From The Philadelphia Inquirer story:
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD Naasir Westbrook’s life revolved around three things: boxing, preparing for the SATs and pulling up to school early every morning in the Buick Regal his parents bought him, so the girls would swoon.
"He liked the girls to see him pull up in his car," Westbrook’s mother, Teauntay Gilliard, 35, said Sunday, smiling sadly as she scrolled through photos of her son, who was gunned down Thursday night on 5th Street near Watkins in South Philadelphia, blocks from his home and a few doors away from his grandmother’s house.
Gilliard and Westbrook’s other relatives are struggling to figure out why a boy who they say stayed out of trouble and dedicated his time to schoolwork and boxing met such a senseless end, with a bullet in his head.
"From his school, everyone’s calling. They let the kids go early, had a moment of silence and raised up boxing gloves for him. Does that sound like a bad kid to you?" Gilliard asked as she sat at her dining-room table, talking with family members about preparations for her son’s Monday-morning funeral.
"We literally bury our kids. We put them in the grave," the mother, who is Muslim, explained when someone dropped shovels off at her house. When she saw decorations for the tables at Westbrook’s repast that someone had fashioned out of miniature boxing gloves painted with his name in silver script, Gilliard broke down.
"It’s so hard," she said through her tears, holding one of the gloves. "They’re so nice. ... He’s my baby boy."
Police said a surveillance camera captured the shooting that left Westbrook dead, but they do not yet have any suspects. Gilliard plans to post a reward for information leading to her son’s killer, in addition to the $20,000 now offered by the city for an arrest and conviction in any homicide case.
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