Hundreds of people including a presidential candidate spoke out on Twitter this week after a 17-year-old black youth was killed at suburban convenience store, allegedly by a white man charged Tuesday with first-degree murder who has said he felt threatened by the boy's rap music.
Family members have told local media that Elijah Al-Amin would have turned 18 in two weeks and was looking forward to his last year in high school.
Friends and family hugged Monday at the Islamic Community Center in Tempe, where prayers for the teen were held before burial in Maricopa County.
A modest makeshift memorial outside the convenience store where Al-Amin was stabbed was still erected on Tuesday, with a pair of white porcelain angels, fresh flowers and burning calendars including one dedicated to the
Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux said in a statement that "the tragic death is terrible, and Mr. Adams will have to answer for his alleged actions."
The statement said that when Adams was released he "was not designated seriously mentally ill" and that once the department transported him from the state prison complex in Yuma where he had served his sentence to Maricopa County it "had no further legal authority over him."