Mom: My Son Was No Gangster (Video)

The mother of slain teen La’Tray Wright is tired of hearing her son referred to as a gangster.

“My son was so beautiful,” Nicole Renee Stevens said of her dead child. “He played sports.”

Stevens spoke to Patch following a hearing for her son’s alleged killer, 17-year-old Christopher Stamps. Stamps and Wright were both 16 at the time of the October slaying.

Stamps’ attorney, Cosmo Tedone, appeared before Judge Dave Carlson Monday in a bid to get the case dismissed. The matter will continue next month.

Despite Stevens’ ardent insistence to the contrary, the police said Wright and Stamps were in different factions of the same gang. Hard feelings reportedly developed between the two over unkind Facebook posts and that led to the killing.

Stamps’ home on California Avenue was shot up the day after Wright was slain. Police believe the attack was done in retribution for the fatal drive-by.

Then, during Wright’s wake, two black-clad gunmen opened fire at mourners but succeeded only in hitting a car, a house and Minor-Morris Funeral Home.

The volatile situation flared up once again in January when a 22-year-old attending a hearing for Stamps was ambushed and brutally beaten on his way out of the courthouse. Three ex-convicts on parole—Christian Blackwell, 23, Martell Jones, 26, and Makhi Jones, 20—all were arrested and charged with the attack. All three remain in the county jail.

Stevens said Monday she still does not understand why her son was killed.

“For someone to take his life like this was senseless,” she said.

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