On Wednesday night, his former teammates and the NYPD used basketball to honor his memory and to urge people in the community to speak up if someone they know has a gun.
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They played basketball at the Baisley Park houses, a group from the NYPD and the team from Cordozo High School, the team Griffin would be playing on as a senior this year. He never got the chance.
"My grandson was different and special," Griffin's grandmother Kim Walston said.
Just 14 years old, Griffin was shot and killed with a bullet intended for someone else as he played basketball here three years ago, igniting a searing flame of pain that time cannot extinguish.
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"It is very heartbreaking. It's something as a parent you won't get over," Griffin's mother Shanequa Griffin said.
Griffin's family and the NYPD have built a bond since the shooting, and on Wednesday night, police encouraged residents to tell police if they know a teenager in the neighborhood is carrying a gun.
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Griffin would be 17 now and maybe looking at a college scholarship. His coach says he was on that track.
"Too many kids are getting obituaries before getting their diplomas," Cordozo High School coach Ron Naclerio said.
An 18-year-old suspected gang member was arrested and charged with Griffin's murder.
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