Memorial services were held over the weekend for Amiere Castro. The 7-year-old boy was killed in South Miami-Dade last week during a drive-by shooting – just the latest South Florida child to die by gunfire in recent months.
Castro was visiting relatives at a house in Richmond Heights on December 27 when automatic rifle fire broke out over a drug dispute. The boy, a first-grader at Coral Reef Elementary School, was the only person killed.
On Saturday at Coral Reef Park in Palmetto Bay, a wreath framed a picture of Amiere in his little league football uniform. Teammates, coaches, teachers and community leaders joined his family – who moved to Homestead from out of state just a year ago – to remember him.
“He got so much love in Miami," said Castro's mother, Shanna Lynn Castro, "and I just want everybody to always know that he was always smiling and running around and dancing and being just a happy little boy.”
Amiere Castro was one of more than 30 children and teens killed in gun incidents in Miami-Dade County in 2015. More than 60 were shot and wounded. Those attending Saturday’s memorial service chanted a plea to "Stop the violence!"
“People come down here to live a good life – and this is what I came here for, for my kids to grow up to be somebody," said Shanna Lynn Catro. "There’s too many kids dying [here] over nothing.”
The alleged shooter in the drive-by attack, Dravein Duke, 19, was arrested last week.
