Aubrey Abrakasa’s family knew he was a natural defender. The 17-year-old San Francisco rising senior promised to be his mother’s protector and eventually buy her a home. He died a guardian, his family said, when he spotted shooters coming down the street and told everyone around him to run.
Shooters unloaded roughly 30 rounds that day, Aug. 14, 2006, into the normally quiet Northern Panhandle neighborhood where Aubrey grew up. Several bullets struck Aubrey, who spent six hours in surgery before he hemorrhaged and died, Aubrey’s mother, Paulette Brown, said Thursday, the 19th anniversary of his death.
“I still remember being in a hospital and seeing his lifeless body lying there,” Brown said at the intersection of Baker and Grove streets, where her son was shot. “I’m turning my grief into action. I have to do that because I can’t sit in a therapist’s office and wait for her to say, ‘OK, Miss Brown, your time is up. I’ll see you next week.’ I can’t do that. I gotta advocate. I gotta move.”
Investigators haven’t made any arrests in Aubrey’s case, though former Mayor Gavin Newsom said in 2009 that he, the police, the district attorney and Brown all knew who gunned down Aubrey — they were simply missing a witness despite a $250,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Now witnesses have a greater incentive to come forward…