{"id":444387,"date":"2026-08-26T20:44:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444387\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T20:44:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:44:44","slug":"family-of-teen-speaks-out-after-fatal-independence-high-school-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444387\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of teen speaks out after fatal Independence High School Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 While most parents are adjusting to back-to-school season and planning their children\u2019s future, the family of 17-year-old Levi Brown is arranging a funeral after he was fatally shot during a high school football game.<\/p>\n

It should have been a night of family and fun, but it turned into chaos and tragedy Aug. 24 when Levi, a beloved son, became a victim of gun violence at Independence High School during opening night of Friday Night Football.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tBakersfield police announce multiple arrests tied to Friday\u2019s deadly shooting at Independence HS\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to stand for other people, and now I got to stand in the gap for my own son,\u201d said Chequila Jackson, Levi\u2019s mother. \u201cThis is (something) that nobody deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levi\u2019s family said his death was senseless. He\u2019s the oldest of four siblings, three sisters and a baby brother. He was also the father of a one-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loved sports. He loved his siblings. He loved his parents and his family,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Bakersfield Police Department said Levi was an East Side Crip. However, his family hopes to dispel that narrative. They said he wasn\u2019t perfect, but he also was not in a gang. Levi was at the top of his class and a student at Bridges Academy with dreams of following in his father\u2019s footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis didn\u2019t have to end like this,\u201d said Marcasha Brown, Levi\u2019s stepmother. \u201cHis dad is an electrician, I\u2019m a nurse, mom\u2019s a social worker, like, he really had a good support team. There\u2019s no way that our baby should have been taken from us like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levi\u2019s family is grappling with how something like this can happen among teens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think about it, children don\u2019t come into this world wanting to be evil,\u201d said Artisha Rawls, Levi\u2019s Godmother. \u201cThis is taught. These people are being taught to be evil, to hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tBakersfield police confirm Independence shooting was gang-related, amid new arrests\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Levi\u2019s family said BPD has yet to reach out to them. They also partly blame Kern High School District.<\/p>\n

\u201cKern High should have protected my son. There was no protection,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThere is no way, I don\u2019t care whose kid it is, should be on a campus and this happens. Where is the security? Where is the protection?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has to turn into something else. This is deeper than my son. Maybe he has to be the sacrifice but it\u2019s deeper than my son.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 While most parents are adjusting to back-to-school season and planning their children\u2019s future, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,1491,8788,5364,174545,735,135],"class_list":["post-444387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-fatal","tag-friday-night-football","tag-gun-violence","tag-independence-high-school","tag-kern-county","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}