Hundreds Attend Funeral of 19-year-old Shooting Victim

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

Sept. 12 -- Following a somber funeral service in a local church, the body of 19-year-old Jalonnie “Pooh Bear” Carter was laid to rest Friday afternoon at Woodlawn Cemetery, just blocks from the alley where he was shot to death last week.

Across the street from the cemetery that was to be his burial site, pallbearers slowly carried his casket in silence into the small Church of Christ in the Pico Neighborhood, where Carter was a lifelong member of the congregation.

With police motorcycles and a detective car circling the area, Carter's family looked on through the window of a black limousine parked out front before leading the hundreds of mourners who shadowed behind the casket into the church.

During the service, Carter -- who died last Tuesday from a .22-caliber bullet wound that pierced his back and struck his heart -- was eulogized as “a loving son and good brother” whose life was cut short by a senseless tragedy that marked the year's first homicide.

“He moved on in a tragic manner,” said Reverend O.J. Dyson, who had known Carter since childhood. “He was not sick. He was not in an accident. He was murdered by an unknown assailant. His life was too short and too good to leave us in such a brutal way.”

Among the mass of friends and relatives who packed the church’s wooden pews and small hallway was Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr., who showed up to pay his respects to the family. On the verge of tears, Butts vowed to bring the unknown assailant to justice.

“Our job is stop bad things from happening, and to bring justice," he said. "We will bring justice for Jalonnie’s death.”

Carter, who liked playing dominos and rooting for the 49rs when he wasn’t working stocking inventory or moonlighting as a janitor with his father, was a Olympic High School graduate who was studying to become an accountant before we was shot just blocks from his home.

“He was doing everything right,” said a friend who preferred to remain anonymous. “He sure didn’t want to be on the street.”

Carter’s family said he was never in any gang, but police haven’t ruled out the possibility that the shooting -- which took place in a crime-riddled pocket of the Pico Neighborhood that was the site of five other victimless shootings earlier this -- was gang-related.

Butts said that upon visiting Mrs. Carter on the day of the shooting, he knew immediately that her son was not a gang member or a troublemaker.

“She didn’t have to say a word, I could tell by looking into her eyes when she opened the door that he was a good boy,” Butts said.

On that day, Butts said, Mrs. Carter asked the Chief if maybe the whole incident might have been somehow avoided if she didn’t tell her son to turn the other cheek when confronted.

“You told him the right thing,” Butts said. “He had an appointment, even before his time began, that it was going to happen that day, and that way.”

Dyson said Carter “was a mannered young man, which is rare,” that he was “respected by everyone” and that he was “a loving son and good brother.”

Dyson consoled Carter’s family and his mother, who sat in the front pew next to the casket -- frequently bursting out in tears and moans of anguish.

While Carter died young, Dyson said, there are others who spent even less time with their family before passing on. We must all pass on at some point, he added.

“I have to tell you that, whether young or old, good-looking or ugly, we all must reach this point," Dyson said. "We can’t change that.”