Gun battle claimed Jamal Alexander and changed his mother’s whole world

More than a month after Jamal Alexander was gunned down in what Columbus police called a gun battle on 10th Street, his mother, Lakishia Newsome, said her whole world has changed.

“It just blowed my whole world,” Newsome of Marietta, Ga., said recently during a visit to Columbus. “I don’t wish that pain on nobody. It’s something you can’t go back from.”

Police said Alexander, 19, was shot and killed in a Dec. 28 gunfight at 2914 10th St. at an apartment where drugs are often distributed. He was pronounced dead of a gunshot at the scene at 8 p.m. but police have received little cooperation since the shooting.

Four men who survived the shooting were treated at Midtown Medical Center but they aren’t talking to police in the investigation, Police Lt. Greg Touchberry said.

A number of individuals were in and around the apartment at the time gunfire erupted. A silver four-door vehicle was involved and may have contained two to four men.

After the vehicle pulled up to the apartment, two men stepped from the car and approached the apartment. The gunfire started and the car fled afterward.

“We are still looking for the car and the people that were inside the apartment still won’t talk to us,” Touchberry said last week.

Alexander grew up in Columbus but the family moved to metro Atlanta more than three years ago. He had been going back and forth between Columbus and Atlanta after learning he had a baby on the way, his mother said.

Newsome, 38, said she was coming to Columbus to pick him up on a Friday, Dec. 30, but he was killed two days earlier. “He was ready to come home and said he was going to do right,” Newsome said.

Although Newsome admits her son carried a gun when he was on the streets, she said he had a .38-caliber pistol the day he was killed but didn’t use it.

Newsome said she found about five guns that belonged to Alexander over the years and threw them all in the trash.

“My son toted a gun but when he was with me he didn’t tote no gun,” she said. “I didn’t play that. We need to start talking to our kids. I’m not talking about having a barbecue and smoking and drinking with them. That’s something I never did with mine.”

Newsome said her son felt safe with a gun but wouldn’t use it if there was a problem with someone. Newsome said her son was no saint but had a good side. “It’s a lot of guys out there that wouldn’t fight my son, that wouldn’t shoot my son,” she said. “He could fight, yes. But before he would shoot anybody, my son would fight you. He was not that type of guy.”

The mother also noted that her son knew 22-year-old Domonique Horton, the man who was gunned down in an apartment parking lot on Jan. 5. Police are still looking for the suspect in the 4 p.m. shooting in the 300 block of 32nd Avenue.

Newsome said her son had an encounter with Horton involving a baby’s mother.

“When that happened, that was like two months ago,” she said. “They basically quashed it.”

She said the incident involved a woman but didn’t know more details.

“I’m going to let God handle everything,” she said. “I know he is going to shine the light on things.”

Alexander was the father of a 9-month-old son and has another child on the way, the mother said. Looking back, Newsome said parents should listen to their children more to know what’s going on in their lives.

“We just go to open our ears a little more,” she said. “We don’t really want to hear that part. We should say go ahead and tell me. And when we listen and take all that in, I had started doing that. I should have been doing it a lot longer.”

The mother of four boys, Newsome said parents need to see their children’s side a little bit. They need to hold their hands and make sure they are doing right.

As a single mother, Newsome said her son needed a role model, a father, and she couldn’t be both.

“My son was a hands on person,” she said. “He needed his dad. I couldn’t give him that man part.”

Getting through each day has been tough on Newsome but she prays daily for strength.

“It wouldn’t hurt so much if he weren’t tooken away,” she said, choking back tears. “Somebody took him away. If he had just died like natural causes or cancer, it wouldn’t hurt as much but somebody took his life. So, you know, I still want justice and I’m not going to stop until I get justice.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2017 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Gun battle claimed Jamal Alexander and changed his mother’s whole world."