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LOS ANGELES, Golden State (CNN) -- Jamiel Henry Wheeler Shaw was just three doors from his house on March 2. His father told the 17-year-old high school football game star to be place before dark. That is exactly what he was trying to make when, just before dusk, gunfires rang out.

Jamiel Henry Wheeler Shaw had been recruited by Leland Stanford University. He was gunned down just outside his home.

Gang members pulled up in a auto and asked Henry Wheeler Shaw if he was in a gang. Henry Wheeler Shaw didn't have got clip to state them "no." Helium was mowed down before he could answer, police force say.

His dada heard the shots from inside his house and immediately called his son's cell telephone to warn him to remain away. But within seconds, the father realized what had happened.

"I just ran down there," Jamiel Henry Wheeler Shaw Sr. told CNN.

His boy was wearing the same shirt his dada had pressed for him that morning. "He was laying on the land and his human face was so peaceful. I knew he was dead."

"For three hours, I was just completely blacked out walking."

More than 7,500 statute miles away, Army Sgt. Anita Henry Wheeler Shaw was serving her 2nd circuit in Iraq. Her ranking military officer called her into his business office and told her to sit down down adjacent to the chaplain. He then informed her that her boy had been killed on the streets of .

"I freaked out," she said. "I wanted to run out of the room. I was screaming and kicking. I was shouting, 'No.'"

Anita Henry Wheeler Shaw is now back in Los Angeles to bury her son. Hundreds of household members and friends are expected to go to the funeral Tuesday for Shaw, a standout running back and sprinter at Los Angeles High School who had good classes and stayed out of problem despite his unsmooth neighborhood. Among the schools recruiting him was Leland Stanford University.

"He was a Christian and I give thanks Supreme Being for that because I cognize he's in a better place," his ma said, trembling as she sobbed. "He'd just seek all the clip to make the right thing. He was so good."

Henry Wheeler Shaw is one of respective guiltless victims in a atrocious three-week spate of around Los Angeles. A adult male was gunned down as he held a 2-year-old babe in his arms. A 13-year-old male child was shot to decease last hebdomad as he went to pick lemons from a tree. In another incident, a 6-year-old male child was critically wounded when he was shot in the caput while riding in the auto with his family; two pack members have got got been arrested in connexion with that shooting, according to police.

"I believe what is particularly formidable for all of us is just the random nature of these shootings," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said last week.

Cipher have been arrested in connexion with the shot of Shaw, although patrol have said they believe the taws were Latino pack members. Don't Miss

Police Head William Bratton and Deputy Head Kenneth Granary met with community members from the South Side of Los Angeles over the weekend to seek to calm down latent hostilities between achromatic and Latino communities. Among those in attending were Shaw's parents and his little brother.

Bratton acknowledged some vicinities are prevailing with implicit in racial latent hostilities that have got "taken too many immature lives." He said he is in the procedure of hiring 1,000 new police force military officers to assist armed combat interior metropolis pack violence.

"There's no denying that some of the law-breaking in this metropolis is a direct consequence of hatred, animosity, racial animosity, ethnical differences," Bratton said. "We must all work to the best of our ability to seek to forestall that."

"None of it is right," said Garner. "We can't acquire so incensed that we lose focusing that it's going on on both sides."

He added, "Wrong is wrong."

The violent death of Henry Wheeler Shaw have rallied his neighborhood. Tons of people gathered outside his place for a vigil last hebdomad and placed candles, flowers and blue-and-white balloons (his squad colors) at a improvised memorial. One mark read, "We love you! Jamiel Shaw."

On the online societal networking land site Facebook, more than than 100 people have got joined a page called "Good people dwell in our Black Maria forever rake Jamiel Shaw."

"Loved you tons babyboi! Still do! I cognize many, many, many people who are missing you right NOW!!!" wrote Christina Jimmy Stewart on the Facebook wall.

Another person, Harley Lally, wrote, "Football will never be the same without you. I lose you every Sunday, and every clip I step on that field."

Shaw, a junior, carried the ball 74 modern times for 1,052 paces this season, with an norm of 14.2 paces per carry, according to MaxPreps Web site. The longer of his 10 touchdowns went for 75 yards.

He passed the ball 1 clip all twelvemonth in the last game of the season -- the last game of his career. It was a 60-yard touchdown strike.

But he will be missed for more than than his football. The darling participant with the large smiling meant so much more.

The father and boy old age ago had made a pact: Keep focused, stay away from drugs and gangs, and acquire into college on an athletic scholarship. In return, the dada promised to do everything for his son, nicknamed "Jazz," to make that happen.

Breaking down in tears, the father said, "I guaranteed 'Jazz.' That's why it aches so much -- because I told him, 'I assure you, if you give these years, I'll give with you.'"

The dada said more than must be done to battle pack violence. "It's a pack job and they have got nil in their bosom for people."

Shaw's mother, the Army sergeant, compares the pack members who killed her boy to those she's fighting against in Iraq. "To me, they're terrorists."