Friends, family of slain Baltimore teen hold vigil at park where he was shot
BALTIMORE -- Community members, friends, and family held a vigil for slain 16-year-old Izaiah Carter at a park near his school on Saturday.
The Patterson High School student was shot and killed on March 6.
Carter was fatally shot at Joseph E Lee Park in Southeast Baltimore.
Last week, authorities in Texas arrested 23-year-old Roger Alexander Alvarado-Mendoza in connection with the fatal shooting.
Investigators believe Mendoza shot and killed Carter following a dispute.
The Baltimore Police Department's detectives were given critical information from a witness that the alleged shooter was attempting to flee the country.
At the vigil on Saturday evening, Carter's friends and family members burned sage to cleanse the place where he was killed.
They described Carter as funny, quirky and energetic.
Carter's mother, Michelle Hines, described her son as "a people-pleaser."
"He wanted to make everyone happy, and he wanted to make sure people were safe, like his friend, riding her home," she said of her son.
Carter's friends remembered him as a jokester.
"'I'm not going to be able to hear that joke again," Carter's friend, Jenny, said. "I'm not going to be able to fix his tie again. I'm not going to be able to sit and chill with him in Parker's office anymore."
Hines expressed distress over the proximity of the shooting site to Carter's high school. She called for an increase in security at the school in the aftermath of her son's death.
"My child was murdered—literally," Hines said. "We can see the school. We can see the school, and this is where my child was murdered?"
