Family, friends and community members gathered Tuesday to remember a 15-year-old, who was shot and killed inside a Bronx apartment earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Riley Billingslea\u2019s loved ones filled a Bronx funeral home for the service, with many wearing his favorite color, blue. Others wore T-shirts and necklaces featuring his picture.<\/p>\n
Billingslea’s grandmother, Elaine Rogers, said the family is struggling to cope with his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what story comes out. I don\u2019t care what no one comes and tells me. There is nothing that he could have done that would say that Riley deserved this,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cMy daughter\u2019s really going through it. I\u2019m trying to hold on to be strong for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers said the teen had been in a military academy in Missouri but wanted to be with family. When he returned home to Brooklyn, Billingslea’s family decided to move him to the Bronx to live with his grandmother.<\/p>\n
Police said Billingslea was inside a fifth-floor apartment on Claflin Avenue when a dispute broke out.<\/p>\n
According to investigators, a shooter pulled a gun from a backpack and opened fire, killing Billingslea and grazing a 13-year-old boy.<\/p>\n
Hours after the funeral ended, police said a 16-year-old was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in connection to the shooting.<\/p>\n
The incident is raising questions about how so many young people are getting access to guns, and how to prevent other tragedies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want justice. The police is not saying enough, the people is not saying enough, we want them to come forth,\u201d said Boyde Singletary, bishop and senior pastor at the Alpha & Omega Churches of Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Singletary said more than a dozen of Billingslea’s classmates and teachers spoke during the service about his life and the impact he had on those around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re tired. We\u2019re literally tired of going to funerals and vigils,\u201d Singletary said. \u201cThe city has to put in stronger police, more police activity. We don\u2019t see enough police in our streets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family, friends and community members gathered Tuesday to remember a 15-year-old, who was shot and killed inside a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[10015,387,25,128,303,9,24,12,63,1174,308,129,131,130,27,200],"class_list":["post-330081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-app-crime","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bronx","tag-crime","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-olivia-leach","tag-public-safety","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}