Teen's haunting social media post an hour before his death
A teenager who posted about how glad he was to have made it to his 17th birthday was dead an hour later.
Armond Latimore, of St. Louis in Missouri, US, took to his Facebook page on Saturday, writing: “Thru all the bulls**t I den been thru I’m just glad I can say I made it to see 17.”
It was midday local time; one hour later, at 1pm, he was fatally shot in the street.
Homicide detectives are now investigating after Latimore posted pictures on his Facebook page of him holding wads of cash and posing with a gun in his jeans pocket, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
But his mother, Chandra Payne, 38, said her son was a good kid, a “helping-hand child” who “loved music and loved money and always made it the right way.”
Mrs Payne had left her home to buy ice cream to go with the birthday cake she had arranged to celebrate her son’s birthday.
“He told me that he wanted ice cream,” she told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I went to Save a Lot and three minutes later I received the call.”
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Police informed her that her son had been shot outside a Chinese takeaway where he had gone to pick up food.
They have not offered a motive for the shooting or identified a suspect.
Investigations are continuing.