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Posted at: 11/02/2009 6:55 PM | WHEC.com East High Football player murdered
Anthony Turner was a student at East High School. His mother told us he loved to run track and play football - he was Number 10 on the East High Football Team. Turner was shot in the back early Sunday morning while at a house party on Augustine Street. He was 17-years-old. A half an hour after that shooting, there was another fatal shooting on Woodlawn Street. Michael Washington was shot in the head and later died. Rochester Police are still looking to make arrests in the two homicides. Anthony Turner’s family can’t seem to escape tragedy. Quintina Keels, Turner’s mother, said, “I’m so hurt that it’s like my heart is cut out of me.” Keels looks exhausted because she has suffered so much pain. She is making a memorial for her son in his bedroom. It is full of trophies and pictures. She said, “I just hope and pray that they find out who did this to Anthony because Anthony was a good boy. He wouldn’t hurt nobody.” Turner was shot and killed outside a house on Augustine Street, about a block from Aquinas. This is Mayor Duffy’s old neighborhood. He says this kind of gang violence is strangling the city. “This is the reason that people make decisions to move from our city and make decisions not to come in for restaurants and shows. They make decisions not to bring a business here,” Duffy said. Police Chief David Moore says they do not have suspects right now, but they do have a message for the killers: “You’re not welcome in this community. Any individual who is out there on the street violently firing rounds at the public, certainly doesn’t belong in this community.” Quintina Keels moved her son to Rochester from New Jersey last year to get away from violence. She still has the newspaper article about her father’s murder. Her son’s father was killed when Turner was just two-years-old. "God’s not going to give you more than you can bear,” Keels said. But, [He has given her] “a whole lot. A whole lot is on my plate,” she said. Keels told us her son got into a fight with someone at East High on Friday. Whoever it was came up to Turner and told him to “empty his pockets.” Turner fought back. Keels said she didn’t tell police about that, but we called RPD to let them know. Despite the two murders over the weekend, the numbers are actually down this year. There have been 25 murders so far this year. That compares to 36 at this time last year. Two years ago, we were already into the forties. Therefore, violent crime is going down, but the Chief says those numbers don’t mean a lot when you have a weekend like this.
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A mother says she moved her family to Rochester, hoping for a better life. Now, all she’s left with are memories and pictures of her young son.