Zaevion Dobson’s 12-year-old cousin was killed in a drive-by shooting just hours after leaving an anti-gun violence event for his relative in Tennessee.
Dobson, 15, died in December after heroically shielding three girls from a drive-by shooting, and was honored at the Bobby Maze Celebrity Basketball game on Saturday night, with a message of ending gun violence.
His cousin, JaJuan Latham, was at the game, and killed shortly after leaving, Knoxville police said.
Gunmen opened fire in Danny Mayfield Park at about 9:50 p.m. on Saturday and sped off in two cars, shooting the 12-year-old boy in the head as he sat in the backseat of his father’s Chevy Tahoe, Knoxville officers said.
“The first thing I do is reach my son and I just realize he’s not moving, so I’m like, ‘What’s going on, is he asleep?’” Hubert Latham, the boy’s father, told WATE. “When I picked him up, that’s when I realized, what I seen, blood.”
Hubert rushed his injured son to the hospital in a bullet-riddled truck, and carried the mortally wounded boy into the emergency room.
JaJuan died from his injuries at about two hours after he was shot, officials said.
"It broke my heart 30 minutes later when they came out and told me my son was dead. The only thing that came to my mind was: who did this?" Hubert told reporters.
Police are looking for any information they can find to track down the gunmen responsible for the deadly shooting. There had been 150-200 people at the party in the park when Hubert arrived to pick up JaJuan’s friends.
“This has got to stop. This is the second innocent young person in our community that has had their life ended by senseless violence, by cowards,” Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said at a Sunday press conference. “This can’t go on. We do not need to bury any more children.”
Bobby Maze, the former University of Tennessee basketball player, said JaJuan was one of the first kids at the gym, excited to watch the game, and he was devastated to hear the boy was killed by gun violence just hours after leaving the event for his cousin.
Zaevion’s mother, Zenobia Dobson, was also at the game. The slain teen was praised by Obama in a tearful speech as he spoke on his executive action to impose stricter gun control laws.
“The Lathems and the Dobsons have now lost two children in a very short time,” Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said at the press conference, after offering her condolences to both families.
read more