Friends & Loved Ones Remember Cowboys Hopeful Jerry Brown
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - Friends and loved ones of a Dallas Cowboys hopeful gathered at an Oak Cliff church Tuesday afternoon to offer remembrances.
Jerry Brown Junior was memorialized as someone who left the world a better place. Service for the 25 year old was held at the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. Some football fans were outside the location, but anyone expecting a classic Cowboys-like mega-production would have guessed wrong.
The memorial service was private, with tight security. Reporters and members of the media were kept across the street. But even from a distance the view of mourners coming and going from the service told a tale of forgiveness.
Josh Brent met Brown's family earlier in the day and rode in the vehicle with them to the service. Brent and Brown were roommates, Brent a defensive lineman and Brown a linebacker on the practice squad.
Brown's Cowboys jersey was carried in in a framed shadow box. Jerry Jones told the CBS Radio sister-station " 105.3 The Fan" that Brown's mother made the decision to have Brent be a part of family activity. "They're close," owner Jones said of Brent and Brown's mother, "so she [Brown's mother] wanted him to ride with them and ride with them over to the memorial service. So Josh Brent will be at the airport to meet them. And then he will ride over to the memorial service with them and sit with them during the service."
The last time Josh Brent was seen in public was coming out of the Irving Jail on Sunday, with a bandaged hand and barefoot. The 24-year-old was the person at the wheel early Saturday when his car flipped over, killing Brown, and leaving Brent charged with intoxication manslaughter.
Despite the events that had them both in the Oak Cliff church on Tuesday, Brent and Brown's mother remain close. "Because I know Josh Brent and he's been part of our family since Jerry went to the University of Illinois," Brown's mother, Stacey Jackson, told CNN's Piers Morgan program Monday night. "That's all I can do is pray for him and his family because I know he's hurting just as well as we are because him and Jerry was like brothers."
The service was closed to the public and not a single mourner spoke to reporters afterwards. But the service bulletin was one you would expect at a traditional Christian service. A portion left the parting thought - "The world is a poorer place without Jerry Brown, Junior, but it will always be a richer place because he was once in it. He will live in our memories forever."
Ms. Jackson added her own postscript during her television interview. "I would like Jerry to be remembered as [sic] his faith in God, and being the best of friends, and just an all out scholar, just a good person. If you needed a shoulder to lean on, he was always there."
From North Texas remembrances for Jerry Brown shift to St. Louis where there will be a viewing Friday, funeral and burial on Saturday, and another memorial service later in the afternoon at the high school that Brown attended.
