Oct 3, 2009 6:52 pm US/Central
Hundreds Attend Derrion Albert's Funeral
More 1,000 Mourners Pack South Side Church Saturday To Say Goodbye To Slain Fenger High School Student
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
More than 1,000 mourners packed a South Side church Saturday for the funeral of 16-year-old beating victim Derrion Albert. The Fenger High School teenager's death has drawn national attention, and renewed debate over how to stem street violence.
CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports.
Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis was there. So was Father Michael Pfleger. And Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman paid his respects, too.
But as Derrion Albert was laid to rest, and his grieving mother consoled by Rev. Jesse Jackson, perhaps the most powerful witness was borne by two women who've personally felt this pain before.
"I have not been to a child's funeral since my baby (died), and this was the hardest thing to see another baby, lying in a casket, " Pamela Bosley said.
Her teenage son, Terrell, was killed outside a church in 2006. And Julian High School student Blair Holt was killed on a CTA bus one year later.
"It just seems like more and more every day, we are seeing more and more young people who are innocent killed," said Annette Holt, Blair Holt's mother.
Derrion Albert, a Fenger High School honor student, was brutally beaten with railroad ties and kicked by a mob after he wandered into an after-school street fight, captured on video. That video has made Derrion a martyr and sullied Chicago's image.
"He has become a symbol of everything. It's almost bigger than him," said Rev. Donovan Price of Greater Mount Hebron Church.
So big that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are coming to Chicago Thursday to search for solutions.
But other mourners said solutions must begin much closer to home.
Antoine Lee, founder of Ambassador Lee ministries, which reaches out to gang members and other at risk children, said the answer lies at home where children are being raised.
Others said, it's high time city leaders who encouraged Chicagoans to unite around the 2016 Olympic bid now shift their priorities.
"If we can imagine bringing the 2016 games here, maybe by 2016, we'll have some measurable decrease and decline in youth violence in Chicago," Bishop T. Lane Grant of Greater First Church said.
The funeral also drew Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, who said he came to the funeral because he was "deeply pained" by the death.
"Naturally, we wonder why such a beautiful life? Such a future we thought was waiting for this young man," Farrakhan said. "This was a special young man of righteous bearing who God took from us so young."
"The eyes of the world are watching," Pastor E.F. Ledbetter Jr. told mourners at the Greater Mount Hebron Baptist Church on the city's South Side. "This has affected people all over the globe."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, CEO of Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said the spate of youth murders in Chicgo amounts to a state of emergency. He said all necessary measures need to be taken to ensure the safe passage of students between home and school.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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