‘MADE YOU SMILE’
Gunned down Queens father mourned
A Queens father of two, known for spreading joy in life, brought only sadness in death.
Lasaaun Lawrence, 27, was remembered fondly Friday in the Rockaways neighborhood where he lived and then died in a hail of gunfire from a killer who remained on the loose.
“He was a funny person, a character,” recalled his best friend, known as Jrocc. “Very funny. He always made you smile. Women loved him, brothers loved him, the whole Far Rockaway loved him. He had a good heart. He had a beautiful heart.”
Lawrence was shot multiple times Wednesday afternoon outside a home on Beach 31st St. at 5:40 p.m. in Far Rockaway, cops said. Medics rushed the man to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, but he could not be saved.
A four-door sedan, possibly a BMW, sped away after the shooting, police said.
Neighbor Barbara Dickerson, 57, met Lawrence as a 5-year-old boy moving into the Hammel Houses with his mother, and watched as he grew into the devoted father of a 4 -y e a r- o l d son and a 2y e a r- o l d daughter.
“He liked to work, he wasn’t a street person, running the street like that,” said Dickerson, one of the victim’s neighborhood “aunties” who treated Lawrence like family.
“Everybody knew him in Rockaway, from one side to the other. He took care of himself. For him to die like that … I’m sorry, but it’s wicked,” she said.
Neighbors recalled
Lawrence, known to friends as “Sonic,” landing a job at a now-defunct pizzeria at age 13, always working to help his family. He moved up from pizza maker to store manager, and later sold candy for $1 a pop on the street to help out his mother.
At 16, he was driving a local dollar van and eventually became a construction worker to support his family.
“He was definitely a family man and I would definitely say he was a hard worker,” said friend and fellow van driver AJ Rodriguez, 26. “You can never take away from a man who does what he has to do to provide for his loved ones.”
Rodriguez, in honor of his friend, had “RIP Sonic” written three times across his van. He heard the killing was over an unpaid debt, and the man who owed Lawrence money fired the fatal bullets.
Police were still investigating possible motives Friday.
“Instead of coming to fight you, they shoot you — that’s the mentality of a lot of these cats,” Rodriguez said. “Somebody has to die. Somebody has to bury a body.”
Dickerson recalled Lawrence rising at 6 a.m. for his construction job, and touching base with his mother — before she died six years ago — to make sure his younger relatives made the morning school bus.
“He held it down after his mother died. No trouble, he never joined no gangs or nothing. He had two kids. It’s sad,” Dickerson said.
“He’d be coming out of the building right now. He’d grab my neck and like he always would and yell, ‘Auntie!’”