Jackson was, by all accounts, one of the best and the brightest. He was a devoted student and, most importantly, a devoted son and brother. What is so stunning to everyone who knew him is the way the considerate, gentle and respectful young man died.
"It should never have happened, not to him," one neighbor said.
The 23-year-old Jackson lived with his mother and little sister in the Pelham Parkway Houses.
To his former high school teachers at the Manhattan Center for Science and Math, there is universal and stunned disbelief.
Jackson's family members were all on hand to watch him walk march across the stage at the University of Buffalo Saturday to receive an engineering diploma with honors.
Instead of celebrating Mother's Day, Theresa Williams was called to identify her son's body after a gunman, accompanied by three other men, shot Jackson twice in the back as he crossed a street early Sunday morning. The shooting happened in the University Heights section of Buffalo.
Buffalo police now believe that the murder of Jackson may have been sparked by an earlier argument at a bar over a girl.
Jackson was already lining up job interviews. He was a young man who was the pride of his family and the pride of those who watched him grow up and get out of the projects.
Buffalo police say there is surveillance tape of the scene which has been extremely useful. The tape has not yet been released.
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WEB PRODUCED BY: Bill King
NEW YORK AND TRI-STATE AREA NEWS
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