10-year-old shooting victim is laid to rest

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bob Conner

Agree Thomas, father of 10-year-old homicide victim Kathina Thomas, turned toward his daughter’s casket at her funeral this evening, and referred to the Gospel passage that had been read earlier at the service in the Blessed Hope Worship Center.

“Suffer the little children to come unto him,” Thomas said. “My child, I’ll never forget you.”

The mayor and the county executive, the schools superintendent, police chief and numerous members of the clergy came to the Central Avenue church to pay their respects to Kathina, a Guyanese immigrant who was shot in the back on the evening of May 29, apparently by a stray bullet. She was mortally wounded as she played in front of her house on First Street, in a violence-plagued West Hill neighborhood.

Several hundred ordinary people, most of them black, also attended the service on a hot, muggy evening. The evening sunshine poured through the stained glass windows of what was until 2005 Our Lady of Angels Roman Catholic Church.

Police Chief James Tuffey said outside the church that “We’re making some progress” in the homicide investigation, declining to go into detail.

Earlier, Public Safety Department spokesman Detective James Miller said Kathina was hit by a .45-caliber bullet fired from a considerable distance away.