Nathaniel Rosenberg photo
Daily Jackson, loved for his heart and his humor.
When Colin and Shelley Ryan moved into their Newhallville home in 2015, one of their first projects was to replace their old, cracked concrete walkway.
Colin spent most of a day hauling and smoothing concrete as two neighborhood kids, a brother-sister duo, looked on, occasionally checking the progress. At the end of the day, as Colin was admiring his handiwork, he noticed a small imperfection — three tiny footprints in the concrete, left by those same kids.
Initially, Colin remembers being furious, running over to the kids’ house to bang on their door, before letting his anger go and heading home. A few days later, the boy, having finished feeling guilty, knocked on his door and asked what Colin’s next project was. For the next few years, Daily Jackson Jr. was knocking on the couple’s door almost every day, so often that when their son was born he learned to recognize the distinct “Daily knock.”
Colin shared that story of the smiling and spirited neighborhood child, a boy defined in equal parts by his humor and resilience, who “chose them” to grow up with, at Daily’s celebration of life ceremony, held Thursday morning at Dixwell’s New Trinity Temple.
The ceremony took place just over two weeks after Daily, a 17-year-old Riverside Academy student, was shot and killed on Shelton Avenue. His death came less than two weeks after his friend and Riverside classmate, 16-year-old Uzziah Shell, was shot dead near Goffe and Hudson streets in the Dixwell neighborhood on Nov. 22.
New Haven police have recovered vehicles involved in both killings. In a phone interview with the Independent on Thursday afternoon, department spokesperson Christian Bruckhart said that while he had no new updates, both investigations remained active, with detectives scouring the cars for DNA evidence.
Police have linked both homicides to an ongoing feud between youth “groups” in the city — loose groups of young people affiliated with certain neighborhoods. Bruckhart said city police are still monitoring those tensions, and explained that they are not currently viewing these groups as gangs, due to their lack of formal hierarchy or affiliation.
"We Salute You Today"
Pastor John Cotton: Daily was a “church boy.”
For Daily’s friends and family, Thursday’s service was an opportunity to celebrate the boy they remembered as endlessly loving, church-going, and often mischievous, chock-full of mean jokes and clever pranks. More than 150 people filled the sanctuary to cry, sing, and dance in his memory, with many sporting buttons or shirts with his face emblazoned on them.
“We did everything together, holidays, birthdays, dinners, barbecue, hiking, basketball, football — he was always with us,” Colin remembered. The Ryans eventually became Daily’s godparents.
Daily was primarily raised by his aunts Gloria and Jaychelle Jackson, both of whom choked back tears to speak at the service. Their brother and Daily’s father, Daily Jackson Sr., was killed in the Hill in 2008.
Jaychelle told the mourners about how when she took Daily back-to-school shopping, he pranked her by moving her car and convincing her it had been stolen, and when she had surgery and was sleeping on her couch, she woke up one night to find Daily and his sister Dalonna asleep by her side.
“He just had a beautiful spirit, a beautiful love for [his friends],” Jaychelle said. “He was a praiser, he loved God… Everyday he called me for prayer. Even on that last day, he called for prayer.”
Perhaps the most moving moment in a service chock-full of them was when Pastor John Cotton took a moment during his eulogy to praise Gloria and Jaychelle for raising and caring for their nephew.
“You honored your brother,” Cotton told the sisters. “You made a promise to your brother that you were going to take care of his children. You did that, and we salute you today.”
Local Leaders Call For End To Violence
Among the speakers at the service were Police Chief Karl Jacobson and Mayor Justin Elicker, both of whom lamented the city’s enduring gun violence and how it cut short the lives of so many children.
Elicker stressed that any long-term solution needed the buy-in of the neighborhoods impacted by the violence.
“A lot of people point at me and say, ‘Mayor, what are you going to do about gun violence?’, and we’ll do everything we can, but this is about what we can do about gun violence as a community, what we can do together,” Elicker told the crowd to applause.
Gun violence has dropped this year, with 14 homicides so far. That’s down from 22 at this point last year, according to the city’s most recently published CompStat crime data report.
Jacobson also asked the crowd not to retaliate for the killing of either Daily or Shell and instead let the police carry out their investigation.
“We’re not supposed to bury our children. No parent or family should ever have to experience this kind of pain, and my heart goes out to Daily’s family,” Jacobson said. “We’ll do everything in our power to bring those responsible to justice. But today, I also make a plea to every young person here: it’s time to put the guns down.”
Rev. Scott Marks, Daily’s other godfather, used his speech to criticize a city that he saw as having a “booming downtown” and being for the rich but not for the residents of neighborhoods like Newhallville, where Daily grew up.
“16 years ago, I had to go stand at the bedside of another Daily when he was killed in this same city because of the same thing,” Marks thundered from the pulpit. “So I stand here today, and I do have joy because I’m going to fight until the day I die, that things will be different.”
NHPD Chief Karl Jacobson, with Mayor Justin Elicker: "Put the guns down."