‘Terrance, you stay with me’
As Deerfield football player was shot and dying, his mother begged him to hold on
His white sneakers and blue sandals are on the floor. More shoes are on his dresser and not in the closet where there are well over a dozen of pairs of shoes — the teenager’s obsession. The oversized chair in Terrance Jackson’s bedroom spills over with laundry and his bed is unmade. For once, that’s not only OK, but it is the way it should be.
The 15-year-old’s bedroom in
Greenacres is now a refuge for a grieving mother who frequently climbs onto the rumpled red bed sheets and calls out for her son. “Baby, come talk to me,” Tronicia Jackson cries out. “Baby, come talk to me.”
But there is silence.
The mother of the standout Deerfield Beach High football player described in harrowing detail Monday how she tried to save her dying son over the weekend. He was gunned down Saturday in Riviera Beach, just steps outside the church where his grandfather’s post-funeral gathering was held. “He was looking into my eyes and just went limp,” Tronicia Jackson recalled.
Also killed was Royce Freeman, 47, and wounded by gunfire was Shanita Miller, 30 — relatives of Jackson’s half-sister, Shantera Taylor.
There has been some bad blood among relatives.
The feelings intensified after Jackson’s father, R.C. Taylor, 70, died of heart complications Jan. 15, leaving two of his daughters a small insurance policy to split.
Jackson said the money was needed for their dad’s funeral and burial.
The funeral and burial were Saturday. Witnesses at a nearby housing complex for the elderly said they saw many people gathered on the street about 2:30 p.m. in front of the Victory City Church on West 20th Street in Riviera Beach after the burial.
The gathering was supposed to be a chance for R.C. Taylor’s family and friends to console one another, to visit and to have refreshments and something to eat.
None of that happened. Instead, the half-sisters had words, just like the night before at the wake in Lantana when police were called, Jackson said. Shantera Taylor couldn’t be reached for comment.
Tom Mitchell, a Lantana Police Department commander, could not confirm that police were called because of reports of a fight at the wake, as Jackson says. But he did confirm that police were called to Brown’s Funeral home on Dixie Highway on Friday.
Witnesses said the following day after the funeral, the crowd in front of the church began to get loud. Shots rang out, over and over, as people scattered.
“Boom. Boom. Boom,” said John Burroughs, of the nearby housing complex, as he described the rapid fire.
Raymond Godfry was stunned to hear people were killed outside a funeral.
“Who would shoot someone at a church?” Godfry asked as he passed by the church Monday. “Who would come after a funeral and and kill someone — after someone has already died?”
Riviera Beach police have yet to release any records, but a spokeswoman put out a statement over the weekend that said: “The shooting was not a random act of violence. The victims and shooters were known to each other.” No arrests have been made.
Jackson said she heard a woman calling for her husband to get his gun.
“At that point, I turned around and there was a big brawl behind me,” Jackson said.
In the ordeal, she fell to the ground and her husband, Terrance Freeman Sr., snatched her up, she said.
She said he heard the first shot. More followed but Jackson said all she could focus on was her son, her once sturdy defensive football star at Deerfield Beach High School.
She said he was standing about six feet away, holding his neck. He seemed motionless, almost frozen and then he fell to the ground, landing on his face.
Terrance Jackson Sr. said he turned his son over as his wife crawled over to the two of them. She snatched his tie off and undid his shirt collar, begging her son to hang on.
“‘Terrance, you stay with me Terrance. Listen to me. Breathe Terrance,’ ” she begged.
He shook his head to say yes. “I said, ‘Mommy loves you, OK?’”
He shook his head again.
“And I was like, ‘Just breathe baby.’”
At her home Monday, Jackson tearfully recalled reaching into her son’s neck wound to try and remove the bullet and stop the bleeding.
Jackson said she has yet to come to terms with her father’s death and now she is dealing with her son’s killing.
Because of his grandfather’s funeral, Terrance Jackson had opted against visiting with schools over the weekend to learn about their football programs.
“Oh my God. He was a beast,” Jackson said of her son’s prowess on the field. “Football was his life.”
It was a life quickly extinguished after his grandfather’s funeral.