BROOKLYN — Family and friends of a 16-year-old boy shot and killed three blocks from where his older brother was shot to death in 2012 mourned him Friday, and begged for those who know something about his murder to come forward.
Neshawn Plummer, 16, was shot in the head and chest Sept. 1 and died two days later after being taken off life support.
He was shot on Seagirt Avenue and Beach 26th Street, near where his older brother, Shawn Plummer, 18, was shot to death in 2012.
At The Gospel Tabernacle Church on Snyder Avenue in Brooklyn — close to where his mother moved the family to escape the violence in Far Rockaway — he was remembered as a motivated young man who inspired his community.
He was respectful, had a great sense of humor and was loving to nearly everyone, his friends said.
Plummer graduated from P.S. 43, Mott Hall Bridges Academy and was going into his sophomore year at ROADS Charter High School. He wanted to be a pediatrician, according to his memorial booklet.
Neshawn at his middle school graduation. (Plummer Family)
Councilman Donovan Richards, a friend of mom Sharon Plummer who lost his own best friend to gun violence at 19, told Neshawn’s friends to mourn him by standing against the violence.
Reflecting on the date of the funeral, the 14th anniversary of the September 11 terrorism attacks, Richards said Far Rockaway and beyond had its own kind of terrorism.
“There's terrorism going on in our community — young black men dying at the hands of each other,” he said. “Cry for Neshawn but go out that door and make sure when we never have to be here again.”
He also was strong against any of Plummer’s friends who may know who shot him, but aren’t coming forward with information.
“Many of his friends, you know who did this,” he said. “Don't come to the funeral crying for him if you're not going to go outside these doors and stand up for him.”
Principal Nadia Lopez, who founded Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville where Plummer graduated in 2014, said he was the first scholar she lost to gun violence.
“I took him as a son,” she said. “I take every single one of my scholars as a son.”
She worries most about her students in the summer, she said, which is an idle time for them. She wanted all of her students to know that they mattered, and that Neshawn mattered.
"The individuals that took his life didn't know that they also matter, because they wouldn't have done what they did to Neshawn if they did,” she said.
Sharon Plummer read a special tribute to her son, the youngest of 16 siblings, starting first at the pulpit then walking down to speak directly to the baby blue casket that held Neshawn.
Neshawn with his mother in 2012. (Youtube.)
“I love you, I will always love you ... thank you for the 16 years, for the bond that we have,” she said. His smile was in her, she said.
Then she turned from him and begged those at the funeral to end the violence.
“Please, please this has to end, it has to,” she said calmly. “The gun violence has got to stop. I don't have no tears, and my heart is broken.”
