The 10-year-old boy gunned down in a dispute over a shared driveway in Queens was laid to rest Monday in an emotional ceremony — with his dad saying his senseless death “hits you everyday.”
Nearly 300 mourners gathered at Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in Far Rockaway to bid Justin Wallace a final farewell.
“Justin should have been here today,” Rev. Dr. Les Mullings said during the service.
“Not here but here … to celebrate his birthday, to have a party, to have fun, to do what he wants to do with his father … to be a boy and just hug his mom and dad. He was taken from us by gun violence.”
“This must end. This must end,” Mullings added, decrying the surging gun violence in the city. “We have to say enough.”
Justin was fatally shot around 9:30 p.m. on June 5 — three days before his 11th birthday — at his aunt’s home in Far Rockaway. Cops say 29-year-old Jovan Young opened fire over a long-running dispute over the shared driveway at the home.
The boy’s 29-year-old cousin Kyle Forrester was shot in the neck in the melee.
Many in attendance at the church wore T-shirts that read “Love You” above a picture of Justin, flanked by angel wings.
Justin’s father, dressed in a tan blazer, and his mother, donning a blue shimmering dress, both cried as they touched young Justin’s face before closing the gray casket adorned with red roses, carnations and yellow tulips.
“It was hard. I’m trying to hold up the best I can,” Walter Wallace Sr. said after the moving ceremony. “Putting my son into a hearse and taking him to put him down isn’t easy.
“It’s not easy. It hits you everyday. You can’t eat.”
The heartbroken dad added, “I didn’t know that my son touched [so many people]. When I heard some things, I said, ‘Oh my god. My son was like that.’”
Justin’s injured cousin told reporters in a hoarse voice, “It’s horrible.”
“I’m feeling horrified about what happened,” Forrester said. “Having to tell my 6-year-old girls about them losing Justin is the hardest thing I’ve had to do.”
Justin’s older sister, Takeshi Lilly-Pinnock, told packed church that her brother “meant light, he meant joy, and he meant love, because that’s who he was.”
She said he knew just how to persuade their parents into buying him video games and clothes.
“If he had a few more months, I would have gifted him all the equipment he needed to jumpstart his YouTube gaming career,” she said, choking up.
Justin’s fourth-grade teacher from Challenge Preparatory Charter School, Ms. Baker, recalled how he’d bring her strawberries — instead of the more traditional apples.
“Some scholars stopped bringing fruit but not Justin Wallace,” she said. “Oh no. He would say ‘Ms. Baker, I brought you your fruit. Your fruit.’ And he would hand me these strawberries and the biggest smile would come across my face.”
“The awesome thing is he wouldn’t just bring for himself or Ms. Baker, he’d bring for the people in his group,” she added.
Justin will be buried at Trinity St. John’s Episcopal Church in Hewlett, Long Island.
Jovan, who was caught on video allegedly firing multiple times at the home in Far Rockaway, is being held without bail on murder charges.
