Christopher's Story
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Christopher was the
youngest of three brothers. Jovani was born exactly one year
and one day ahead of Chris and Alexis was born December
1980. Chris had to find his space in the family so... he
became the family clown. He had a very good sense of humor
and was always kidding around but he was also very
sensitive. The first time he saw " Hook " he cried when they
killed Ruffio. He couldn't understand what was happening to
him because he was so young at the time, but we reassured
him that it was all right to cry when someone passed away.
Little did we know that we would be doing a lot of crying
for him. |
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He was very good-looking and very athletic. Sports just came easy to him. He played baseball when he was small, then he played basketball and football. His latest sport and the one he enjoyed the most was Karate. He had been in Karate for the last four and half to five years. He was a brown belt at the time of his death. He would have been one of the youngest black belts in our school. He earned many trophies, including a first place trophy he received just a week before he passed away. His teacher made him a black belt at his funeral.
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On
March 2, 1998, Chris came home and told his mom that he had
been suspended from school for fighting. Actually he never
hit the kid, he only blocked the punch. However, someone saw
what happened and took him to the office. He was in the
office for nearly four hours and neither parent was called
to say he was in trouble. He was told that he would be
suspended for ten days and if this happened again, he would
be sent to reform school. This terrified Chris, since he had
never been in trouble before. His mom told him that they
would talk about it when their Dad got home, just like
everything else. In this family we have a round-table
discussion about important issues. Jovani has a slight
learning disability so he had a tutor. The tutor lives about
ten to fifteen minutes, round trip, from their house. The
mother told Chris to stay home so he could finish his
homework and take a shower, and she went to take Jovani to
the tutor. The older brother, Alexis had gone to the
Hammocks Police Dept. where he was involved in the Explorer
Program. |
When the mother returned to the house, she found Chris laying on the bed. He looked like he was asleep but when she called to him and he did not respond, she immediately called 911. With the 911 operator already on the phone, she went around to the other side of the bed, where she saw on the floor the gun and she also saw a bullet wound on the side of Chris' head. The father arrived a few minutes later to find the mother outside screaming. Chris was taken to Miami Children's Hospital where he remained for four days. The "accident" happened on Monday evening and on Thursday morning he was taken off life support because there was no brain activity. By law he had to be disconnected. |
Since Chris was a
child who did not like to get into trouble, we are convinced
that he thought he had let everyone down by getting into
trouble in school and decided to take his life. There was
nothing else going on in his life to make him want to do
this. He had just started a new school but he had already
made many new friends. He was very popular, especially among
the girls. He was looking forward to getting his Black Belt
in Karate in the Summer and also to a family ski vacation in
December. His teachers from the previous grades looked at
his files to see if there were and indications of trouble,
but there was none. And even now over one and half years
after his death we still can't see any other reason for him
to have taken his own life. There were NO warning signs. |
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The
reason we know he did not think about what he was doing was
because he did do his homework and he did take a shower, as
his mom told him to do. If he were planning on taking his
life he would not have done either one, he would not have
cared. Also, Chris was very attached to his mother. On
Sunday's when his Dad went to play softball and invited them
to come along, if his mother did not go he would always stay
with her so she would not be alone. If he would thought
about what this was going to do to her, he would have
definitely not have done it. |