Laughter lost; vigil gathers to remember KC woman killed in ‘senseless violence’
Someone pressed one of the memorial pink balloons for LaKeasha “London” Taylor in the hands of her boyfriend at the end of her vigil Sunday afternoon in east Kansas City.
But the cold wind whisked it away before Aaron Melbert could get his chilled hands around it.
The balloon was gone, just like Taylor’s 22-year life, which was cut short by gunfire Feb. 17.
For a moment, Melbert lifted his eyes and watched it float into the winter blue sky. He smiled at the balloon — a “Hello Kitty” balloon, Taylor’s favorite cartoon.
It’s her spirit up there. She was his “Baby Girl.”
“’Baby Girl’ is finding her way,” he said.
Melbert and Taylor had come together in tough times. Taylor’s mother had died within the past year. Both Taylor and Melbert were putting emotional pieces back together.
“We were broken spirits,” Melbert said. “Fixing each other.”
He fell in love with her laughter. She loved Hello Kitty and Anime cartoons. They had just lined up new jobs, he said, that would earn them $10.50 an hour, 12-hour shifts, cleaning factory machines. And they would be able to work together.
But then came another act of what Damon Daniel of the AdHoc Group Against Crime told the gathered people at the vigil is the senseless deadly violence out of what should be resolvable conflicts.
On the morning of Feb. 17, Taylor and Melbert were joking with someone who shared a house with them and others in the 6400 block of East 12th Terrace. Their conversation was supposed to be funny. “Cracking each other” with jokes, Melbert said.
But police say the 18-year-old man in the house became engraged, went down to the basement of the house and returned with a gun and shot Taylor.
Marlon D. Davis, Jr., was charged Feb. 21 with second-degree murder.
“We truly have to learn to resolve our conflicts without violence,” Daniel said. “It takes strength and intelligence to walk away.”
Taylor was “a strong, strong woman,” said Megan Davis, who called herself Taylor’s older sister. Davis had told the small gathering how Taylor insisted to those who knew her that everyone should step out of their routines and enliven their days.
Taylor wanted everyone to “do more than just exist,” Davis said.
Taylor finished her high school degree and was working on completing hair-styling school, Davis said.
To the moment she died, Taylor was laughing, Melbert said.
“Baby Girl was smiling hard that day,” he said. “She laughed all the way up to the ‘pow.’”
Already 21 people have died of homicide in Kansas City this year, Daniel said, and more than half were under the age of 24.
The Rev. Anthony Mondaine, pastor of Restoration Life Church in Kansas City, told those gathered Sunday that the violence “is a reality we have to face.”
A community that turns its video-recording phones on police should also “turn your phones on your friends and neighbors” when there are people who should be held accountable, Mondaine said.
“We have to stand up,” he said. “Let’s stand united as believers that we can make this change.”
Friends and family of Taylor are raising funds to help cover funeral costs. Help can be deposited at any Kansas City Credit Union to the 52650 London’s Love Fund.
