Artemis Rayford A letter was written to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee in reference to the state’s law that allowed handguns without a permit.
Rayford, 12 years old, was a supporter anti-gang and firearm violence advocacy and was part of the Memphis Police Department’s Gang Resistance Education and Training Program.
Rayford wrote the following in a handwritten letter he sent last year “I am a sixth-grader at Sherwood Middle School, and it is my opinion that this new law will be bad, and people will be murdered.”
According to Fox 13, on Christmas morning Rayford was playing a game inside his grandmother’s home when someone drove by and fired a gun, striking the child in the chest and killing him.
Joyce Newsom, Rayford’s grandmother, shared a message for the shooter with the local outlet at the end of December saying, “Turn yourself in because I know your mind has got to be on it,”
“This was only a 12-year old child [who] hadn’t done a thing to you, minding his own business in his own house playing his game that his mother had gotten him for Christmas.”
According to the outlet, the family struggled to pay for the seventh grader’s funeral and a A GoFundMe was organized by a family memberThis helped to raise just over $8,000 for expenses.
