cops later said she is doing fine.
Gray’s great-aunt Brenda Nunez said he was a “good guy” with an “amazing smile” — and cast doubts on the teen’s characterization by police as a gangbanger who pulled a gun on cops.
“There’s another side,” she said. “You talk to his principal, you get another story.”
The principal, Matt Willoughby of the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction in Hell’s Kitchen, said Gray showed “potential from the day he entered our school.”
Some teachers have said the high-schooler was serious about becoming an accountant and getting his family away from his tough neighborhood.
But cops have painted a different picture of Gray.
Police say they teen, known as “Kiki,” was a member of the Bloods and has a criminal record.
Two undercover cops confronted Gray and a group of friends in East Flatbush on March 9, and the teen was shot dead after he allegedly pulled a gun on the officers.
Since the shooting, several protests have broken out in the neighborhood. At least 46 of the demonstrators have been arrested in clashes with police.