Community gathers to remember South Hills student killed in drive-by shooting
Nearly one week after 15-year-old Prince Washington was killed in a drive-by shooting at his Fort Worth home, friends and family gathered at Westcreek Park to release balloons in his memory.
Red and black balloons bobbed in the evening breeze as roughly 100 people assembled, including family members and students and teachers from South Hills High School, where Washington studied and played basketball.
“He was outgoing and loved everybody,” his mother, Mary Blankenship, said. “Anybody. Everybody. Doesn’t matter who you are, what color you are, didn’t matter.”
Blankenship couldn’t name just a single favorite memory of her son: Once, she said, he brought a snake home from the park, calling it his friend. On another occasion, he brought home a lawn mower, filled it up with gas, and started using the machine to trim neighbors’ grass and make money to buy snacks.
Washington and his mother would also frequently engage in battles of “I love you more,” a battle Blankenship said Prince would never let her win. Her balloon, a red heart, was inscribed with, “No, I love you more.”
More than anything, though, Prince Washington was not a violent person, his mother said.
“He stayed away from it, and it came to him,” Blankenship said.
Prince’s sister Malika graduates high school this month, and she says her last conversation with her brother has become, at once, a source of great pain and great motivation.
“His last text was saying that he promises that he’s going to be at my graduation,” Malika Washington said. “I just look at that text all the time, and I’m like, ‘You promised you were going to be there.’”
“He was my motivator when he was alive,” Malika said of her brother.
James Washington, Prince’s father, told the Star-Telegram last week that neither he nor his son has any enemies or is involved in illicit activity. The two had only been living in their south Fort Worth home for three months, which is why Washington believes the burst of violence was directed at the previous tenants.
Police have not announced any new information in the case, and no arrests had been made as of Thursday.
