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More than 100 people gathered to release memorial balloons last Friday night outside a Shell station in Eatonton where Frederick Scott Jr. was murdered June 4, in a broad-daylight shooting. -
Friend of the family and “distant relative” Lacorrie Brown delivered a message encouraging mutual respect to everyone who attended the memorial for Frederick Scott Jr. He also led the crowd in prayer just before their memorial balloons were released. -
A tiny heartshaped shadow is cast below Frederick Scott Sr.’s eye, probably from a fastener on a nearby memorial balloon, as he listens to words of remembrance during a ceremony for his son, Frederick Jr., who was shot and killed at a Shell gas station in downtown Eatonton. -
Frederick Scott Sr. bows his head in prayer Friday night while holding a memorial balloon with his son Frederick Jr.’s image printed on it. -
With Frederick Scott Jr.’s teenage stepbrother looking on (right), Titus Dunn, a family cousin, told the assembled crowd to concentrate every day on the life they’re actively living.
Frederick Scott Sr. was the first to reach his 32-year-old son Frederick Lamar Scott Jr.’s side within seconds of his being shot June 4, beside the gas pumps of the Shell service station at the intersection of East Sumter and Oconee Streets in Eatonton.
Scott Sr. said he was waiting in his car in the Dollar General parking lot across the street “somewhere before 1 o’clock” while his wife, Laura, shopped inside.
“I heard one gunshot. So I got out of my car and I heard some young lady across the street scream and say, ‘He just shot him!’ So I just look across the street and I see a guy on the ground struggling to try to move, but he couldn’t move like he was paralyzed or something,” Scott Sr. recalled. “So then he turns his head sideways and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s my son.’”
Scott Sr. said he ran across East Sumter, literally watching his son died after allegedly being shot by Lajuan Peire Evans, 24, also from Eatonton, who turned himself in the next day at the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
“He just got in his car and drove away,” Scott Sr. said. “Didn’t even take the gas pump (nozzle) out. Just drove away and it broke off when he drove away.”
About the same time, Laura Scott said she had just left the store, unaware of what happened until she saw her husband bent over “something, someone” on the ground.
“He’s over here holding his son, my stepson,” she said. “So I got on the ground beside him to help, and that’s when he kept trying to turn (Scott Jr.). I kept saying, ‘No baby, don’t do that ‘cause the bullet going to travel.’ And then he just started screaming and he kept grabbing me with all his nails and stuff. And I stayed right there until they put (Scott Jr.) with the paramedics.”
Scott Jr. was officially declared dead shortly after arriving at Putnam General Hospital that sunny Sunday afternoon.
Last Friday at 7 p.m., well over a hundred people – family members, friends, local residents – gathered on the same weathered pavement where he was gunned down to commiserate and remember Scott Jr. in life, culminating in the release of hundreds of black, white and gold balloons, many featuring a likeness of the victim alongside his nickname, LLDirty8.
A cousin in the Scott family, Titus Dunn, spoke first. He encouraged everyone in attendance not to focus only on Scott Jr.’s death, but on how he’d lived his life. He suggested applying that thought on a personal level, too.
“I was trying to get across the fact that on headstones there’s a date when a person was born and there’s a date for when a person exits this world, and I was trying to convey that what’s really important is that dash in the middle,” Dunn explained later. “And no matter what we’re going through, and no matter what we’ve been through, it still starts right now, and we still can make a difference as long as that dash is there.”
Next, Lacorrie Brown delivered a message of unity and the need for understanding over vengeance and retribution. He later led the crowd in prayer before offering the countdown to release the memorial balloons in Scott Jr.’s name.
“My main objective was to tell the community that we got to stand together. We got to allow our differences to be what they are, but still respect one another as individuals and not allow situations like this to cause tragedy,” Brown said. “Whether you are the victim or the villain, we got to do our part and respect one another not just as a race, but as a community.
“Let’s come together and let’s show the younger generation, you know, how it’s done regardless of the pigment of our skin or the jobs or the neighborhood. Let’s just come together as a whole and let’s be what God’s purpose is for us to be.”
With that, the balloons were released – with many immediately blown by the wind and getting stuck beneath the canopy over the gas pumps. It actually triggered a few laughs and prompted several in the crowd to remark Scott Jr. would’ve appreciated that glitch.
“He was like the comedian ‘round Putnam and Eatonton, Georgia,” his father confirmed. “He was like the funny guy. He’d get along with people. Sometimes do like crazy, stupid stuff, but nothin’ in a way that can be so offensive where you’d take life from him.
“It seems not real,” he added. “This was tough, man, but I know it’s not gonna’ be anything like when we have to put him in the ground. I still can’t believe it.”