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Olney mother marks 1 year since her son was murdered as her family calls for end to gun violence

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Published  December 29, 2022 11:00pm EST
Crime & Public Safety
FOX 29 Philadelphia

Mother of Kensington murder victim continues to mourn her son one year after his death

A Philadelphia mother, who lost her son to gun violence one year ago, holds a memorial for him and pleads for justice.

OLNEY - For one Philadelphia mother, the holiday week is no time for celebration. Instead, she is remembering her son’s life, cut short by gun violence, killed December 29, 2021.

"We love you Shaqur," screamed friends and family during a balloon release Thursday evening for Shaqur Demby, on the day someone took his life last year. And, his mother’s pain still as palpable as it was a year ago.

"I want my son. I miss my son," cried Fatima Thomas who made the tough decision to honor her son's life one year after it happened.

"I have no choice. All I'm left with is making memories and celebrating the things I can celebrate with that he left. Like, unfortunately, I gotta celebrate the day he got killed, but I gotta celebrate it because it's all I have," said Thomas.

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It was just a few weeks after Shaqur's 26th birthday and four days after Christmas that he went to Kensington to visit friends he hadn't seen because he'd been sick with COVID.

Police say someone shot him the back on F Street at 6:46 that evening.

The family started the new year with his burial.

"It takes a coward to put a bullet in a man's back," said Shaqur’s grandmother, Winifred Thomas-El. She says she hasn't been the same since. "The person who took his life, they took my life. I mean, really, they took my life."

Thomas, who has a daughter and three other sons, is in a constant state of grief and fear.

"It mentally do things to you. Like every night, I'm thinking I'm going to get a call saying something happened to my sons or someone else," she said.

Her son was a handsome young man known for his piercing eye color. He would still be here if not for the gun violence plaguing hundreds of families in the city.

"When they get locked up for these guns, we gotta keep them there. We can't keep doing these low bails, letting them come home and still committing the same things over and over again. We have to do more," said Thomas.