Vigil Remembers Slain Teen

A hundred people filled a block of Greenwood Street Thursday evening to show their love for Aaron Robinson, the goofy, energetic 15-year-old kid who died in a shooting earlier in the week.

Friends and family lit candles, shared memories, burst into tears, and released balloons into the sky with the resounding message: ​“Long Live A!”

The crowd was convened by Hill Alder Angel Hubbard alongside Johnson’s family. Hubbard joined a series of clergy members, community organizers, and political leaders — including Mayor Justin Elicker, State Rep. Patricia Dillon, and New Haven Rising organizer Remedy Sharif, among many others — in urging those present not to retaliate and perpetuate more senseless violence.

“I watched this kid sell lemonade at parks,” recalled anti-violence advocate Sean Reeves. Aaron had an entrepreneurial spirit, ​“only to lose his life before he was able to cultivate that talent.”

“We are valuable people losing valuable people,” Reeves said.

“This is something that was preventable,” said Hubbard. ​“Visiting cemeteries is not it. Visiting jail cells is not it.” She urged the crowd to ​“grieve,” check on the young people in their lives, and remember that ​“it’s ok to ask for help” through the pain of Aaron’s loss. 

“The real opposition is poverty,” not other kids, said criminal justice reform advocate Leighton Johnson.

“I want justice done the right way,” said Aaron’s grandmother, Shannon Nkrumah, who echoed calls against retaliation.

Nkrumah also urged the public to remember Aaron for the light he brought to his loved ones: his sense of humor, his playfulness and creative mind, his devotion to animals and the littlest kids in the family.

“I will do everything to make sure everyone knows who you are,” she said.

Nkrumah recalled how, when Aaron needed stitches after a car crash last week, he showed the nurses exactly where to numb his arm — all while making the whole hospital staff laugh. 

He was a ​“silly clown” who loved to play pranks, joke around, and ​“keep us on our toes,” Nkrumah said. 

Aaron was a student at the alternative school Pathways Academy. Prior to that, he studied at the urban farming high school Common Ground. 

He played football — first with the New Haven Steelers, then eventually with the Raiders. One of his coaches gave him the nickname ​“Westbrook,” after the NBA player whom the coach thought Aaron resembled in both looks and personality. 

From time to time, he would volunteer to help distribute food from Connecticut Foodshare trucks. Just last week, Nkrumah said, Aaron told her that ​“it felt good” to connect people to food.

He was a negotiator — always finding loopholes, for example, to his grandmother’s rule against sports balls in the house.

He was an animal lover. As a young kid, he fiercely protected his favorite stuffed lion. He would lie down in the dog bed to curl up with the family dog.

He was also a hearty eater. Even as a toddler, he’d help his great grandmother cook, bake, and clean. He loved collard greens and string beans; he’d sneak bites — ​“one for me, one for the bowl” — as he cooked.

“No matter the perception,” said Aaron’s cousin, Madison Brown, ​“he was a bright person and had a big heart.”

Leighton Johnson, who said that Aaron was one of his students, recalled, ​“He had a lot of stuff he was dealing with. He had to be a grown young man.”

“I loved Aaron for the two years I knew him,” Johnson said. ​“He was such a light. He was respectable. He was a leader, he was just leading in the wrong way.”

Johnson remembered Aaron recently confiding that he wanted to move down South to get away from street life in New Haven. ​“He hated the life,” Johnson said. 

Aaron didn’t have a chance to seek out that fresh start. After gunshots rang out on Tuesday afternoon, his mother looked out her window — and saw her 15-year-old boy on the ground, dying from his injuries.

She sobbed throughout Thursday’s ceremony in unspeakable pain.