'How come you can't come home?': Parents, teachers mourn Montreal teen Darius Brown
Montreal police charge 17-year-old youth in Brown's death, other arrests possible
Family and teachers of 17-year-old Montrealer Darius Brown are struggling to accept the death of such a "positive boy," which police are now calling a homicide.
On Saturday, police charged a 17-year-old youth with Brown's death. The incident happened Thursday evening in Côte Saint-Luc during an altercation involving four people.
Initial police reports said Brown was involved in a robbery and fell, a story that was later dismissed after interviews with witnesses and a review of surveillance video.
Police said other arrests in his death are also possible.
For his parents, Stephen Hennessy and Roxanne Brown, their anger over the original police reports that their son was involved in a robbery is mixed with the despair of losing their eldest child.
"So you're not going to be coming home? How come you can't come home? There's pictures of you at home...why can't you be there, too?" Brown told CBC Montreal.
"It's hard because your mind does so many different things."
Brown had told his grandmother earlier Thursday that he was going to cash a cheque and then meet his friends at the Westhaven Community Centre, where the talented athlete spent most nights playing basketball and listening to music.
"Play basketball, chat, chill, hang out. Live the life of a teenager," said Hennessy.
The cheque was from his part-time job taking care of the community centre's pet turtle.
'Treated everyone as an equal'
Relatives from Toronto and England have come to offer their support, as have many of Brown's teachers.
"He's one of those kids that you want to follow and keep in touch with, and find out where he's at and what he's doing," Anna Hadley, who taught Brown at Lakeside Academy, said through tears.
Shawn Millet, one of his teachers at Horizon High School, said staff and students "loved him."
"Regardless of whether you were a cool kid or the geeky kid, he treated everyone as an equal," Millet said.
Both schools are planning tributes to Brown.
His parents said they've hired a lawyer to help their family see that justice is served, but their immediate focus is coping with the loss of their child.
"Our family's focus has really been getting together, supporting each other. And mourning his loss and remembering him for what we knew him as. And what we knew him as was a positive boy," Hennessy said.
Darius Brown's funeral is tentatively scheduled for next Saturday.