Ray-Ray was a reputed gang member killed in a payback murder in the late summer of 2005. My daughter, who was four at the time, heard the shooting. As a result of our conversations following Ray Ray's death, I wrote the following piece. It gives the perspective of another type of victim of urban violence - the children who witness the crimes around us. You will also find these gang memorials on Franklin Avenue, the closest corner to Webster.
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My young daughter was poised at her desk, coloring the whimsical pictures conjured up in the minds of little girls when the shots echoed into her bedroom.

Pajama-clad feet padded quickly down the staircase and her anxious face greeted me in the living room. ?Mama, I heard a gun.?

Ray-Ray had barely shed the skin of his teenage years when six bullets stole his last breath steps from our house in Jersey City Heights. The day after his death, I walked by the spot on Palisade Avenue where his bloody body had fallen to the sidewalk, the hard faces of kids who were too young for such loss stared back at me like some kind of unwelcomed stranger.

But their pain, was my pain, and as I soon discovered, my daughter?s. ?Mama, did the boy down the street die?? By now, I had to tell my little girl that a bad person had shot someone to death. She had heard the sirens, heard the sobs of Ray Ray?s people wrap around him like a burial shroud.

My daughter, who wasn?t allowed to watch violent television shows or play with toy guns, who had been sheltered and protected as much as a mother could in a place like Jersey City, was suddenly enrolled in a crash course about gang warfare and murder. And I reluctantly became her professor.

I chose my words carefully and tried to deliver the facts as gently as I could. The newspapers reported that Ray-Ray may have had a beef with a local gang, and his murder was payback for some incident from the past. A life snuffed out in a minute. My daughter wanted to know if he would go to heaven. ?Of course,? I reassured her. And then a quiet pause came as she thought some more. ?What about the man that shot him?? she wondered aloud to me. ?Will he go to heaven??

A profound sadness snatched my voice and twisted my gut into knots. ?It?s too damn early for this talk,? I cried silently. ?She?s four, she?s four years old. Why should I have to be explaining death, and heaven, and hell, and the meaning of gangs to a child??

And with her brown eyes searching mine, I took a breath and continued.

?No, honey, the bad man probably won?t be going to heaven. Only good people go to heaven,? I told her patiently.

Her wheels were turning now. She wanted to know about hell, what it looked like, what it felt like, and who all got in. Then as quickly as we covered that, she wanted to know about heaven. ?Can you talk underwater in heaven?? she wondered to me. ?Of course,? I told her. ?You can do whatever you want in heaven.? ?Even have lollipops for breakfast?? she asked. ?Yup,? I said solemnly, thinking that if I could run away from this conversation, I would, soon and fast.

And if bad people go to hell, what about everything else? Just when you think you can shield your children from the world, wrap your hands over their eyes, and close their ears to harm, you learn, that somehow, they figure out the world pretty much by themselves. ?What about the pit bulls, Mama?? her small voice asked next. ?You know you tell me to stay away from them, and that they?re bad,? she told me. ?Mama, do the pit bulls go to heaven??

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Graffiti on a wall that does not belong to those vagrants. I wish someone would convert all the apartments to condos. Then we can get rid of the low/no class jerks. It's just another inner city brawl.

This could be a a vigil for the shooting that happened at that spot a year or two ago.

I heard that someone was killed next to Palisade Liquors in Jersey City Heights on Palisade Ave near the corner of Hutton. I noticed a vigil one night and graffiti on the wall with dedications to "Ray Ray"..."RIP Ray Ray", etc. They paint over the wall's vigil, but more return with candles and flowers.

I've been looking for information on what happened since this is around the block from where I live.

Does anyone know what happened?