'He was my baby boy,' 15-year-old Curtis Ashford shot and killed near Dorchester park
BOSTON - A mother is devastated after her teenage son was shot and killed near a park in Dorchester Wednesday night.
Boston Police were called to the Ellington Playground just before 7:30 p.m. for a report of a shooting. Officers found the wounded teen and he was rushed to the hospital where he died.
There have been no arrests. His name has not been made public, but his mother identified him as Curtis Ashford, Jr.
"He was my baby boy," Starsha Groce told WBZ-TV Thursday.
She said her son had just turned 15 years old and was playing basketball with his friends in the park before the shooting. She's desperate for information about what happened.
"I just want justice for my son," Groce told WBZ.
"Anything you have, please reach out to me or the police and please help the person that did this to my son come to justice. That's all I'm asking," she added. "Justice for my son, please. please. Any answers anything. Please reach out to the police, don't try to do anything on your own, or anything like that, on my behalf. I appreciate it, but just please just reach out to them and hopefully we will get justice for him."
Neighbors heard as many as 10 gunshots Wednesday night. "It was panic, I was in the kitchen, and I heard boom, boom, boom," a neighbor who did not want to be identified said. "I called my husband and said that is not fireworks."
Groce said the boy's father was stabbed to death in 2008. Their son had his 15th birthday on July 15 and he was getting ready to start high school in the fall.
"He told me he was playing basketball and I told him to be home by 8 o'clock or he's not going to get his new cell phone or I'm going to take the Play Station. He texted me back, 'ok mom,' and that was it. The next thing you know I'm getting a call about the situation," Groce said. "He did nothing. He did nothing. He was out here playing with kids, like a kid's supposed to and going home like his mother told him to, that's what he was doing."
The tragedy brought relatives to the scene in tears and friends brought tributes of their own. "Heartache, heartbreak, you have to cry for a mother losing her child," a neighbor said.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu spoke at the scene Wednesday night and said she was "deeply devastated."
"Anytime there is any incident of gun violence in our community, it is absolutely unacceptable," Wu said. "When we see the loss of life, and particularly a young child, we are all robbed of the potential the life that was ahead of this young person."
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden called for a community response to gun violence.
"If you know of any information or have any information in regards to this case, we beg and plead and yearn that you contact the police," Hayden said.