Family members and close friends gathered Tuesday afternoon at Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines to honor Rashad Carr and Gionni Dameron, two teenagers who were shot and killed last January at the Starts Right Here education program.
They came in droves with blue and silver star-shaped balloons that were released at the end of a brief ceremony held on the first anniversary of the shooting. Huddled in the cold at the teens’ gravesites — where the 16- and 18-year-old are buried next to each other — April Wells, director of Creative Visions’ crime advocacy program and who has long offered support for the grieving families, led a prayer and closed with a message: “Love on your people.”
But the moment was clouded by an observation from Carr’s grandmother, Nicole Sanders. Standing just feet away from her grandson’s headstone, Sanders spotted a round dent right above an etched portrait of Carr’s youthful face.
A bullet hole.
“You can see exactly where the bullet landed,” Sanders told the Des Moines Register in a one-on-one interview after the ceremony. “I didn’t notice that until today.”