16-year-old Iquan Williams was shot to death at a party in Brownsville last Saturday.
Saturday night, police charged 17-year-old Jahiem Spruill of Brooklyn with Murder and Criminal Possession of a weapon.
Williams' younger brother said he read on Facebook that someone was planning to fire a gun into the party. Williams had promised his parents he'd be home by 10 p.m. as he left the party.
Police say he was shot in the head outside a building, but his parents have said they don't believe he was the target.
Last Wednesday, Williams' parents demanded justice in his death and joined others in a rally against gun violence.
"Our son was bright," mom Tianna Green said. "He had a full life ahead of him."
Iquan's parents reached out to him to tell him not to go to the party, but it was too late. Williams was shot in the head around 10:30 p.m.
"You don't know what you took away from us," dad Keith Williams said. "You all didn't even know my son, and for no reason, he's dead for nothing. It's senseless."
The family got support and love from a community ravaged by gun violence. They had planned the meeting at the National Action Network to coincide with the third anniversary of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Just about everyone there had been touched by gun violence, not in faraway Arizona, but much closer to home. Iquan wanted more than anything to escape, Green said.
"'Mom, I want to get up on out of this hood,'" she said. "Even his friends say for him to be 16, he spoke ahead of his years."
His mother said Iquan sent them a message that he would be home soon and told her he loved her.
"We don't sleep at night," she said. "There's no more sleeping. Please, Iquan did not deserve this. My family did not deserve this."
