‘I want my baby back’: Family says 14-year-old was shot sweeping the floor at home
Damian Norfleet had planned to spend his summer vacation working out and preparing himself to play high school football when classes resumed in the fall.
At 5 feet 11 inches and 220 pounds, the 14-year-old stood out as a middle school left tackle for the Grandview Bulldogs. Damian was such a dominating player that it didn’t matter if he played offense or defense — opposing teams had to double team him.
But Damian’s future was cut short June 24 when a volley of bullets shattered a window at his Grandview home and killed Damian as he swept the floor.
Police responded to the shooting about 11:30 p.m. at the house in the 13100 block of Ashland Avenue, just east of Raytown and High Grove roads near Longview Lake.
Arriving officers found the teen’s body inside the home. Bullets struck Damian in the head and chest. He died later.
“He was my heart and my soul,” said Damian’s father, Damian Norfleet Sr. “I always told him that he was my best friend.”
On Monday, Norfleet and Damian’s mother, Latisha Seaton continued to prepare for their son’s funeral and met with homicide detectives about their son’s killing.
“I want my baby back. I want my baby back bad,” said Seaton as she looked at her son’s middle school picture. “Nobody understands, I want my baby back.”
Police have not said if any arrests have been made. No suspect information has been released but investigators have asked for the public’s assistance in solving the case. A $100,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest in the shooting.
“14 years old,” the Grandview Police Department said on its Twitter page. “That’s way too young to lose your life. We need this case solved for his family, friends and community.”
Others in the community lamented Damian’s death.
“The loss of a student is something that leaves a devastating impact on our school community,” the Grandview School District said in a statement. “Damian Norfleet just completed his 8th-grade year at Grandview Middle School. Our sincere condolences are with his family, friends, and anyone that has been touched by his life.”
Counselors will be available to students during summer school, officials said Monday.
‘It was real’
Norfleet said Damian had two younger sisters and a brother, and took his job as the oldest sibling seriously. When his parents were away at work, Damian prepared meals to make sure the kids had something to eat. He also made sure the younger children completed their household chores.
Damian’s nickname was Fat Boy, or Fattawatt, because of his large size. As a baby, his pediatrician instructed his parents to give him less baby formula.
As he got older, Damian continued to bring joy to his loved ones, his parents said.
“He is like the light of the room,” his mother said. “Everybody could be down and he could come into the room with that squeaky voice and tell a joke. He was one of a kind kid. He was not your average 14-year-old kid.“
Damian loved playing sports, especially football and basketball.
At the end of the season, Damian was named the Grandview Bulldogs’ most valuable player.
His goal was to one day play football professionally.
“He would say, ‘I got y’all daddy’,” Norfleet said. “He was basically saying I know that I am going to make it from this. “
Norfleet tried to teach to his son how to repair a car as a backup plan but Damian said he wasn’t interested.
”I know what you are doing and I am trying to soak it in but I don’t want to get my hands dirty,” Norfleet recalled Damian telling him. “I already know what I want to do.”
Seaton said on the night of the shooting, she had just clocked out at work and had walked out of the door when her cellphone rang. Her nephew, on the other end of the call, said Damian had been shot.
“I thought it was a joke,” she said. “I prayed and I prayed all of the way home. I turned that corner and seen all of those lights, I already knew that it was real. It was real.”
After the shooting, Norfleet said, he rushed home and found his son mortally wounded. Norfleet put his hands over Damian’s wounds as he waited for help to arrive. He held and repeatedly kissed Damian as the teen struggled to breath.
”I kept speaking to him,” he said. “And then you start hearing that gargling sound. I know my son was leaving.”
On Monday, Seaton pleaded for those responsible her son’s death to surrender to police.
“Turn yourself in,” she said. “Turn yourself in, my son is 14. How can you even walk around here like that? How? You have got to be heartless.”
