As Ricardo “Reno” Beamon was buried Friday, one mourner had this to say about the young man who turned his life around to become a styling downtown entrepreneur: “He changed the dressing game in New Haven.”
Ricardo “Reno” Beamon, 28, was shot to death on June 2 outside the Yuppie Boutique, the upscale clothing store he co-founded after leaving behind a life of drug dealing and prison. Police are still investigating the murder.
To the friends and relatives who gathered at the St. Matthews Church on Dixwell Avenue, “Reno” was a “leader,” a “positive man” with a “rock star” sense of style.
“He changed the dressing game in New Haven,” said his friend, Qiyon Reed. “No more baggy pants or hoodies.”
“He had some brands even I couldn’t afford,” chimed in Anthony Wilson (pictured below at right). “He probably would’ve come out with his own clothing line if they’d have given him time. He was a real jazzy cat, a real jazzy cat.”
Wilson was working at his job at a city hospital when his friend rolled in on a stretcher Saturday night. “That tore my whole day apart,” he said, shaking his head. “The streets lost a good guy. I take [the shooting] as jealousy — people don’t want to see someone come from nothing and make it.”
Kia Smedley Reed (pictured at left) fondly remembered how her cousin used to “party like a rock star.” “He was a lot of fun.”
Ricardo Beamon, who grew up in the Dwight-Kensington area of town, left behind five siblings and a 2‑year-old daughter, Sheila.
An emotional service was pierced with cries of “Hallelujah!” from women in his family. Ricardo Beamon lay still in a dapper white suit, his hands resting on a box filled with his late mother’s ashes.
Before preaching a message of self-examination, Bishop Dozier Shields spoke lovingly of the young man and their encounter on Chapel Street one day. “He told me, ‘Bishop, I want you to come in the store. I want to dress you from head to toe.’” Shields, flattered, smiled and declined. “I don’t think they’d be too pleased if a Yuppy Boutique bishop stepped out” on the street.
As the crowd filed past Beamon’s casket for a final farewell, Shields called for the crowd to look to Jesus for their “anchor” in this time of grief. Eleven men bore the casket out the door, onto a horse-drawn carriage.
“This was senseless, man!” said “Uncle Ed,” aka Edward Beamon, surrounded by supporters outside the Baptist church. “My nephew was a great kid. I’ve been with him every day of his life. I was there at the store every other day. I wasn’t there for my shift that day. I should have been there.”
p(clear). 
Jimarie Rivera (pictured) stood by a tree, wiping tears from behind her sunglasses. “He was like my big brother,” she said. She knew him ever since she was five, growing up in Dwight-Kensington.
p(clear). Of his fashion sense, Rivera said: “He used to wear the craziest stuff. If he had to make a shirt out of a towel, he would make it, just to be different. He was one of a kind.”
p(clear). “I’m going to miss that smile he always gave, no matter what was going on.”