FORT GREENE — It's been almost two weeks since Fort Greene teenager Dennis Hamer was shot and killed in Carnarsie but candles still burn in his memory at a vigil on Fulton Street.
"He was born and raised on these streets," said Marco Santiago, 50. "We all knew him."
The 18-year-old was found at 6:15 a.m. on Feb. 20 on Flatlands Fourth Street near East 108th Street with a single gunshot wound to his head, police said.
Hundreds of candles, a pot of dollar bills, some bottles of alchohol and hand-scrawled notes make up the vigil for the young man who worked at Happy Happy Chinese on Fulton Street. Many of the notes mention a group called the "730 Block Gang." Local filmmaker Marissa Kaiser was planning to shoot a documentary about the group this summer.
"They were just a bunch of kids that lived on my block and grew up in Fort Greene," she said. "I don't know what they got into at night, but they had the kindest sweetest hearts."
Kaiser said that Hamer was aspiring to be a rapper.
Hamer's cousin, Caroline Bethea described Hamer as "outspoken and fun-loving."
"He was just the kind of kid that everyone knew,' she said.
Santiago stopped to scrawl a message on the wall near Hamer's vigil.
"R.I.P." he wrote.
"These young people keep killing each other," he said. "Shame."
No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
