Family, friends gather to remember 18-month-old De'Avry Thomas
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Family and friends gathered to remember an 18-month-old boy shot and killed in downtown Pittsburgh.
Officials have charged Londell Falconer and Markez Anger in connection with the shooting of De'Avry Thomas. Falconer is in the Allegheny County Jail, while Anger is wanted by police.
"I want justice done, and I want him to do life without parole. I want him to suffer for what you did to my grandson," Thomas' grandmother Barbara Jean Johnson said.
At a balloon release on Monday, friends and family were still stunned after Thomas was killed in a drive-by shooting near PPG Place along 4th Avenue on Sunday in downtown Pittsburgh.
Thomas was shot while inside a Jeep, police said. He died at the scene.
"Everybody loved him," the boy's grandmother said. "He was a special child to all of us. He was named after my other nephew who passed away."
Pittsburgh Public Safety said the boy and his mother were not the intended targets. Another passenger in the vehicle was the target, officials said.
According to the criminal complaint, Falconer and another unidentified man were caught on surveillance cameras in a Jeep Compass with Illinois plates. Police later got a call that the two men ditched the vehicle on Tinsbury Street and fled.
Investigators said that they connected Falconer through DNA evidence and fingerprints on a Redbull can that was tossed. He later admitted to the police that he was the driver.
The motive behind the shooting is not clear.
"That was an 18-month-old baby," Johnson said. "He didn't deserve that."
She said that her daughter went shopping in downtown Pittsburgh before the drive-by shooting over the weekend.