nothin A Decade Later, Jajuana’s Spirit Lives On | New Haven Independent

A Decade Later, Jajuana’s Spirit Lives On

David Yaffe-Bellany Photo

A table display at Friday’s celebration.

Jajuana Cole, a smiling 13-year-old known to her family by the nickname Nonnie,” was shot to death outside a Dickerman Street party ten years ago last week.

For her sister, Quanisha Cole, who was 11 years old at the time, the shooting still feels painful and raw.

Quanisha remembers standing in the hallway of Yale-New Haven Hospital, watching anxious adults clamor for news about her sister. 

I think about her all day,” said Cole as she fought back tears. If my mother wasn’t having this, I’d be out somewhere getting drunk now.”

Cole, who is set to begin work at a local hot-dog eatery next week, recounted her memories of the shooting last Friday night at the Greek Olive restaurant on Sargent Drive, where the extended family gathered to celebrate Jajuana’s life amid singing and dancing in a crowded ballroom decked out in purple balloons and streamers.

Jajuana was caught in the crossfire during a gang shootout in Dixwell on June 17, 2006. Her death — which was swiftly followed by the murder of another 13 year old, Justice Suggs, caught in the crossfire of another shooting — provoked widespread outrage over the scourge of gang warfare and the plight of children growing up in a crime-ravaged city.

The shooting was not just a public lesson on the danger of city gangs. It was a deeply personal catastrophe — and the first of two tragedies that have rocked the family over the last ten years.

The Exact Same Memories”

A tribute to Jajuana .

Anthony Marquis Holmes, a cousin of Jajuana, was not the primary subject of the memorial celebration.

But Holmes — who was 20 years old in August 2011, when he was gunned down while biking on Hotchkiss Street — kept coming up as relatives reminisced with each other over blaring music at the first full family gathering since Jajuana’s death.

Charles Buice, another cousin, said Holmes’ death evoked painful recollections that plunged the family back into a spiral of despair.

It brought back the exact same memories, because it happened the exact same way,” Buice said. Wrong place, wrong time.”

Buice’s mother, Kamila Williams, said the two shootings tore the family apart in irreparable ways. 

Nonnie’s was the first death in the family in a long time,” she said. It shouldn’t be a normal thing.”

Williams used the occasion of Holmes’ death five years ago to tell her then-7-year-old daughter what had happened to Jajuana.

You look through family photos — it makes you smile, but it also makes your heart beat,” she added. It’s always that person is missing. That emptiness is there.”

Pulling Over

Quanisha Cole at the celebration.

Sonda Foreman-Ulmer, Jajuana’s mother, still sometimes shouts her dead daughter’s name early in the morning, as she herds her other four children onto the school bus.

I can find myself driving and crying at times,” Foreman-Ulmer said. I think so hard about stuff that I have to pull over, and tears start streaming down.”

A short, energetic woman who throws herself into hugs with visible enthusiasm, Foreman-Ulmer has made a conscious effort to keep the memory of her daughter alive in the household. She hangs photographs on the walls and tells her three young children, two of whom were born after the shooting, what their older sister was like as a person.

They ask, Why Nonnie ain’t never come and play with me?’” said Foreman-Ulmer, stifling a sob. 

She tries to remember how happy her daughter was while she was alive, the smiles and laughter that always drew comparisons to Winnie the Pooh. But she sometimes struggles to fight off the waves of grief that the name Nonnie” still evokes.

I used to get a feeling, like if I’m enjoying myself, something bad’s gonna happen,” Foreman-Ulmer said. I try to enjoy myself as she would.”

Frank Whitfield, Foreman-Ulmer’s father, said his granddaughter was always adept at exploiting the natural generosity of her grandparents — especially when she wanted to buy candy.

She always ran to me: Grandpa, you got some money? Give me some money,” he said. She had the most beautiful smile that everybody loved”

Looking Forward

Sonda Foreman-Ulmer at the celebration commemorating her daughter’s life.

In August 2006, two months after the shooting, then-Mayor John DeStefano vowed his administration would work to curb violence among troubled, gun-carrying teenagers.

But although crime has dropped citywide over the last decade, gun violence remains a pressing issue. Twelve of 15 homicide victims last year died of gun wounds. Three of those victims were teenagers.

Kids don’t fight like we used to fight,” Whitfield said. Kids use guns. When I was a kid, we’d fight, and a few days later we’d be friends. I don’t know what’s wrong with this generation.”

Foreman said she has little faith in the ability of activists or politicians to change the culture of the streets.

We live in a cruel, corrupt world,” she said. A kid’s supposed to bury us — not us bury them.”

Williams, who argued the streets have become even more dangerous over the last ten years, said parents in Dixwell often hesitate to send their children outside unattended.

Not much has changed, she added, since the day Jajuana was killed. She still remembers the shooting as if it happened last week. And she still fears for the safety of children and teenagers in New Haven.

It doesn’t feel like ten years has passed,” she said.

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