BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) - The family of 5-year-old Landyn Brooks is making funeral arrangements for him and his mother, both among seven people killed over the weekend in Birmingham.
Loved ones gathered for a balloon release Monday night to honor Landyn and his mother Arkia Berry.
“This is not supposed to happen in life. Your brother is not supposed to be gone right now, he’s supposed to be right here with you,” Keldrick Marsh, head coach of Landyn's youth football team, said.
The violent weekend in Birmingham has left some communities feeling raw and emotional. With two separate shootings claiming seven total lives and at least 10 others being injured in shootings, people who knew and loved these victims are joining police in begging others with information to speak up and help bring the killers to justice.
"Somebody know something and somebody need to speak up," Darrius "Coach Traffic" Thomas said. "Innocent. Innocent kid.”
Landyn was on Wahouma Park’s 5-youth ‘Baby Mafia’ football team. His coaches say at just five years old, he was a bright soul – always happy – and a giver.
"He gave me a piece of his candy, that’s my last moment with him," Marsh said. "I literally had just seen him two hours before he died. We had a fundraiser and he was literally on the side of me so I was in shock, I was like no way.”
"He was a pot of gold. He just had you smiling, laughing, playing,” Thomas said.
"We should be out here playing football, getting ready for practice, Landyn should be getting ready to play," Marshante Rich, commissioner of Wahouma Park, said. "Now, his family is out here trying to do a funeral arrangement.”
On top of the triple homicide Saturday evening, a mass shooting at a Birmingham event center claimed the lives of four more people. Moms Demand Action says this level of violence and senseless death in the city is becoming too commonplace and our communities are being "terrorized" by guns.
"There’s a lot of just feelings of loss and remorse and sadness, but I try to turn that into something that is a little bit more helpful," Melissa Bailey, Birmingham group lead for Moms Demand Action, said. "I want to turn my thoughts and prayers into action.”
Moms Demand Action says to curb gun violence, there needs to be more than community engagement, like a change in legislation.
"These are people that are family. These are friends, these are not nameless, faceless people. These are our neighbors and they are us," Bailey said. "It’s happening continuously and all I could think was not again.”
Anyone with information on any of the shootings from this weekend is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.