My son’s murderer should never have been in the U.S.
My son was a great boy — no parent should ever have to go through what I did. An illegal alien from Mexico, a member of a violent street gang who had just been released from Los Angeles County jail after his third gun charge, shot my son Jamiel Jr. to death in 2008. My son was on his way home from the mall after we spent the morning at a football camp.
Jamiel was murdered three houses from our home and left in the street. He was shot in the stomach, and while he lay on his back with his hands up, he was shot a second time through his hand and in his head. His mother, an Army sergeant, was on her way home from the Middle East when Jamiel was killed. She made it home in time to bury her son.
I was and still am a very proud father. Jamiel worked hard at school, and he was a leader on the football field. He was being recruited by Stanford, Rutgers and many other colleges; Stanford University called Jamiel’s coach to express interest the week before his death. Jamiel had a beautiful girlfriend, and he hardly ever missed church services.
The L.A. Police Department described his killing as “random and senseless.” Then-LAPD Chief William Bratton said at a news conference that Jamiel was “assassinated.”
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