DALLAS — Eleven-year-old Dazmon Ray Brown Jr., known by Dazz to those who loved him, was a caring older brother to his younger siblings. He was known to go out of his way to make a friend laugh if they were having a bad day, and a “Heck of an athlete, with true ambition,” according to his former football coach James Lemons.
Brown was shot and killed by one of his best friends, a 9-year-old boy who says a gun they were handling accidently fired.
According to Brown’s mother Keyamber Matlock, her son planned on spending the weekend staying at his friend’s house like he had many times before. She said the two boys were left without adult supervision when they accessed the gun. The shooting happened in a Walmart parking lot while Brown and his friend were in the vehicle of the 9-year-old's mother who was shopping inside the store. Matlock said the gun belonged to the woman's boyfriend.
Matlock believes her son’s death was a tragic accident that could have been prevented. She said they boys should have never been left alone in a vehicle where a gun was being stored.
“To his friend that was involved, my heart goes out to them,” said Matlock “I know that they are going through just as much as I’m going through, and it’s harder because they actually were there on the scene. They actually had to witness what happened.”
At a balloon release event held to remember Brown days after his death, dozens of friends and family gathered, many wearing homemade shirts showing pictures of Brown in his football uniform.
“That kid was destined for greatness,” said Brown’s former football coach James Lemons. “I haven’t seen a talent like that in a very long time for a kid as small as that.”
Lemons coached Brown when he volunteered with the Fairpark Cardinals Youth Athletic Association, a small youth program based in East Dallas.
Pastor Anthony D. Anderson with Living Word Harvest of Dallas led a prayer at the event while attendees gathered in a circle, balloons in hand. Pastor Anderson also cached with the Fairpark Cardinals Youth Athletic Association and said he wasn’t surprised at the show of support from his community.
“It’s healing because this is what you get in the community,” said Anderson. “We all wrap our arms around these kids. Every coach of the Fairpark organization, we just don’t work the kids on the field but off the field. This is what we do, it takes a village to raise a child, and what you’re seeing right now is a village.”
Matlock said she was overwhelmed with the amount of people who showed up to support her. She doesn’t want her son to be remembered as a victim of a tragic accident, but as the vibrant person whose kind spirit touched the lives of many.
She had this message for those responsible for her son’s death, “I don’t want them to feel like I hate them, because I don’t. I know it was an accident, it had to have been an accident.”
Matlock said in times of hardship and tragedy it’s important to remember love, not hate.
A GoFundMe account named The Life of Dazmon Brown has been set-up by Matlock to help with funeral expenses.
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