Memorial for shooting victim

PHOTOGRAPHER: Justin Mason

Foday Kpoto had only been in Schenectady for a few hours last week, when he left his aunt’s Linden Street home to meet his cousin.

The 18-year-old had just gotten off a bus from Maryland to visit with relatives. His aunt, Vera Jones, handed him a key so he could come in without waking her up.

“And that was the last time I talked to him,” said Jones, as she broke into tears today.

Just moments later, there were shots in the Central State neighborhood. Kpoto, shot twice in the head, fell against a chain link fence between two Becker Street homes and died.

City police investigators continue to search for the gunman who fired the fatal shots at the former Schenectady High School student and son of Liberian senator. Friends and relatives gathered at the site of his shooting this afternoon to make an appeal for any information that might bring the young man’s killer to justice.

Family members placed a makeshift memorial against a tree where Kpoto last stood alive. They lit candles and placed flowers by a picture of him when he visited the neighborhood for Thanksgiving last year.

“I’m just hoping giving him a name, a face and a family to him will make him more real to people,” said Sharon Jones, one of Kpoto’s aunts. “It’s been really difficult dealing with his loss, knowing that he came to Schenectady to see us.”